Setting goals
One of the many aspects of swimming I’d quite like to perfect is that of the art of the tumble turn (or flip turn as some call it). The bit where you’re hurtling towards the wall and suddenly “allay-oop” you’ve done a complete 180 and are heading off in the opposite direction with barely a splash or a break in momentum. Mega-cool to watch. Amazing to feel. I would imagine.
For some of you they are second nature and you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about. However, for me, at the moment, if I attempt one, I need to make the following mental check-list once it’s over:
Am I in the same lane? (To be fair I am getting better at this)
Did I hit the wall with my feet? (Again, I’m getting better, although I wouldn’t claim to always have the optimum amount of contact or power in the push-off)
Am I headed back up along the surface? (Depressingly often I am plunging to the bottom of the pool)
Did my arms rotate like a food mixer in order to get me round? (Almost always).
Have I created too much splash? (Perhaps)
Photo by Zen Maldives on Unsplash
Was I a danger to other pool users? (Perhaps an odd one, but having once spectacularly head-butted Coach Julie Ward after a particularly vigorous push-off, it needs to be included – it’s not a good situation when you have to be apologetic and solicitous when all the time you’re in such pain yourself all you want to do is go off somewhere and have a little cry
Tumble-turns for me, then are a work in progress. One of my goals to master. One day I’ll do it and I’ll be a better swimmer for it. One day.
Most of us will have our own personal swimming goals we are working on. And, if you don’t, you probably should have if you want to improve overall. Gaols in swimming, as in life itself, are pivotal to achieving the next level of success. But deciding what those goals should be isn’t quite as simple as it might first appear. Our goals should serve as motivation and inspiration for us. Set the wrong ones and they will either be too easy to achieve or too hard and actually act to de-motivate rather than to drive us forward.So let’s take my tumble turn ambition as an example and examine if it is the right one for me (and I only realised some of the following when I started this article).
Careful and clear thought needs to be employed when setting goals. Ask yourself, can you express it in a simple sentence and also articulate exactly why you want to achieve it. That basic exercise might reveal more than you realise.
Look at the first sentence.
I said I’d “quite like to” perfect these turns. Not, I’d “really like to” or I’m “desperate to”.
Merely “quite like to”. And I went on to say that I thought they looked cool.
And I do. But is that enough motivation? I don’t enter races purely for swimming. Occasionally I might do a short triathlon but in those instances, touch turns are enough to get me round. The time saved doing a tumble turn really isn’t going to make any difference in the overall result. There’s no doubting that they would be nice to be able to do, but is pure vanity enough to keep me going to the pool time and again to practice? I can tell you for nothing that it isn’t. So it looks as if I have set the wrong goal in the first place. Once I’ve articulated it I realise that I don’t have enough dedication to achieve it. My stated goal falls at the first hurdle.
But let’s press on.
Say my motivation was greater, are there other factors at play which might impede my success?
Well, one vital one can be discounted straight away. To complete a tumble turn is definitely within my physical capabilities. I may not have the flexibility I once did but in the main everything about me functions OK and there is no particular barrier to proficiency. We are fortunate as SwimMastery swimmers that this is the case for all aspects of learning how to swim properly. As long as the limbs are capable of moving in the way they were originally designed then anything is attainable. (And even if restrictions have crept in over time there may still be strategies and techniques which can negate these shortcomings.
What about measurability and accountability? If you don’t know exactly what you are trying to achieve how are you going to know if you’ve done it? Obviously, I would know when I have improved my tumble turns inasmuch as I would have achieved the smooth transition from heading in one direction to that heading in the opposite was with the minimum of fuss. But it would be far better to set a measurable target (say take one second off my turn time) rather than just rely on what feels good. An objective measurement of performance is really the only way that you can ever be certain that you have cracked your goal.
Have I decided exactly how my goal will be attained? Can I break down the task into smaller steps and master each one before putting them together as a whole package? It’s almost always going to be better to opt for a coached approach rather than a self-taught method in order to gain that overall objectivity, expertise and advice regardless of what it is you are working on.
Finally, we should ask if this is the right goal right now? Again, going back to my first sentence I wrote about tumble turns as being “One of the many aspects of swimming I’d quite like to perfect”. There are others. (Oh boy there are others!). So my focus is unlikely to be as strong as it might. When I go to the pool there are so many things I could work on. Is doing a tumble turn the most important? No it’s not. And so I don’t give it the attention I might. (But equally, when I do practice them maybe I’d be better trying to improve something else instead). The ability of knowing where the most important areas for improvement lie may be fundamental to overall improvement.
So it looks as if I would be best not to worry about tumble turns for now and instead work on other aspects which require more urgent attention but to do so only once I have a clear idea of what I want to achieve, how I’m going to do it and how I’m going to know if I have.
Meanwhile, Julie can stop practising how to swim in a crash helmet.
