Swimming is a very competitive sport, and I was brought into it by my parents when they saw me at the very young age of 5 years showing incredible abilities towards swimming in the local pool. I went for my initial training through group learning. I learned all four strokes of swimming and was introduced to competitive swimming at the local YMCA.
Through the initial years, I excelled in all four strokes, winning medals in almost every meet. Once I grew up more, technical scrutiny while swimming in competitive events became more prominent and strong. During that period while competing in one of the meets I was disqualified in 50 meters of Breaststroke final. I took it lightly thinking it might be some judging fault and I had already won 3 medals in the other strokes. This happened again in the next meet when I was disqualified in 50 meters of Breaststroke. This time I was completely shattered as I finished the race first but was technically disqualified. I was in disbelief, the stroke I had been swimming for years was getting me disqualified. I got myself evaluated by a professional trainer who confirmed that my posture is not right and I will have to learn the right technique. I was very disappointed in myself as I had invested several hours of my life to excel in competitive swimming and now I figured out that I had the
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I leveraged every possible knowledge of wisdom available on the internet and books to understand the right technique of Breaststroke. But without practice, gained knowledge is of no use, so I started practicing 2 hours every day to rectify my problem and improve my stroke. I had to keep my grades intact because my parents never allowed me to falter at school, and also overcome my battle against my swimming nightmare. It took me a while to be fully confident, but I never lost the hope of getting better and kept practicing until I was ready to show my skills to my
I have been swimming year-round on a club team since the age of six and when I was younger improving came relatively easily. However, around age 13, I hit a training plateau despite having the same work ethic and focus that I had previously had. I grew to despise swimming and at points I wanted to quit. However, unlike Junior, I had role models and mentors who were positive influences on me and who helped me to overcome this challenge. Primarily, I had several of my best friends on the team who convinced me to keep persevering and to not simply quit the sport that I loved so much just because I was no longer dropping time. For example, every day I watch my close friends Lizanne and Cate come to practice and give it their all, regardless of the numerous injuries and medical issues that plagued their swimming career; their positive outlook and dedication motivated me to try even harder than I had before. Moreover, I had by parents, something that Junior did not have; my parents were always there to support me after yet another disappointing meet reminding me that “you get five minutes for a win and five minutes for a lost”. My parents where my voice of reason as I tried to work through my issues; they were always there to encourage me, but also were very honest with me
iving up my week and weekend nights for swim practice was something I was used to by the time I started high school. Swimming, was my calling, and with that came many sacrifices. Practices were everyday, Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturdays, and consisted of countless sets of sprinting, kicking and pulling. The only thing that kept us stable during practice was counting down the time on the clock, “Just thirty more minutes, and I can relax for another twenty hours.” From there I would go home in time to shower and finish homework. Finishing what I needed to do before midnight was considered luck. The cycle repeated itself as I would get up the next day and do it again. However, there are many other aspects to this sport besides
Swimming is an activity that’s been around for a long time. Some of its first forms have been in ancient caves that have illustrations of people swimming. Some others include in the Greek epic poems “The Illiad” and “The Odyssey.” During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, swimming began to be a structured activity and later on in history became a popular sport. In 1896, it was a portion of the Olympics in Athens, Greece and it continues to be part of the summer Olympics. Currently, swimming is the second most popular exercise in the United States with millions of people partaking in it.
Your body position is extremely important in breaststroke. Your body can resist the pull of the water. When your arms and hands are in streamline, the placement of your arms in which you are squeezing your arms and have one hand over the other, you want to put your streamline behind your ears. To keep your arms tighter so you can shoot out into the water farther. You’re going to want to keep your body in a neutral position when swimming breaststroke. This means that you want to be in a relaxed, but aggressive, position.
I happen to be a petite 5 foot 3 stick. The majority of swimmers my size happen to be 10 year olds. Because I do not have the typical “swimmer build” I have been thrown into a wide variety of events. Swimmers are often classified by their build. If you have broad shoulders and “bulk up” with weights and protein shakes, you’re expected to be a phenomenal butterfly swimmer. While the tall and lanky swimmers are predicted to be the breaststrokers. Taking a closer look at what makes each stroke, I’ve realized that this method may not be all too accurate. Although these strokes appear to be very different, from body position, body undulation, and the muscle groups used, both the butterfly (fly) and breaststroke (breast) happen to be very similar
The room started spinning, the walls closed in, and my vision went fuzzy. I saw stars everywhere I looked. My palms tingled. My fingers went numb. I felt as if my throat was closing up, and that I couldn’t breathe. If I had to sit in class one moment longer, I was sure I was going to pass out. I was having a panic attack. The first time I had a panic attack, was the beginning of freshman year after my dad had lost his job for the fourteenth time.
I had never really considered myself a "good" swimmer. When I would tell my friends that I swim competitively, they would say, "Wait, so you're going to the Olympics right? You're going to be the next Michael Phelps!"
Swimming has taken on many forms since that time period some reasons include recreationally, utilitarian, combat, scuba diving, swimming races, marathon swimming, and water polo and diving. Recreational swimming has been around since the Greeks and Romans. Young children often learn to swim in a recreational setting with instructors. The water is an unsafe place for some. Swimming in open water occasionally ends in drowning. Since the nineteenth century, swimmers have turned to a supervised area for a safer environment. When learning to swim in North America, younger kids are usually taught “freestyle” or the crawl, while breaststroke is taught in Europe and Asia (MLA 7th Edition).
The breaststroke is the oldest known swimming stroke and is one of four strokes used in competitive swimming. This stroke is also very popular in leisure swimming because the head can be held up, making vision and breathing easy and because the swimmer can rest between strokes if needed. Swimmers can also use the breaststroke in survival swimming and in lifesaving situations. Since the breaststroke has many uses and is easy to learn, it is one of the best strokes to teach a beginning swimmer.
Swimming has been my whole life, since I jumped into the pool for the very first time. I loved every aspect of swimming from the adrenaline running through my body during my races and getting to spend even more time with my friends and my sister, and the stress of big meets coming up in the schedule. Except everything didn't go according to plan after the first day of school when I got home and I saw my parents sitting by my sister on the coach and my sister was crying.
An event in my life that is memorable would be when my Uncle Bob and I decided to go scuba diving. In our adventure, Uncle Bob was bitten by a five-foot bull shark and later at 70ft below sea level he ran out of air. These events have taught me that scuba diving can be a dangerous activity, that I must be aware of my surroundings, to refresh my scuba training and to remember safety techniques.
The objective of competitive swimming is to be the fastest to swim a particular length of water using a certain swimming style. Relay events and individual events are both available in competitive swimming. The rules and regulations of swimming are set out by the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA). There are a few key rules that should be noted to avoid disqualification in competitive swimming. A false start will lead to immediate disqualification even when participating in a relay event and can be devastating to the team or individual. The other key rules are based on technique used in races. One common disqualification occurs in breaststroke and butterfly, where the swimmer is required to touch the wall simultaneously with both hands parallel for every turn and finish.
Things were not quite that easy for me, but the teacher was very patient. After a few more weeks, when I seemed to have caught on with my legs, she taught me the arm strokes. Now I had two things to concentrate on, my arms and my legs. I felt hopelessly uncoordinated. Sooner than I imagined, however, things began to feel "right" and I was able to swim! It was a wonderful free feeling - like flying, maybe - to be able to shoot across the water.
“Only 56 percent of Americans can perform core swimming skills” (Feeney). These skills include things like jumping or stepping water over one’s head, returning to the surface to tread water or float for one minute, circling around and identifying an exit. Swimming 25 yards to that point and then exiting the water. Than there are stories of people who are 70 plus getting in the pool and learning to swim for the first time and how it is helping them live longer and happier lives. Swimming has been helping people physically, mentally, and socially.
The history of swimming is something that is dated back before the start of time and has always been a part of human culture in one shape or form. It has been around for a millennia, because human beings have always used swimming as a technique to stay above water and to move and flow through the water. Many visuals of proof that humans were swimming from the start of time have been found, including drawings and detailed paintings of swimmers on the walls of a cavemans home. Many old books mention swimming, even as a sport - In the Bible it mentions people swimming and in the Odyssey stories were also told of it, Even in the time of the ancient Egyptians there was proof that people had been swimming, and it’s been said that there were drawings found that dated back to 4000 BC. where people were swimming. In the 15th century, knights were made to swim during their training. Although the swimming in that time was not a form of organized swimming, but rather a simple technique to stay floating above the water, it shows how humans have always used this form of physical activity which shows how crucial it is to our race.