Reply to DS12 close to A-meets but not quite

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, minor point, but shift your mindset so that you and your son do not think of the selection process as “getting picked”. The swimmers qualify to swim the A meets, they are not “picked”. This puts the power into their own hands, not the coaches.

Your son is 12- by that age, he is able to express his goals and be proactive in putting in the work. Watch him at practice and see where he is on the spectrum of putting his head down, pushing himself and trying to max every practice or having fun with his friends, goofing off and behaving like a typical 12 year old in summer mode. If it’s the latter and he isn’t asking for more practice, let him be. If he is committing to every practice and leaving exhausted, then you can help him by offering extra lessons. Swim is a sport where kids who focus and try hard in practice will improve, while kids who go through the motions of practice but cheat by skipping sets, pulling on the lane lines, prefer to talk to friends instead of swim, etc, will not. A lot of times parents don’t understand why their kids are not improving as much as they should, and when they watch a practice, it becomes obvious. Start with assessing how your son practices and then go from there. [/quote]

I used to think this, but watched some practices this year. Swimmers who were goofing off and not trying, looked bored and disinterested, are now near the top of the ladder. Others worked hard and are near the bottom. I've seen kids swim 5-6 days per week and improve marginally, while others quit winter swim and come back the following summer still top of the ladder. I don't underneath the rhyme or reason to it.[/quote]
Some of this is also team dependent. Some teams have a large group of fast kids in particular ages/genders while other ages/genders are exceptionally weak. Particularly once you get to the age groups over 12, the top teams’ fastest swimmers are generally club kids. What club swimmers are doing in summer swim practice matters very little to how they perform at meets. [/quote]

I was actually referring to effort in winter practices. Honestly, [b]I think it comes down to athleticism.[/b] Extra effort will only go so far. Have seen plenty of kids excel swimmers twice a week, and plenty of kids stay mediocre swimming 5x week.[/quote]

NP - swimming is incredibly technical.  So, while athleticism certainly helps, it's the people who have outstanding technique *and* are athletic who excel.  And if you have a 12+ year old kid who started early and developed good technique, they can maintain that on ~2 practices a week.  They won't hold a candle to kids with good technique and who swim 5x/week, usually.

If kids are truly "mediocre" swimmers with 5+ practices/week, something's off, either in coaching or effort or whatever else.  We also may have different definitions of mediocre.[/quote]
[b]I’m guessing it’s the difference in what people consider mediocre.[/b] For me, I would consider kids that plateau at the BB level, just short of making champs cuts, as mediocre. My swimmer is with a big club and there are definitely kids that show up every day and put in the work that can’t make champs cuts or maybe sneak in a couple cuts right before they age up. A lot of those kids transition out of the 5-6 day a week practice groups as they reach the end of MS though. [/quote]

PP you're replying to - it's the bolded.  I don't consider kids with BB cuts/can't make champs to be mediocre.  It's hard for me to use that term to apply to kids' sports generally, tbh, given the negative connotations - [b]especially not ones working their tails off 5+ days/week, and who aren't particularly fast.[/b][/quote]

Do you prefer middling? If you participate in a sport based on races and you aren't particularly fast, then you aren't particularly good at the sport [/quote]

It’s all relative. Would love to see you jump in and race any of these “middling” kids, PP.[/quote]

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