York swim - new swimmer test

[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me what the new swimmer test is like?

My 8 under is definitely legal in 3 of the 4 strokes.

for the 4th he’s a little iffy depending on the day and definitely super slow.

How picky are they?

[Anonymous]

Not too picky. My DD had some trouble with breast stroke, they just recommended she do some private lessons before the season began (which we did at our neighborhood pool). They don’t care about slow, but they do want legal.

[Anonymous]

OP here updating. A few kiddos from our swim team tried out with mixed results. Seemed like the assessment was heavily dependent on the coach present. Some coaches had swimmers do maybe 10 meters of each stroke whereas others required full 25 meters. I was surprised which kids passed and which didn’t/are trying again. But happy for all kiddos got in, just wish it was more consistent and fair.

[Anonymous]

Last summer at age 7 my kid had to do a 25 of each stroke with some rest in between. It wasn’t IM order — maybe free back breast fly? If I recall correctly they were more worried about legal breast than legal fly. Mine was legal in all four strokes so it wasn’t a problem. Some of the kids in the practice group definitely struggled with breast and/fly all year. They probably should have taken some more lessons because practice was fewer drills/more lap swimming than I expected.

[Anonymous]

Yup for 8U they don’t need to be legal in fly, which surprised me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here updating. A few kiddos from our swim team tried out with mixed results. Seemed like the assessment was heavily dependent on the coach present. Some coaches had swimmers do maybe 10 meters of each stroke whereas others required full 25 meters. I was surprised which kids passed and which didn’t/are trying again. But happy for all kiddos got in, just wish it was more consistent and fair.

Ours required close to 50! Kid was very close on breast but not quite. Seemed like they wanted to watch more before making the call. It was fine, kid needed (and still needs) more stroke refinement over straight conditioning.

[Anonymous]

In general breast is a technical stroke and needs specific instruction to get legal. Some kids just ‘get it’ but those that don’t need a fair amount of individualized correction and it’s important to get that correction so bad habits don’t get engrained. Fly is often just a matter of strength. It’s not that they don’t understand what to do, it’s that they lack the strength to get all the way down the pool. That’s why York cares more about breast. They aren’t equipped (outside of swim school) to be fixing an individual kids breast. They can work on strength for fly.

[Anonymous]

I will recommend a stroke based program. Ours went to a team before he was ready, legal in 3 strokes and I feel he missed out on stroke correction. I would do teams once you’re already fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In general breast is a technical stroke and needs specific instruction to get legal. Some kids just ‘get it’ but those that don’t need a fair amount of individualized correction and it’s important to get that correction so bad habits don’t get engrained. Fly is often just a matter of strength. It’s not that they don’t understand what to do, it’s that they lack the strength to get all the way down the pool. That’s why York cares more about breast. They aren’t equipped (outside of swim school) to be fixing an individual kids breast. They can work on strength for fly.

Yep exactly this. Breast is the most technical even if it looks easier. Many young kids scissor kick or pull their hands past their hips. You have to master the timing too.

My 8 and under swam for York last year and they worked on breast a lot. But there wasn’t a coach in the water. It worked well for my kid because they were already legal, just inefficient. The coach was teaching them how to position their hands and shoot forward, and lots of drills like breast pull with fly kick. They’ve been able to build on that foundation this summer and dropped a lot of time. But it would not have happened a year earlier when they just weren’t developmentally ready to understand the timing.