Good job of keeping up with this busy time of the season. Just some thoughts on the past couple weeks:

Team Picnic: It was great to see all the kids faces without caps, goggles, and chlorine on a Friday evening. The best part was watching all the kids PLAYING (and I do even mean the 17-year-old kids too). I know that exercise is not an issue for our dedicated athletes. However, the ingenuity, problem solving, and social dynamic that comes from getting outside and playing with a bunch of other kids is irreplaceable. You don’t need an occasion. It doesn’t need to be planned or scheduled. It doesn’t have to be on a designated field or county maintained playground. GET OUT AND PLAY!

Special Olympics: It was great to see how many of our swimmers were on hand to help run the meet! It is tough for young people to break out of the mold of how every meet is usually run, and step into a world of swimming because you CAN! It’s really nice to see how our swimmers can use their own experience in our sport to assist others in their own understanding. The best part about it is EVERYONE had a lot of fun!

Awards Banquet: As I continue through my years of Poseidon, many of the first swimmers that I coached as Age-Groupers are graduating faster than I can count them. I am extremely proud of all the swimmers who finished up their high school years with us at Poseidon. There were a lot of different avenues taken, a lot of different stories to tell, and a lot of different individual challenges that fed into each of those swimmers’ careers. I think that when swimmers decide at a young age (9-12) that swimming is something they would really like to make a strong focus, they pull out the story book and automatically begin to script exactly what is “supposed to” happen in the next few years. Life isn’t a story book. That is to everyone’s benefit. If we all got what we wanted all the time, we would never learn much about what makes us our own best selves. None of those athletes, who put in the time, the effort, and the determination walk away from their years at Poseidon feeling as if they were not better because of the experience.

Peak Experience: It was a small group, but the message was still the same: when the going gets tough, you have to trust yourself (and others too). When you are walking tight rope cables 30 feet in the air, it is easy to think, “what if I fall?” It is difficult to concentrate on what you must do to succeed in the task. The same goes in swimming, or any area of life for that matter. One of our helpers from Peak shared his opinion that staring down the pool with a 200 breast in front of you is much more intimidating than walking across a swaying horizontal ladder. (“There’s no safety cable in the pool.”) It is really a matter of perception and belief in one’s abilities.

I hope that all of you were able to take part in these great opportunities as part of our team. Remember that our team is an IN-clusive team and not an EX-clusive team. If you are feeling a little less “teamy” than you might otherwise, jump in with both feet and get involved! We are constantly looking for ways to bring our team closer.