Great effort at the Icebreaker this past weekend! Swim meets, especially Icebreaker, are insightful because they allow me to see exactly how you perform under stress, fatigue, and excitment. As a result, I can create practice sets that target the skills we need to improve on so we can perform even better individually and as a whole. For the remainder of the season, each swim meet will be a learning experience for us. I will point out the things that slow us down in our previous races, and focus on them throughout the week. 

I will also be introducing the 3 categories of “Swimmers of the Meet”. I will put your name here on the website to recognize your performance and efforts. I hope everyone will strive towards this! 

Categories:
Most outstanding performance: swimmer who ranks in the top 8, explosive swimming
Most improved (time): swimmer who takes off the most time with respect to the previous swim meet
Most improved (technique): swimmer who applies the skills and tips learned in practice into races consistently

Our focus of this week will be Turnover and Dives. These two skills were lacking during the Icebreaker. Our dive dictates how quick our initial speed will be upon entering the water and this greatly impacts our breakout and ultimately the outcome of our race (picture a well-drawn bow compared to a slack bow, which arrow will shoot faster and farther?), likewise, we must first set our diving position correctly so that we can dive off the block faster and farther.   

The Turnover, how quickly you are pulling each stroke, is equally important as it highlights the race in progress. Picture yourself holding a rope and attached to the end of it is your favorite food. The quicker you pull the rope, the quicker you reach your food. Swimming is pretty similar. The faster your turnover, the quicker you move through the water.

I will be demonstrating in the water to teach everyone the dive tomorrow evening, June 10, so I really hope you can be there. Please also come to photo day this Wednesday. We are the Intermediate B Group and I want everyone to attend. See you at the pool – Coach Leo.

Important Announcements:
• Ladner Meet Sign-up deadline TODAY (June 9)
• Attend Photo Day (June 11, revised pm schedule)

Way to go for those of you who attended the Ice Breaker!! We swam well and I’m proud of you guys, although we definitely have some things to work on. We learn from experience and lots of practice, so don’t get discouraged – I am confident that over time we will continue to improve our stroke and technique. For those of you who had times registered from last year, congratulations for taking 20 seconds off from some of your races! As an incentive, every second taken off a race this season will equal a jelly bean. That means that by the end of the season in August, if you have taken a total of 42 seconds off your races, then you will get a bag of 42 jelly beans.

A few things to remember when racing (and for swimming techniques in general):

• two hand touches at the walls for breastroke and butterfly ALL the time

• no flutter kick/dolphin kick in breastroke – not even one!

• do not pull past your hips when doing breastroke arms – imagine there is a wall extending from your hips that does not let your hands pass it

We will be doing a bit more work with fins this next week in order to help us practice our butterfly, and we will be focusing on turns for all strokes as well as continuing our work on dives and turns. We will also slowly be doing more faster and shorter sets to work on our speed, so please remember to bring a water bottle to practice!

Other than that the swim meet season is in full swing, so please pay attention to sign up dates and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

See you on deck for another great week of practices!

Kigoos,

And June has arrived in Steveston Pool!

All of us JD Copper’s made an appearance at the Mock Meet last Saturday and it turned out to be an awesome day! Everyone finished their races super fast using all the form and technique we have been working on in practices. Amazing job!

Last week we focused on our backs where we had all the time in the world to breath, but this week is all going to be about breath control. We need to practice breathing on our side during freestyle and not lifting our heads out of the water. Everyone who is coming to the Icebreaker will be in a freestyle event, so we are going to make sure it looks good! We will also be working a lot on dolphin kick to be ready for the coming JD meets.

Also, now that the June schedule is in effect we will be having one hour and 15 minute practices – that’s one whole hour in the pool and 15 minutes before we get in for dry land. So every afternoon practices will be longer now. The mornings (Monday and Friday) will still only be 45 minutes in the water.

We also have posters and cheers night this Friday so come ready to shout!

June is here! This means that the competitions have finally arrived! As a swimmer and coach, the swim meets are what truly defines my summer swimming experience, and I think other coaches might feel the same. Swim meets are not only a place where you can apply what you’ve learned in practice into the races, but also a place to make friends with other clubs and have fun. I’ve made countless friends through swim meets and many of them are still my rivals! Since you have made the decision to join Richmond Kigoos, I highly encourage everyone to attend swim meets because your summer swimming experience will be enriched by the competitive and friendly nature of the swim meets. I hope that through attending swim meets, you will begin to appreciate your own efforts in practice, develop sportsmanship, foster team unity and a sense of confidence that extends to everything you do. Many of you have indicated that you want to achieve faster times. Let’s start our Icebreaker this weekend with your personal goals in mind!

Last week, we focused on the 2 strokes where we do touch-turns, the breaststroke and butterfly. I emphasized the importance of rhythm in both strokes where we must pair our kick and our pull together in order to maximize stroke efficiency. We learned when to do the 1 dolphin kick during our underwater pull in breaststroke, and practiced the precise timing in butterfly with drills such as 1 arm fly and 2L-2R-1F.

To recap the 4 main points of breaststroke:
1) Pull and lunge is 1 motion, no pausing where hands in front of chest but lunge immediately instead
2) Turn out feet and kick outward with bottom of feet, not the top of feet
3) Kick and lunge at the same time (KEY for rhythm)
4) Touch Turn – with 2 hands

To recap the 4 main points of butterfly:
1) Butterfly Cycle: 1 Strong Kick when hands are reached forward, 1 Strong kick when hands are just finishing the pull (KEY for rhythm)
2) Keep head low when breathing
3) Relax and reach as far forward as possible with each pull
4) Touch Turn – with 2 hands

This week will be a busy week. We will build off the drills from last week and continue to practice the full breaststroke and butterfly. We will do IM so everyone will be familiar with all 4 strokes. We will also practice our turns and sprint off from dives. I will review the race rules with you one last time. See you in the afternoon and morning practices this week! – Coach Leo

*Important Announcements:
• Boundary Bay Meet Sign-up deadline TOMORROW (June 2)
• June Schedule is in effect (see website for details)
• Cheers and Posters Night this Friday (June 6: 5:15pm-6:30pm). Revised evening practice schedule
• True Conditioning Dry-land every Friday, 5:30pm-6:00pm

Regular Announcements:
• Icebreaker Meet entries all registered
• Bring your runners and water bottle to all practices!

Your attendance has improved over the past week- thank you.

Our swimmer of the week is Charlie N. Charlie has been working hard since day one in the pool and it is paying off as he is showing a large improvement since our first practice together. Way to go Charlie!

I am in Montreal until Wednesday for my graduation ceremony. Coaches Julia, Andre and Maddie are taking over for me while I am gone.

Posters and cheer night is this Friday, you guys are all expected to be there. Please email me if you cannot come.

See you all soon!

Some updates regarding the Kigoos Icebreaker Swim Meet happening on June 7^th and 8^th:

• Although the sign up date has passed, you are still able to register in the swim meet. Since it is our meet, I have spoken to Danna and we are able to make exceptions on late entries. This will not be the case for any other meets, so please do pay attention to the other meet sign up deadlines. If you would still like to be registered in our meet, please email myself (julia@kigoos.com) or Danna at danna@kigoos.com. I will be away from Friday the 30^th until the evening of Sunday June 1^st, so if you are emailing on or after Friday please direct your message to Danna instead of myself.
• Since the past three weeks of our practices have been spent developing freestyle, backstroke, and breastroke skills, all of the Junior B swimmers should be capable of swimming those three strokes in the swim meet. This means that I will enter all swimmers (of those who are registered in the meet) in 50 freestyle, 50 backstroke, and 50 breastroke. Of course this is dependant on which days the swimmer will be attending the meet (ex: attending only Saturday, only Sunday, or both days), but if they will be around for any of those events then they will be registered in them. These races are only two lengths each and I am confident that each and every swimmer will be able to do them. We have been working on starts and turns as well as some sprinting, and we will continue to work on these aspects as we progress into next week to prepare for this upcoming swim meet. However, if there are any issues with those three events, please come talk to me tomorrow (Thursday) before or after practice, or feel free to send me an email. Please keep in mind that as of the morning of Friday the 30^th I will be away and unable to answer or attend to your email, so if you are emailing on or after Friday please direct your messages to danna@kigoos.com.
• There are three more events in the swim meet that the Junior Bs would be eligible to swim, and these three events are 100 freestyle, 50 butterfly, and 100 IM. Any of these events are optional, but if your swimmer(s) would be interested in swimming any, or multiple, of these events please let me know and the request will be gladly accommodated. Once again, I am available to speak to tomorrow (Thursday) on deck and can be reached by email tonight and all of tomorrow, but as of Friday the 30^th please send your emails to Danna as I will be unable to answer.

Thank you, and I’m looking forward to the first swim meet of our season!