The Walls and Harper

Just a fact left out from Saturday meet. I would have come back to the pool for the picnic lunch, probably would have pulled a "Yogi Bear" and stolen someone's basket because I had none. I really thought we were eating there so when R.G. Started serving barbecue I got in line and than notice I was a coach without a team, but it was good and they gave me seconds. So all was good

DOLPHIN CHARM UPDATES. There seems to be some confusion in our individual incentive programs this season. Every Dolphin should have a chain with a dolphin on it. The first swims of the season earn a swimmer charm. Now that we are into the meets you get another one for a best time so know and write those times down. After getting 4 more best times you get to add another dolphin. Let's see how many you can collect this season.

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY PRACTICE. We spent a lot of time working on swimming around the walls. Tight streamlines off starts and turns. These are the two fastest parts of your race. "BE PERFECT" in this area.

Perfect practice with the little things will help you when it's time to race.

 

 

 

Our 12 and unders working on their walls

 

Our 8 and unders in the other pool

 

 

Today we worked on our finishes and had a little math lesson. For those of you who did not know our pool is 75 feet long. We went over your starts turns and finishes which was about on average 100 to 110 feet of your race. Not much left right! This should tell you how important wall work is. We also discussed how nothing good happens between the walls and the flags. The only thing good in this area is winning the race! Get to the flags and ". Game On". Put your head down finish strong.

Last thing today was Harper Abbott birthday and after singing happy birthday to her self from the high dive she managed to find the one area where the flags were hanging and brought them down. No harm to the flags but she destroyed the pole. Nice job Harper.

 

OWN YOUR RACE! DOLPHINS RULE! THE COACHES

Dolphin TID-Bits

We started off this week with two good days of practice. Our theme this week has been to work the little things in our races, in that critical area from the flags to the walls. Here we are Monday working on our explosisions of the walls both on our starts and our turns.

 

 

 

 

Nice streamline Katie.

Get with the program Emma

 

After a short warm up here we are going through our stretches

 

Mike we know you are trying to go through a set but it's early and all we hear is yak- yak- yak

Hold on Mike a photo opportunity

Monday we also went through some hard sprinting seeing who could last the longest racing 25's without any rest against 5 new people. Winner takes all and gets to keep racing as long as they keep winning. Easy to get to the top but hard to stay. Will you quit or keep going? We had several good rounds with Justin (13and overs) and Laura W (12 and unders) going very deep with Laura basically crawling out of the pool. Nice job Dolphins.

Tuesday we gave our legs a workout with some hard sprint kicking and some hard treading waterAnd check these out I see some knees on the ground . Remove you have to be as old as me to get out like that and for your information I HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO USE THE LADDER!

Is your knee on the ground

 

 

The end of another enjoyable morning at L.G. Hanging with friends. Who has the playlist for turn Wednesday ?

Go To sleep our little Dolphins!

 

OWN YOUR RACE! DOLPHINS RULE! THE COACHES

DOLPHIN TID BITS

DOLPHINS WEATHERED TSUNAMI

This past weekend the dolphins packed up their swim bags and with suits, caps, and goggles and headed down the road to Riverside Gardens where we ran head first into a Tsunami. This was a pool that none of the Dolphins had ever visited before so there was much anticipation as to what was going to happen. I had been to this pool once before and I believe the year was 2000 and yes it was a yard pool back then, having been converted in 2001. The biggest comment from the kids was "the lanes are so narrow", and I with all my sarcasm came back with "pull on them but don't get caught".

After some words of encouragment from Jared, Gen, Maggie and Anna, our graduating seniors, and putting a little L.G. water into their pool, we began our warm-up and the 2015 journey.

You all were great with your sportsmanship with not only Riverside Gardens but your own teammates as well. Jack West you really need to get more people involved with your dance moves (if that what it was, I thought you might still be stretching).

The dolphins found themeselves ahead 6-3 after 8 and under boys free with Matthew and Sam going 1st and 3rd and from that point they never looked back. The scoring in the Individual events remained consistent throughout the meet. At the end of free the Dolphins would find themselves ahead 53-37, the backstroke events found us adding 61 points to their 29. Our little frogs with that weird kick would outscore them 57-33 and finally our fliers soared scoring 58 points to Riverside Gardens 32.

DOLPHIN FIRST PLACE FINISHERS WERE, Matt Janicki, Meghan Ice, Genevive Manise, Edward Ice, Emma Rollins, Jared Britton, Elena Summers, Kate Casstevens, Catherine Lusick, Ian Fry, Madeline Ice, Justin Britton, Jonathan Bucholz, Michael Lusick, Miller Surette, Ian redding, and Calvin Marr. GREAT SWIMS!

DOULBLE WINNERS; MATT, MEGAN ICE, GENEVIVE, EMMA ROLLINS, JARED AND JUSTIN B., ELENA, KATE C., MATTHEW BRUNO, CATHERINE LUSICK, MADELINE I., AND MICHAEL LUSICK

The dolphins also continued to collect charms with 93 best times acheieved.

To all of your credit an offical from Riverside Gardens came over to me and said he was very impressed with all of you inside the flags. Turns were aggressive and finishes were strong and crisp. Keep up the good work. With that said the only area that gave me nightmares on Saturday night were the races that got away from us.

We have talked this week about it and here is the short version of the issue. Between the flags the bottom line is that either you are faster or not, and as long as you are trying your best and swimming with some heart, it what it is. Thats athletics and competition.

Inside the flags is a different story, and if you can stay within striking range at that point, all bets are off and it's GAME ON. Who wants it more and who has more heart. All athletes have that inner sense to dig down deep and give that last BIG push into the finish. If a swimmer is near you they are going to find that extra gear and if you don't you WILL LOSE IT AT THE END. As I have told you this week whenever I competed in any sport I could always deal with losing if my competition was just better, but in this sport if it came down to that last 10 meters then I was just not going to lose, because I was just always going to be the better finisher.

True story from Barbados from the 90's. There was a timer, Joe, from Poplar Heights last night in lane 1, who is a good friend and coached with me at York. Well we were on a team trip with about 80 kids in Barbados and of course Bob thought it would be great to have a coaches 100 (long course) race. Of course Bob didn't race. Joe leaned over as we took the blocks and said something like "Mikey why don't you just sit this out?" My come back was don't let me hang in too long because if we get to the flags together the hammer comes down and you're toast, and yes of course I won. Another race with him came up at Lee Graham a few years later when we were in the same Division. Both teams were tied at the end of the meet and again someone thought it would be great to have the head coaches race to see who would take the trophy that night. Of course Viola had his usual amount of trash talking. All I had for him this night was "no 5 foot clown is going to beat me in our pool. Yes that trophy stayed here and never left the pool. In all fairness to Joe he would get his revenge when Lee Graham was in Division 1 and he coached Chesterbrook. Yes the 5 foot clown had the last laugh!

The bottom line FINISH STRONG! SWIM AS IF YOU STOLE THE RACE!

MONDAY NIGHT MEET The dolphins had a great turn out last night for our meet with the Crush from Poplar Heights. At this time I have not tallied all the best times but we had a lot of them. Our starts were great, and our turns are improving. Keep working on the little things in practice.

It's the little things that will help you the most right now, so do them correctly ALL THE TIME not just when you feel like it. Why practice things that are going to make you slower. We want to do things that make us faster.

GO DOLPHINS!

 

OWN YOUR RACE! DOLPHINS RULE! THE COACHES

THE DOLPHIN BUZZ

Hey all you Dolphins, we had a rough week of practice but that is behind us now. We hope you used the time wisely and finished up all the end of the year school projects that are coming due. Or maybe you just use the time to start preparing for finals that will be starting this week. Good Luck with them we are sure All of you will ace them all.

Our Mini Dolphins finally got all of the evaluations done this past week in between the rain, cold air and on Friday the cold water. As of now we have 50 in the 8 and under group, and its not to late to come and join so talk to your friends.

Some of our seniors have been busy with Proms the last couple of weekends. It seems like just yesterday that they were part of our 8 and unders. It's nice to see the way they have grown into outstanding young adults and Great Dolphins!

This past week we put in a lot of dry-land with an emphasis on our core muscles. Some of you worked through these while others felt we were just wasting some times. Make no mistake about it everything we do from Day 1 prepares us for that last meet which should be our championship meet. I talked to a few of you about how you tend to get upset about your races and reminded you that it can not just be about the races. The process is as important if not more so to put you into a position to be sucessfull. I also reminded some of you how everything becomes important right before divisionals, yet you tend to forget about the other 8 weeks. It started a week ago, so lets have a good week of practice.

 

 

TODAYS TOPIC "MENTAL TOUGHNESS"

Athlete's coaches, peers,and maybe sometimes parents refer to mental toughness as an explanation of why certain people fail under immense pressures, wheras others seem to excel during competition. It's been said that competition is 10% physical and 90% mental. The following is a quote from Vince Lombardi, "Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. It's qualities are sacrifice and self denial. Also , most importantly it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind, yu could call it character in action." A mental tough athlete will have complete trust in their ability, no matter how much stress they encounter, and they believe they will be SUCCESSFUL. At the same time the mentally tough athlete will also understand that there will be those times when they will fail, and the question becomes how will they handle that failure and move past it. The following are some coping strategies to help you become a mentally tough athlete.

MENTAL IMAGERY: How many times do you just show up at practice or a meet, warm-up sit down and just talk with friends, and then when it's time to swim head over, go to your lane, race and come back. What are you thinkling as you stand at your lane? Try to imagine stepping up having a GREAT start and break out. Feel your body and water unite as you slide into that turn and bounce off with all kinds of speed. Feel yourself as you increase your arm speed and drive those legs to the finish. IMAGINE A GREAT RACE!

EFFORT EXPENDITURE: When swimming you have to commit to your race, you can't just go through the motions. Whatever is going on outside the pool, leave it at the door when you come in. Regardless of your competition or the way you feel OWN YOUR SWIM and SWIM WITH SOME HEART!

THOUGHT CONTROL: Don't dwell on the negatives like I'm going to lose or I have to get a certain time, or that swimmer is too fast. These negatives act like extra baggage and it only weighs you down physically and mentally. It's your race and to own it you need to focus on what you can controland that's swimming fast!

RELAXATION: Try to find time to relax during the meet, and re-energize your batteries. Part of this is doing your proper warm-up and warm-downs, stretching and staying hydrated. This does not involve running around and being on your phones, and in fact if that is what you are doing, your not there to swim fast.

ANALYSIS: Analyze your performance. Ask yurself; What were my weakness? strengths? during that race or practice. Too many times we go back to practice and keep repeating the same mistakes without making a real effort of correcting them. Take the information back to practice and focus on correcting those mistakes so that you can be in a position to move from that good swim to a GREAT SWIM.

THIS WEEK PRACTICE IS NORMAL TIME. SATURDAY IS TIME TRAILS AS OF NOW YOU MAY SWIM AS MANY AS YOU WANT

HAVE AGREAT WEEK AT SCHOOL!

 

 

 

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WHERE IS SUMMER

All Dolphins from Lee Graham, after a good hot first week of practice it seems like we are back to winter now check out the picture below

 

 

 

We got some basic things done last week and on Saturday we had our first of two mini dolphin tryouts and we were very excited to see our little ones. All of you who participated in the L.G. Winter program looked really good last week and I would like to thank Mr. Lusick and his talented group of coaches for all the hard work this past winter. For all you club swimmers you also looked very good in the water and I am excited to see some great racing this summer.

Yesterday we put in a good day of dry land and I have heard from a few of you about legs and stomachs hurting, and the good news is that the hurting are your muscles getting stronger. That is a good thing. Today I t seems to be a little colder and this morning I only lasted a few minutes as I just could not get warm so we are going to skip practice today but tomorrow we will have it. Still cold and wet we will do dryland upstairs. Keep up the good work.

 

 

 

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