Overview of Swimming & Motor Learning: Creating the Conditions for Learning and Developing a Feel for the Water

with Michael Brooks,
Weymouth Waves Head Swimming Coach;
former King Aquatic Club Head Coach;
former York YMCA Swimming Head Coach/Director of Competitive Swimming;
4x YMCA Short Course Nationals Coach of the Year ('10, '12, '13, '15);
2x Middle Atlantic LSC Senior Coach of the Year ('14, '15);
coached four National Junior Team members and 2 National Team Members

Michael Brooks, Weymouth Waves head swimming coach and four-time YMCA Short Course Nationals Coach of the Year, delivers a superb instructional video that will help you develop a successful technique teaching approach. Brooks' approach is simple and practical, even for coaches who are relatively inexperienced!

The Unique Demands of Swimming

Coach Brooks reviews the many challenges and limitations swim coaches face that coaches in other sports do not. Acknowledging these challenges and being prepared to outline them for parents and swimmers will help you establish the shared role coaches and athletes have in the swimmer's success. A coach can create opportunities for learning, but only swimmers can make it happen!

Create Conditions for Optimal Learning

A swimmer who is distracted or discouraged is not ready to get everything he or she can from a practice, no matter how brilliant the practice design. Successful coaches learn to develop the four cardinal qualities of an optimal mindset:

• Engagement - Learn strategies to engage swimmers in what you are doing.
• Self-Reliance - Help swimmers become less reliant on the coach for motivation and advice and more proactive about reaching their goals.
• Focus - Understand the coach's role in helping athletes develop the crucial skill of maintaining focus.
• Water Feel - Understand what "water feel" actually is and how swimmers can work on it every day to be successful.

Teach Swimmers to Diagnose Stroke Flaws and Create Solutions

Swimming is a "feel" sport. Coach Brooks will teach you how to incorporate "Feel Sets" - sets that take advantage of the constant feedback water provides - to recognize problems and move toward a more efficient stroke. You will:

• Understand how to use video in a meaningful way to help your swimmers recognize optimal swimming and spot problem areas.
• Understand the difference between Variable and Random Sets, and how using them can help build water feel more quickly.
• Design sets that build balance and awareness by challenging swimmers to focus on a particular aspect of their stroke and get a sense of how it changes as resistance or speed change.
• Learn how to use equipment to improve error detection or to build sensitivity.

In this video, Coach Brooks argues that coaches must embrace the adage, "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Instead of pointing out stroke flaws and imposing solutions, you'll see how to teach your swimmers to diagnose their own strokes and help them to find solutions they will actually incorporate. A stroke improvement is not learned until the change holds up under training and then under racing conditions. By empowering your swimmers to be engaged, self-reliant and focused, you will develop swimmers who continually learn and improve!

68 minutes. 2020.