Posted by alexandra_k on November 1, 2018, at 15:08:17
In reply to and another gym bites the dust..., posted by alexandra_k on November 1, 2018, at 14:55:08
And there are some good swimming kids and some good coaches. But then there's the rabble... And then there's... Worse than the rabble.
The hardest thing is people who don't have an eye for things. They can't tell.
I can tell that I can't tell some things. There are certain German syllables that my ears can't hear properly. I can sort of hear that I can't quite hear the sound. My brain can't process it properly. I can't make the sounds, either. I think there is some connect... If I could hear it properly I could make the sound. Some kind of... Mirroring.. Something like that is missing sometimes.
Watching butterfly swimming is like that for me, too. My brain can't process what I'm seeing properly. Partly because most of the work is done under the water and you sort of have to infer the bits that you aren't seeing and try and feel your body resonate with that...
That was what I connected with / fell in love with about Olympic lifting. When people are moving the bar properly it moves really really really really fast and it looks like the lifter isn't really moving at all. Like, just opening their hip angle a slight little bit and the bar pops up from their hips to their shoulders or over their head. There is a skill or a knack to precisely the movement that gets the bar to jump in a vertical direction. It looks and feels like magic when people get it right. And then when they train precisely that for years and years and years with massive amounts of weight that's how they lift massive amounts of weight. Just like that. Not as fast -- but lots of weight.
Anyway... There's this not understanding of the role / place / utility of structure and of repetition and of doing things that are hard rather than doing things that are easy / fun... vs having fun. freestyling. freeplay.
There's this not understanding that the 4 'approved' styles of swimming (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly) are aritrary ways of swimming that FINA defined (and has defined differently over time). That they are useful to train because of component skills with carry-over. But there are other ways of moving in the water that can also be useful to train (for certain purposes). E.g., sideways undulation like a tuna fish can be used in underwater pull-outs. And so on...
Anyway... People seem to resent me because I do my thing... And much of what I do is creative / unconventional. So people tend to notice. Then people get jealous / cranky about that. There's this fear that things will disintegrate into complete and utter rabble.
You can't really train Olympic Lifting when Powerlifters are in charge of the gym. Because the guys will like to deadlift the womens bar because they can load more plates onto it since it is lighter. Because there is always pressure to load more weight on (focus almost exclusively on the weight lifted) so the form breaks down and the bar doesn't pop at all.
Terminal technique.
Anyway...
I suppose I'm trying to decide whether it is worth my trying to assess the swimming situation at 5:30am. Otherwise... There's no reason for me to go back there.
You have to come in at the top only so you have power to be egalitarian. There's no other way to get that done.
That's why... If you train in the US you have to go home for 2 years after. That's responsible. Not contributing to the brain drain. If you can't get a functional team together in 2 years so it is worth your continuing... Then you can probably get back out... That seems reasonable. But that's how it has to be done. You have to learn someplace else and come back here from a position of power. There isn't really any working your way up here. The people who know need to lock themselves away, mostly. They need to live in another realm, even.
Sigh.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1101759
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20180816/msgs/1101760.html