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The Triangle, Burgess Hill - Mid Sussex Marlins Gala

Of all the things I have done over the years, the one thing that has been a constant is teaching club swimmers. Today Mid Sussex Marlins hosted over 150 young swimmers in a Level 4 Swim England event (the times are recognised on the national register). 

These days I just teach - my first love. I enjoy the challenge of identifying and fixing many faults with a stroke in an 8-12 year old and so set them up for a swimming career. We are a competitive club so their efforts and mine come to fruition in a gala. For many of the swimmers today is their first gala, and possibly their first event at the Triangle, Burgess Hill which is far bigger, brighter and noisier than our teaching pools which include The Dolphin, Haywards Heath.

Although there to a Timing Official, I was also a familiar face for my swimmers to speak to. One felt sick, another was confused about whether they were allowed to dive and so on. An eight year old can become quite overwhelmed by it. Two somehow missed their race and another got confused by the starting process and wanted to change he mind about diving in (she didn't want to) as the race was about to get underway. I was relieved that they were given a second chance in empty slots a little later.

I have blogged about swim teaching in Swim Coach Blog  I keep meaning to refresh all my lessons plans, especially now that I have got through each of the competitive strokes, dives and turns this term.


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Swim Teaching Podcast and podcasting for education

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 29 Apr 2021, 14:21

A blow up Munch's Scream with the SwimJV logo

This 'early adopter' can be something of a laggard or skeptic. This 'innovator' can be late to the game - or refuse to take any notice at all. I dismissed TXT when a school chum mentioned his company producing the tech for this back in the 1990s. I dismissed consultants in 2000 who said there was money to be made online in gambling. 

I'm not going to make money from podcasting. And though I've blogged since 1999 I do have a tendency to jump about a lot: a life journal, education, the first world war, swim teaching and coaching, life drawing, photography, sailing, skiing - its all up there (and much more besides hidden when I went through my Henry Miller / Norman Mailer phase.

But podcasting has a professional angle to it. A lot of people love them and swear by them, even if I don't. I've listened to the odd audiobook and I've selected out the occasional episode of a podcast to download so that I could supervise its transcription. This is new though. I have to script, record, produce, publish and promote a podcast ... and once I feel comfortable doing so, I'm thinking six to 12 episodes, then I can teach others too.

The understanding is that students who are Dyslexic or simply struggle with reading find the spoken word more appealing. In education the tutor/teacher can producer a podcast briefing of key classes, a student or group of students could produce a podcast for project work or tutor or student could browse then curate podcasts on a theme close to their heart. Like blogs, there is a podcast on everything. I am certainly not the first to put something out on swimming, whether as a swim teacher or coach. 

I am wearing my swim hat for this one. 

Produced on Adobe Audition the first episode has gone out as SwimJV or Swim Swim Swim on AnchorFM. I think! I may have delayed publishing until 1st May which could explain why it isn't 'out there yet'. I have a couple of days to do a couple more. 

Here is Episode One > Swim JV 

I teach three times a week, six sessions. I work with across all our club grades from Grade 1 to 7. Grade 1 can swim - we are not a learn to swim club. They can swim a length at a time, hopefully a bit more. They have some basics of front crawl, back crawl but struggle with breaststroke and cannot be expected to do butterfly beyond a dolphin kick. We'll get them to push and glide, do somersaults and handstands but they won't be able to dive or tumble turn. At Grade 7 they are being readied for a competitive squad, so can swim all strokes well, have all the skills and should go on to five or more years training. Club Competitive swimmers tend to get identified around Grade 4 or 5 when they are still 8 or 9 years old and moved on to a Development Squad.

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Back to big swim club teaching & coaching

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Mid Sussex Marlins Pathways for swimmers

I'm back at Mid-Sussex Marlins the Sussex swimming club I joined in June 2008 and from which I have had only a couple of breaks - a year at the Open University, Milton Keynes in 2011 and the last four months as the head coach at a much smaller club down the road.

This chart could have been drawn up by me. I like to reduce things to infographics like this. 

Today I was teaching four sessions: x3 30mins and x1 45 mins, our Grades 1, 2, & 3 and a Grade 7 group. I enjoyed slipping back into the routine: getting to know and remember the name of every child during the swim, having a teenage Level 1 assistant and working through a new assessment sheet for these 7 to 11 year olds.

I was impressed to see an Olympic Trials Qualifying Times notice on the wall.

I'll be coaching too - without the head coach responsibilities. 

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