12072011 Swim Squad Timing

Dear Team,

Please see below for swim timing. I'm glad to see some of you are gaining a lot of progress in the swim!

Yukari just did a sub 20minutes 1km swim last sunday!

Sam's stroke is undergoing changes and thus the drop in timing.

Ben's swim is getting faster by the sessions!

Wilson is now officially second fastest in time when vincent's not around :P

Calvin's so powerful that he is "dragging" his buddy in the kick part.. - no price for guessing who the buddy is. :P

Teck Beng's textbook like swim stroke is gaining recognition not just from me but coaches like Fred and the China lifeguards themselves.

Saori's just too fast and furious for a non club swimmer.. I don't know how else to put it. =p

Lawrence's swim is so so smooth now that he can totally chill and still keep up with you guys.. hmm.. maybe this is not something to be excited about. :P

------- Without further ado, below is the training program, followed by the timing------

PROGRAM...

TIMING....

Note: Below is some very honest feelings about the team that I had right now.. it's about striking a balance between expectations of me as a coach and the complacency of us being achievers... Read on if you care about team sapphire and I sincerely hope we will all advance towards a FASTER SWIM TIME by the end of the year!

The only complain I have about this training session is the timing given to me is still not accurate for some of you guys despite the constant prompt for accurate numbers for proper documentation. 

I do understand that most of us are in the team to enjoy the time swimming together but I hope the team can understand that it is a responsibility of mine as the trainer to keep track of benchmarks and consistently introduce results and improvements in order for the team to continue to feel intrigued and improved each session.  And without proper documentations, it is just impossible to see the tangible results and keep the fire burning. I am NOT complaining about doing the documentations because I love doing it for our team... but I really hope each and everyone of us will take more responsibilities in our own swim time and progress so we can have things to look back and forward on.

The reason for raising this up is I do not wish for the wednesday swim session to become a time whereby everyone just come for a gathering. Because the passion for SOCIAL Gatherings will fade but the Heart and Curiosity to learn and improve SHOULD NOT. I hope everyone continue to come with a mindset to improve and learn. 

Do you remember the very first time you came to Team Sapphire? It was so much talking from me and so much learning on our parts, both you and I and each and every session, everyone of us went back with something to work on and I will work on getting louder and lasting longer in my nags. 

I need to sound out that I really hope and expect the team to keep on growing, my dream is for this Team to be doing sub 1 minute 50m swim repeats for every single one of you by the end of this year. It is very doable and I have faith that if you guys continue to trust in me and we both do our parts in giving our best in training and sharing, WE will both reach this target by the end of the year. 

To be honest, at times, I do not dare to speak up about these because I still am a 27 years old brat to most of you guys in the team and I respect that age and experience difference. I've spent time knowing each and every single one of you in the team as much as I possibly can and I know that indeed some are satisfied with what we have already and I too respect that because I don't want to enforce a dictator's will on the team about progression.. 

Instead of speaking up on that, I have chosen to continue my very own education on swimming, triathlon, human and exercise physiology and biomechanics all these times when I am training you because I wish to set the example that no matter how good we can become, we should not take our skills attained for granted and should maintain humbled by the enormity of the whole subject's complexity. 

Many a times when we've accomplish something in a subject we were not good in, we tend to forget how bad we were and how far we have to walk to get to where we are right now. Let's NOT be in that kind of times.. lets ALL continue to have a LEARNER'S Mind and BEGINNER'S Curiosity. Let us ALL be THIRSTY for knowledge in the team once again! For it will bring us further than you've dreamt, not just in swimming, but in your fitness and health and That is your greatest wealth.

Cheers

KK