Confrontation is a life necessity. If it wasn’t, I’d guess that most of us would hardly ever do it. Constitutionally, I think human beings are designed to be confrontation averse. That is, we are all more or less “pro-social”. Our extent as a species rely on the fact that we have found ways to cooperate with each other at a very high level.
Do What Leads to Growth
Within the swimming world, I’ve encountered a dichotomy when it comes to Masters Swimming. First, the types of people you meet at Masters swim meets are amazing. The overall atmosphere is more or less beaming with positivity. While there may be the usual grumblings and disappointments, at the foundation are people who have no ambiguity about why they’re there. Because they want to be!
When I interact with coaches, many of them on the higher end of the club or collegiate level, there’s what I could only describe as a borderline hostility to Masters. To be sure, this is entirely the same part of the population that doesn’t choose to compete anymore, for many valid reasons that I will enumerate below. Yet the eyes of many a coach roll when considering adults continuing on in the sport.
So in this post, I want to talk about why I swim, and compete in swimming. Lest I sound like I am passing moral judgment on others, I will add why I very much chose not to swim for large parts of my post collegiate life. The answer to why is pretty simple: because in my day to day life, I love it.
Learn by Doing
I’ve written before that I believe in the concept of “learning differences” although perhaps not in the way many other people interpret that term. That is, I think that people can be more or less open to receiving new knowledge depending on the way that they encounter it.
I’ll give you an example from my own life. During my work with Sherri Fisher I completed a four hour battery of aptitude testing. The test, which I have discussed before, was actually many small tests trying to isolate various cerebral tasks. At the end you were given a percentile score to compare yourself to others.
I scored 5/100 (that is, 95% of others were BETTER than me) on a particular test. I was shown an image with fifteen or so items on it for 30 seconds. Then the screen went blank. Then a new screen appeared and I was asked three questions:
What objects were removed?
What objects were added?
What objects were moved (i.e. in a different location of the image)
I was in a complete panic completing the test. I could not, for the life of me, remember the first image. As soon as I saw the second image, that was all I could see.
Now it may be accurate to say that I’m not a “visual learner” or have a poor “visual memory”. It may also be accurate to say that like any other human being, I can’t remember simple details when I’m panicking.
Our emotional state has profound influence over our ability to absorb information. Which brings me back to swimming, and why it is so important to me. When I am swimming, I am happy and open to learning. And in those moments, I find that I can learn things that are applicable to my life, both personal and professional.
So for me, swimming is a sport that I enjoy. I’ve even learned to enjoy the competition much more than I did in my “real” competitive days. It is also a vehicle for growth.
So do I advocate other coaches swim? Yes! As long as swimming is something you enjoy and therefore grow from. I also understand why that’s not the case for many coaches, because I was one.
Another Hour at the Pool
I started training and competing most recently on January 2nd, 2023. My last day as a full-time, day to day coach was December 31st 2022. I would have started on January 1st but the pool was closed for New Years.
It wasn’t by accident that the two lined up. When I was spending considerable time on the pool deck coaching, I didn’t much feel like showing up at other odd hours to do my own swimming.
In perhaps an aside, I was talking with a coach this week about what is the optimal distance to live from the pool you coach in. Coaching swimming involves irregular hours and it can really help you if you live close by work, allowing you to easily go from home to your “office” multiple times per day.
Even with proximity, for a lot of coaches swimming themselves could mean another round trip to and from the pool, or cutting into work or personal time at particularly inconvenient times. It could also mean training alone, which I tried for quite a while and which cannot, in any way, compare to a coached workout.
Beyond practicing there is also the issue of attending meets. When you already go to a meet every few weeks, do you really want to spend one of your other weekends swimming in a meet? I sure didn’t! But your mileage may vary.
At the end of the day, the point of doing something voluntary is that you feel like it adds and doesn’t detract from the rest of your life. I’ve found that swimming is a valuable addition to mine, but that value is situational.
Fat Tailed Coaching
I’ve often spoken about “Fireman Mode” coaching, where you find yourself running from place to place putting out fires. Most of the time, it’s in the context of the mental health of the coach. Fireman mode is very detrimental over the long haul of a coach’s career, as you begin to anticipate (with considerable worry) problems popping up and having to react to them.
Coaching Coaches: Head Honchos
I remember vividly when I first became a “head“coach. In early July of 2013, I was standing on the pool deck of the Danish National Championships. I was embroiled in a bitter “contract dispute” with my current employer. Some time after warmup I was handed an envelope by the club’s board chairman with a contract inside.
Actually Addressing Coach Behavior
Today I woke up to this article on Swimswam. To summarize, a ten-time conference coach of the year, and her assistant coach, is abruptly let go one week ahead of their conference championship. A terse statement from the school says everything and nothing about what actually happened. In the comments section, another career reputation is circling the drains.
Make Up Your Own Mind
Having recently completed a trip abroad, I’m struck once again by how small the swimming world is. Even in Sweden, with nominally a completely different group of coaches than you would find at your average gathering of American swim coaches, connections abounded.
There are many benefits to a small community. One which I continually benefit from is that by virtue of that community being small, my modest presence online nevertheless affords me a lot of familiarity on many pool decks world wide.
What Empathy Is (And Isn't)
One of the problems I have consistently encountered is that when terminology goes viral, it often loses it’s true meaning. Today I want to talk about empathy, which I find has become a buzz word in a lot of contexts, but has also started to lose a cohesive meaning in the process.
I want to offer, to my audience of coaches, parents and athletes, a definition of empathy. At the same time, I want to distinguish it from some of the perversions of the term I commonly see.
Build Analytical Systems for Thinkers
Competitive Margins
Two days ago, bundled up for a frigid run with my wife, I found myself thinking about my upcoming podcast interview with Bob Bowman. There’s definitely not a meme out there where a woman wonders what her silent husband is thinking about, and it turns out it’s chatting up the coach of two of the greatest swimmers in the history of the sport.
Critiques Hurt When They Ring True
What is the Value of Narcissism?
Lia Thomas is the Most Famous Swimmer
While Milei railed against what he described as “cultural Marxism”, he dropped in the following line:
“I don’t think positive discrimination is right. Then the quota problems appear, a lot of problems appear. And there are these ridiculous things we find in sports, where men appear beating women in a boxing tournament. Or men beating women in swimming, or in any sport you want”
Goal Setting is For Everyone
Goal setting is something that is almost universal in the sport of swimming. A coach sits down with an athlete and the athlete gets to say what is they want to accomplish. Perhaps they will discuss how to get there, how to measure progress along the way. There are more advanced ways to set goals, but more or less this is the process as I’ve seen it in most places.
Election Reflection
Something is Better Than Nothing
USA Swimming Hiring Backwards
What does strike me as strange is that before this announcement USA Swimming had three crucial roles they were hiring for. One is the CEO, with Tim Hinchey’s long awaited sacking. Then there is the National Team Director who will oversee that entirety of the “wet” side of the operation. Finally there is the National Junior Team coach.
Harmony, Not Balance
Earlier this week I posted a podcast with three-time US Olympic coach Greg Meehan. It’s worth listening to. There’s two things I want to comment with regards to the podcast.
What I'm Up To
One of the many advantages of working for yourself is that you can change directions fast. Last spring, I reached a point where it was time to make a change. One of the reasons that I work for myself is because it allows me the latitude to spend time engaging more with people in all corners of the swimming world.
People Are Not Determined
Before I had kids, I thought I couldn’t comment on parenting. What did I know? Now that I have kids, I often think that it’s a bad idea to comment on parenting. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible to not come off as holier than thou. Parenting is perhaps the most personal thing that parents do, so it’s easy to feel extremely sensitive to judgment.