Last week I spoke to a friend who told me there are still three teams continuing to hold organized swim practice in his area. This was slightly frustrating to him, even though he had shut down practice at his club and believed he was doing the right thing.
Another friend was asked by a parent if they could open the pool…for just the one child. The answer? Of course not.
In Denmark I’ve spoken to people who fear that it may be an entire year until swim practice truly gets back underway as the government slowly re-opens part of the country.
Around the world, the swimming community is rightfully despondent about their inability to swim. The questions and fears are real:
When will I be able to get back to my routine?
When will I gather once again with my peers to train?
Am I falling behind?
What am I supposed to do with all this time, besides play Fire Emblem games out of order?
Before I get into it, let me say I’m quite impressed with the ingenuity of tethered backyard kiddie pools or self-constructed VASA imitations. Don’t let what I’m about to say dampen the enthusiasm for that kind of innovation whatsoever.
Staying in the water, practicing as usual as if the world hasn’t made a huge change is, in my opinion, a huge missed opportunity. If you truly believe all your memes about adversity and perseverance and “mental toughness” (shiver), then isolate your desire to pretend like nothing changed and embrace the day.
I know many of my fellow addi…I mean coaches, are missing their fix at the moment. They want to be on that tiled floor, helping people to improve themselves. But I also know coaches who slept up to 12 hours a night in the weeks since they were mostly confined to their homes. Imagine if they’d found out that they were burning the candle at both ends a much harder way?
Likewise I’ve spoken to athletes who feel as if they are hopelessly falling behind. This, despite nearly everyone of their competitors being in the same situation. You know what meets are going to be extremely fast next year? Here’s a prediction: nearly all of them.
Now is the time for swimmers to figure out all of the stuff you can do outside of the narrow confines of parallel lines and toxic fumes. Imagine how many athletes, without this interruption, would have continued to try and squeeze a little bit more juice out of the weekly pace set while a whole world of opportunities to improve were sitting idle.
So I say with all honesty- if you’re in sport and carrying on as if nothing has changed, then you’re missing out. This situation we find ourselves in is awful, trying and often lonely. It will have moments of great pain for most of us, no matter what we do. But it also is the single biggest opportunity for growth that most of us will get in our entire lives.