SIP 087: "How can I improve?"

I feel like one of the best ways to improve my coaching and teaching is to ask myself, "how can I improve?"

We tell our swimmers to self-evaluate during their swimming. This is essentially what meditation is.

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Meditation is training your brain to recognize it's doing something you don't want it to do and realigning it to your will.

If we're good at meditating, then we're going to be better swimmers if we know what to look for.

It is the coach and swim instructor's job to inform and guide the swimmer's thoughts so they can improve their swimming during a practice or lesson.

We do this through feedback and attention focusing.

There is two components:

1. Knowledge dump. Learn all the things.
   1. Exposure
   2. Repetition
   3. Mastery
2. Guided focus
   1. Pay attention to this one thing.
   2. Drills that highlight specific elements
   3. Do it wrong so you know how to do it right
   4. Mantra's, habits, and allowing mistakes.

Did that practice go well?

Did it meet the objectives I had in place?

What should I change?

What were the elements that I struggled with? What are elements of it that my participants struggled with?

Be brave to admit failures. If we ask our swimmers to fail and be comfortable in it we should be too. Make small changes to adapt to your swimmers.

Are you getting upset with the swimmers, the children, in your lessons or practices? Its's your fault. How can you reset to give yourself a chance to evaluate and reorient?

Write it down.

Make changes live on website.

Make your own lesson plans.

Give your staff training opportunities to be self aware.

• Do it wrong.
• Give them a teaching task, but put limitations on it. Can't say the word "okay" or get swimmers to Streamline without saying streamline.
• Put a time limit on number of attempts.

Build confidence in your staff and yourself by making changes on the fly and allowing freedom in lessons (contradictory to doing things a certain way. Fences with broad leeway inside those fences).

What do you do to self evaluate?

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