The first week, always the hardest, is in the books.

The reality of Ottawa U’s construction was a bit of a shocker, but it is getting better. I was there yesterday and more of the changing rooms are open now which is a positive sign. Thanks to Lisa for helping to organize everyone with a meeting point to safely get everyone to the pool.

In swimming we worked on streamline and pushing off the wall. This will be old news to some of our swimmers and new to others. Streamline is vital to swimming. Creating less drag in the water helps to reduce the amount of effort required to move forward. Take a look at this short video with your athlete.

This video is a superb encapsulation of what we are striving to accomplish — streamline, tight turns and smooth dolphin kicks off the wall. Your athlete should be able to point out all of these skills as shown in the video.

Of course, what does it take to achieve this? Repetition, repetition, repetition.

On another note, we have our first official swim meet tentatively booked. It’s in Brockville on Sunday, October 16th. More details to come. We are also putting together dates and times for our internal swim meets and internal water polo tournament.

You will notice that we will be doing some water polo leg work during swim practices. This is now par for the course as coaches balance time spent on the two sports. Remember, practice is practice. There is no swim practice, there is no water polo practice. Only practice.

See you at the pool.

Coach Fraser