[Breeze]

Private Lesson Update

Following the Chattahoochee Gold meet when signed Bear and Brett up for some private lessons. The reason for the additional work was different for both kids.

For Bear, we wanted to further solidify his comfort level with the Gold team. He's really liking the change, and in fact, he received the 1st Red Cap award of the season, given to the swimmer who has worked the hardest in the pool, at dryland, and been well behaved. He was pumped about that...this was just a way to allow bonding time between he and his coaches. Also, as I've said before, Bear is a hard worker, who will push himself to be good. But his strokes are lacking, and we want to clean up mistakes now before he moves up.

Brett on the other hand has already moved up, and while he's doing well, we were starting to see signs of struggling. We noticed him cheating (breaststroke kicking) during free kick sets and during fly laps, and we felt that this was mostly because he is so inefficient with his off strokes he has to work to hard just to finish the laps. So the extra work is an attempt to improve form and allow him to be more successful.

Bear's work was good, though mostly uneventful. He enjoyed the work and gave the coach all he had. He'll benefit greatly from this instruction, mostly by learning how to "feel" the differences in his stroke and understand the efficiencies in swimming rather than simply trying to overpower everything with hard work.

Brett on the other hand had a very interesting session. Before it ever started the coach wanted Brett to point his toes and show how the flutter kick should be done. The whole pointing of the toes was a funny routine as he seemed to not understand what she wanted him to do. However, it became pretty evident that the issue wasn't that he didn't understand, but rather he can't point his toe easily. In fact, the coach asked him to sit on is heals with his toes pointed straight out, so that the top of his foot up to his ankle would be flat on the ground, and he can't do it. He has a flexibility problem with his ankle and this is a big part of what has been holding him back in his off strokes. He will now be doing some stretching exercises to loosen up his ankle and hopefully free things up to improve his kick....