So my daughter is 6 and is swimming on the summer team. She is a very good little breaststroker and has a powerful kick. However she uses a modified version of this kick on her backstroke and freestyle, but it seems to affect the freestyle far more.
I have no idea how many times the coaches say and I say, "keep your legs straight"; "kick up and down from your hips"; "touch your big toes with each other", she STILL does this awful wonky breastroke kick action which slows her down and snakes her across the pool!
So I'm now wondering if she's doing something mega-wrong with her pull and feels she needs to compensate on her kick? She turns and looks at the ceiling to breathe, but I thought that was pretty "normal" at that age, but otherwise it looks reasonable. She is also very competitive in the lane, wanting to catch up with whoever is at the front, so I have said that it slows her down when she bends her legs, but she still persists.
Anyway if any of you more experienced in coaching littlies have any tips, I'd very much appreciate it.
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the swim meet ... my oldest has been competing in USAS since she was 7 and is now 14. My next 2 daughters are also engaged in swimming. I'm a hyper-competitive person, descended from and with siblings who are proudly Type A. I admit that I got frustrated with my older two kids when they just seemed to, well, not be too "into" the competitive part of the sport. They'd compete, but they didn't seem driven. It bugged me: why weren't they charting their times like I was at their age? Why weren't they obsessing over every page of SwimmingWorld, checking out times from meets around the country? As the Bye Bye Birdie song goes, "Why can't they be like we were ... perfect in every way?"
I needed help.
While it wasn't quite an "Intervention," my wife and daughters slowly wore me down, slowly helped me to see that this swimming thing needed to be their thing, not my thing. Over the last ~12 to 24 months, I think I've mellowed a lot with respect to my kids' swimming and channeled my competitiveness back into my own sport. I'm still not fully recovered, I'll always be a recovering near-psycho swim parent, but I'm way more relaxed, am letting my kids let it be their sport and am trying to have them form a strong swimming relationship with their coaches.
As I've done this, I've been amazed to watch how, paradoxically, they've grown more competitive about the sport. In business-speak, they've taken the R & A from the RACI framework; occasionally, I'm consulted, but mainly informed. It's a joy to watch. It's a treat to see them change, to see them become stronger and more confident.
Of course, I still want to fix that streamline, that wonky left arm on her ... deep breaths, Patrick, yoga full breaths ...
What a great post.:applaud:
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the swim meet ... my oldest has been competing in USAS since she was 7 and is now 14. My next 2 daughters are also engaged in swimming. I'm a hyper-competitive person, descended from and with siblings who are proudly Type A. I admit that I got frustrated with my older two kids when they just seemed to, well, not be too "into" the competitive part of the sport. They'd compete, but they didn't seem driven. It bugged me: why weren't they charting their times like I was at their age? Why weren't they obsessing over every page of SwimmingWorld, checking out times from meets around the country? As the Bye Bye Birdie song goes, "Why can't they be like we were ... perfect in every way?"
I needed help.
While it wasn't quite an "Intervention," my wife and daughters slowly wore me down, slowly helped me to see that this swimming thing needed to be their thing, not my thing. Over the last ~12 to 24 months, I think I've mellowed a lot with respect to my kids' swimming and channeled my competitiveness back into my own sport. I'm still not fully recovered, I'll always be a recovering near-psycho swim parent, but I'm way more relaxed, am letting my kids let it be their sport and am trying to have them form a strong swimming relationship with their coaches.
As I've done this, I've been amazed to watch how, paradoxically, they've grown more competitive about the sport. In business-speak, they've taken the R & A from the RACI framework; occasionally, I'm consulted, but mainly informed. It's a joy to watch. It's a treat to see them change, to see them become stronger and more confident.
Of course, I still want to fix that streamline, that wonky left arm on her ... deep breaths, Patrick, yoga full breaths ...
What a great post.:applaud:
