Today felt amazing. The energy for the morning was more positive with the sun being out. We managed to get 5 students and all were wanting some help with something we could help with. We went through our introductions and found some of the participants were previous Total Immersion swimming students coming back for some technique work to keep them on their way. We had an Ironman in training and a young man looking for an edge for speed. It made a very great set of students to get all the teachers involved. Today Terry stayed on deck and had us do the hands on. It was time to test our abilities and keep the student moving forward while we were keeping our cues GPS like and our progression moving along. I had a great student eager to learn and took so much correction and rehearsed over and over without prompting as he wanted to get it.
We videoed everyones swim and went about the lesson, get them into superman glide, get them into skate, make sure they have let their head go, make sure they have relaxed hands. It was easier on day 2 as we had gone through the dress rehearsal yesterday. The ratio of coaches to students were more coaches than students, so it allowed for some people to branch off to work on their specific problems. This is great when you have one coach per student, but not typical of a class situation. I think each student reaped the rewards on this class. The overall improvement was across the board and every coach had learned and executed all of their teaching skills attained in the last few days as well as draw from their existing coaching to make it more familiar to their style.
Lunch break came and we had a chance to warm up again and get new perspective. Once we viewed the videos from the morning going over each persons focus we returned to the pool. I feel like my student claimed me and was looking forward to continuing into the afternoon. The work in the afternoon was quieter work. Everyone was working so well with their students, aside from a few near head on collisions, oops! The coaches were relentless in their pursuit to get the message through to the students. The angles were worked, the coaches on deck contributed from their vast knowledge and they got to the point if the point could be gotten to.
It was once again video time. Those students worked hard, they had a really tough many hours in the pool, the payoff was amazing. First was our Ironman and his improvement was so easily visible that you could tell he was going home well armed with a sense of comfort in his swim pursuit. Next was my fellow who was worried about making sure he made me look good, he looked great. He had improved from above, underwater and in front, he was amazing. I of course am more invested in his joy, so I felt it myself and needed to share that. For every happy athlete their is a happy coach. Then we saw the swim instructor and he was smooth. We had our speed swimmer and he reduced his strokes and was really excited to see such improvement.
My highlight of the day, their were many, my student was such a wonderful person to work with, he had amazing patience. To See my co-coaches busy and doing their magic was a great experience. The time spent outside the classroom today was as rich. The morning was spent with Beverly playing on the beach, in the evening we revisted the beach with Paul and Scott showed up on a run. The four of us talked and watched and took in the beauty as the sun set on Coronado to an amazing finish for the day. Each day here is time filled with living, it is so great to be in a place where it is always better to be outside than inside. I am making the most of it.
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