"Screencast" → Psychological Component: Basic & Advanced Interpersonal Skills

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I'm recording this after our successful mid season, meet for our red plus group.

I think now is a really good time for us to explore the level system a little bit more in depth. To make sure that we know what we're doing moving forward, because it is a very crucial part of high level success, not just on an individual basis, but on a team basis as well.

So we broke up the level system into the different training groups that we anticipate that we'll be having by the summer.

Gray 1, Gray 2, Blue, Red, and then Senior. Okay, and then these, these different levels will get you through to the national team.

And that's what we want to try to do. Give everybody the tools that they need and all of these areas, the technical tactical physiological, psychological and performance areas. That they need to thrive in the sport and also be ready for the demands of the next level.

So I'm going to start on with the psychological, um, component, because I really believe that if we don't have our minds right. Nothing else is really going to matter. And I think it's important that we do kind of a remedial education to get all this squared away. So we have the tools that we need to really compete and live at a high level. So the first thing that we need to do, and this is in gray one. His basic positive interpersonal skills. If we can't get along with the other people in our lane, or just going to be one big, hot mess. So the first thing that we want to do is make sure that the swimmer is ready when practice begins.

That doesn't mean arrive. That means ready suit on goggles on behind the blocks, ready to hop in. That's an important skill to really develop at a young age. And it's also very important as you go through life. Always be a little bit prepared and ready to go. The other part of the basic positive interpersonal skills that we want to develop is the swimmer.

Doesn't talk when the coaches are speaking and listen to tentatively to what they are saying. This prevents a lot of these phrases, like, what are we doing? Because if you listen at the onset, then it's going to make it a lot easier and we'll have more time to focus in, on developing other skills rather than repeating things over and over again. So actively listening with your eyes and your ears paying attention.

We want to make sure that we're doing a good job with our facility. And respecting that we have this wonderful place to train and we want to make sure that we, uh, treated nicely and treat our teammates well, too. And the last thing that we have, and this again, is gray one. The swimmer learns how to use a pace clock, circle, swim, and works relatively well in a lane with his or her teammates. So this is a basic positive interpersonal skills that we need to develop at a young age.

And we need to do some remediation on the higher levels as well. I'm going to go into the next one with gray too. So we just have an understanding of where we want to be when the kids get out of gray. And from F the psychological, this is more advanced, positive interpersonal skills. The first one is the swimmer understands that they're a part of a team and has a respect for the teammates. Respect is very important.

We may not always be the best of friends, but we want to make sure that we treat everyone with respect and how we would like to be treated as well. The swimmer listens to recommendations from coaches and willingly tries to make the appropriate corrections. It's one thing to us to keep saying, don't bring it off the wall, but it's another thing for you to actually try and then you'll develop that skill over time and we can move on. And then these are very important as well.

And remember, this is just a gray to group during practice. The summer will leave on time during sets, start and finish at the wall swim sets, as they are designed, you don't drill on the fly set and you do proper turns. You make sure that, you know, the energy zone that you're trying to do. If you're in a higher training group and you try to hold those paces. You swim the entire set, no walking on the bottom, sitting out, stretching your shoulders. And you can accurately count and compute distances. These are incredibly important skills and that's why they're in our gray group.

So we can make sure that as we get up the food chain, we don't have to keep going back on these things. And the more we do this, the easier it becomes. The swimmer demonstrates a willingness to help pick up equipment at the end of practice session. You know, that's really nice thing to do. Again, respect for your facility. The swimmer talks to the coach before and after each race, if possible, there's not going to be enough time on some races, but you want to make sure that you have a strategy and you're communicating with your coach. You treat teammates. Excuse me and coaches in the same manner. You would like to be treated.

I mentioned that earlier. Uh, somewhere brings in shares report cards or otherwise keeps the coach current unschool progress. He or she knows the importance of quality and hard work academically and completes assignments on time. If you have an assignment that's due a month from now, make sure you get it done squared. W squared away, you have to have really good time management to progress in the sport. And then the last two are works well with training partners, even if you're not the best of friends outside the team. We are unique and have a unique fraternity. Uh, people that might not be your friends, they are experiencing the same thing.

You are day in and day out. So you want to make sure that you work well with them on a daily basis. And the other thing, and this is very important is that you're not influenced by the negative behavior actions of teammates or peers.

You know, there's positivity goes a long way to helping other people being positive and negative behaviors and actions and mindsets can also bring other people down, but you can learn not to let anybody that's not having the greatest day bring you down as well. So I just wanted to go over these psychological aspects.

And this is for gray one in gray, too, but we'd like to see these applied to all of our swimmers throughout. The training group continuum, and make sure that we put this all together and learn and grow together and enjoy the success that comes with it. All right.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll ...

... See you at the pool - Rich