My daughter’s first swim meet was rather traumatic. She was old enough to have to swim 50s rather than 25s. At one point, she had swum down to the wall, turned around and started crying, “I can’t do it!” Her father told her to suck it up and finish it already. She did, and in retrospect, it was good for her to have to swim harder. While she and her brother started at almost the same level, she took off and left him in the dust, out of necessity.

Everything came hard to her at first. She couldn’t dive, which is an important racing skill. Until she learned to dive, she couldn’t compete in freestyle. I tried everything to get her to dive, from gently coaxing to threatening, but in the end, the only thing that worked was going to the pool with her father. He is not a swimmer, but is quite the coach, and he found out what she needed to work on and emphasized that. She picked it up for good in a few hours.

Before we knew it, the girl who was afraid of water became the girl with the perfect form. After 2 years in the club, our kids got a serious coach. It got all military in there, and that’s when we really saw some improvement, especially with our daughter. Our son wouldn’t be pushed as hard until we switched clubs. . .

(to be continued)