By Susan McCaughtrie
These thoughts were inspired by Marty Munson whose work who recently wrote an article featured on US Masters Swimming talking about ‘dealing with the loss of swimming’.
Being a swimmer (or swim coach) seems an unlikely pathway to being your own hero in these times of uncertainty.
Immersed in this situation, we’ve been ‘thrown in the deep end’ so to speak, which is wrought with danger and potentially fatal consequences.
Unlike land-based athletes, who have a ‘solid’ surface to push off from, swimmers are used to creating their own base of support, because training takes place in a dynamic and fluid environment.
Without doubt the best way to get better at swimming, is swimming. But there are many aspects in and out of the water that play an important role in how we develop as swimmers and as humans.
LEARN TO FLOAT FIRST
Much like diving into unknown water, we have been unable to check the clarity, depth or conditions of the water – but somehow we have survived the initial immersion. So the important part now is to get yourself to float so you can get back to the surface and breathe again.
Working out what it is that you ‘get’ from swimming is a key part of surviving and trying to keep yourself afloat at this stage. It requires looking beyond your ‘why’ and delving deeper into supporting basic psychological needs.
We must dig deep and look beyond the obvious reasons of endorphins and exercise. Answers to those needs can easily be found online with a quick search. Yes, it is an important aspect of well being, but we must look a bit harder within ourselves because fitness can still be maintained through other means, but for most of us there is a massive missing part in our life which makes us feel like we are sinking without it.
For some it is the social connection, for some it is the solitude of the water, a sense of escape or getting into a meditative rhythm of your stroke. In Munson’s article Jen Schumacher (assistant director of the performance psychology program at the Centre for Enhanced Performance at West Point) noted “there are still things we can find that hit each of those needs, just in a different way, and perhaps not all at the same time”.
For myself, it was the tactile sense of water flowing past my skin. So when I shower or wash up, I try to focus intensely on the feeling of the water on my skin more. For my best friend, it was the immensity of the ocean enveloping and surrounding her. So her alternative (that brings the same feelings) is focusing on the outlines of the local mountain ranges on the horizon.
What can keep your needs filled and afloat without actually swimming?
GAINING MOMENTUM – CREATING ROUTINES
Nature is (usually) consistent. Day turns to night, night turns to day, seasons generally change and life cycles of plants and animals etc. are predictable and stable. A daily routine, using nature as our mentor, is a ‘life tool’ that can hold us in place at the surface and allow us to just float. It also gets us into a good position to add a little propulsion, allowing us to kick a bit through time.
Athletes, musicians, artists and all kinds of other experts, can tell you that the discipline and routine of practice is what holds them on their course to greatness.
The consistency and development of Will gains a life of its own. It creates another inner rhythm that carries them automatically. It gets them to practice, do the work, do the mundane – even when they don’t feel like it or want to do it. The rhythm of the routine carries them.
Just as you breathe in and out without much thought, or having to tell your heart to beat consciously, you can just do some things automatically. Like making a coffee at a certain time of day, you can do it with your eyes closed. The rhythm and routine have momentum and help you continue living.
Within routine comes a certain freedom, you allow yourself to be carried by the routine and eventually it creates a natural rhythm. There you can freely start to pursue deeper actions and meaning. Not just floating, not just surviving.
BASIC SKILLS – SETTING A BASELINE
There are basics for all movement patterns and swimming is no exception. Like fundamental movements, knowing your baseline is vital in measuring your growth and development.
Being honest in your self assessment of your character, working out your worst traits and best traits allows for a type of ‘inner’ muscle recruitment or movement pattern towards being your best self.
An activity can help you work out you baseline includes:
Place your page in landscape position. Draw a line across the page, horizontally.
Think of 3 traits that are the absolute worst version of you: the darkest, meanest, coldest version of yourself. The shadow traits you’d rarely show to anyone all in one go. Write them at one end of the line. At the other end write your 3 best traits – when you are a shining golden beacon of humanity.
We know inherently we are never truly at one end (or the other) but always somewhere along the line. Knowing where you are on that spectrum at any given moment gives you space to start moving back towards your ‘best’ self.
Sharing these traits with your nearest and dearest around you can also help us become more compassionate and understanding of each other and ourselves.
SPECIALISED TECHNIQUE
As much as floating and kicking can get you from A to B and back again, our human nature desires more. More efficiency, a greater sense of accomplishment, a way to success and surviving on your own terms.
Swimmers will always have a favourite stroke, or one with which they have a special affinity or desire to be great at. How do they usually get better at it? They improve their technique and get specific with the goals they’d like to reach.
Without being able to literally swim, ‘technique’ is now our ability to look at things from a different angle or view and give ourselves feedback. Just like your coach watching you and giving guidance, you can now take up the responsibility for guiding your inner development.
We work with what we have – ourselves and our inner life.
Finding what ‘strokes’ and ‘techniques’ make you fly through the water and life are invaluable and life-changing. A little look at our values and values statements can help tweak the way you approach your days and the things you could achieve during this time.
An activity that can helps us create out guiding statements in this time of uncertainty:
Find a giant list of ‘values’ online – circle twenty of them that stand out to you, or are important to you.
Whittle out the ones that are merely ‘aspirational’ and cull the list down to 10-12 (ones that really matter to you). Group them together in bunches of words that just ‘seem to go together’.
Now write one sentence using each of the words from one group – a sentence that oozes power and hope.
These are now sentences you read at your usual practice or training times. Think of ways to work towards representing these ideals fully. These value sentences are your favourite strokes of life that make you want to work and focus and get better and better in whatever you are looking to achieve outside the water.
These create the elements of your daily ‘sets’ to keep you on track, to keep the ‘big vision’ in sight and strive to get through each day, each week of changing circumstances. These are your season objectives.
A RACE PLAN
Swimmers (with their ability to create their own base of support in water) place us in a unique position to design our own unique ‘inner season plan’ through this uncertainty. There are many points of help and ways to get started. Start easy, design your activities like the ones mentioned above. Our experiences as participants in a sport supporting long term athlete development reassure us that self development, (like swimming) is a ‘long game’.
Use what you know of your stroke and training style to work on the different parts of this ‘event’ we are part of. Ask your coaches, parents, colleagues for advice. As an adult, I am still always asking my mentor Hugh Simson (St Hilda’s Aquatics) about what he has seen, experienced and worked through over his lifetime. Seek out those with diverse experiences, listen to how they worked through situations. What did they try? What could work for you? Ask people a lot of questions. You don’t have to take it all on board but it sure will broaden your ‘inner training potential’.
You know yourselves best and in the end, only you can know what you truly think. Be brave enough to discover yourself. Here are some starting points.
Use what you know and have been doing daily for years and apply it in a different realm of thinking:
Body Position – Are you keeping yourself active? Do seek advice from your coaches and trainers? Are you eating and sleeping well? Are you maintaining your training diary but from this other ‘inner’ angle? Are you dressing for the changing weather /season by keeping warmer or cooler? Is your environment organised and tidy? Are you connecting with others that share your desire to remain active and fit?
The Entry – Are you ‘sliding’ in or avoiding getting in? Impatient or aggressively slapping the surface? Shyly ‘massaging’ the water’? Are you creating bubbles unnecessarily through rushing or not caring about your actions? Being mindful of what you are creating around you? Are you entering at an unusual angle? Are you thinking in different ways, and is it likely to help or hinder? Does it improve your general wellbeing or injure it?
Underwater – Do you have breathing and relaxation techniques for times when everything seems overwhelming? What ‘skills’ are you working on to help bring yourself back to the surface when you feel like you’re stuck underwater? What skills can you practice to help you ‘smooth the edges’ when you’ve had a bad day?
The Catch – Are you grabbing at nothing too soon? Is your catch slipping and you’re slicing through things without creating meaning? Can you give yourself space to let go and find a deeper, more enlivening point or anchor? What holds your attention and gives you leverage in the world? Is it friends, family, religion, work? What is your anchor in the world, what is available to you at the moment? Just like with working out what need swimming fulfils in you – how can you ensure you are using your anchors to create stability before you try to propel yourself in new ways?
The Pull – What things are propelling you through the day? What are the things that are creating resistance or drag, making the days seem endless? What activities make time ‘fly’ and make you forget yourself and give you a sense of streamline and flow in the day?
The Release / Exit – Are you holding on too long or trying to push past a point meaning you have lost efficiency? Are you letting go too early and not getting the most out of potential and momentum?
The Recovery – Are you rushing your recovery, feeling like you have to get on with the next ‘stroke’ straight away. Have you looked at your ‘position’ in your recovery phases and are they efficient or are you likely to cause and injury or inefficiency in your next stroke?
So many of the greatest coaches and teachers know and advocate the importance of personal skills and development of the ‘whole athlete’.
You already have the experience required from being a swimmer and now you have the opportunity to transform them, go through a metamorphosis of skill into helping yourself and others and lift swimming into another level. And when we finally return to our pools, just add water.
What I share above is based in being a human and observing humans for 40 years – specifically in the areas of swimming and coaching.
I am not an expert in psychology and readers should seek professional advice if required.
ABOUT Susan McCaughtrie
Born in Sydney Australia, Susan developed a love of music, geology, competitive sport (swimming and cross country) and philosophy. She studied Music (baroque and world music) and Education at UNSW and SCU Lismore. The discovery of Waldorf Education and Surf Life Saving were game changers professionally and personally. In these she discovered a passion for enriching human development and helping others in everyday life and actions. Susan has enjoyed teaching and coaching all over Australia and internationally, and is appointed as Head Coach and Curriculum Manager of X-Lab Pro, Singapore.