February!

Wow, what a great month for Junior D!
SWIM MEETS
Novice series was a great success with lots of best times! All the swimmers did very well and did a good job showing off the improvements they've made in every stroke. We now have a big break between meets as we don't have another official one until April 18th, which is the next Novice Series. For this reason, Coach Braden and I will be running a fun meet on Saturday, March 21st. I need everyone to let me know if they will or will not be coming. This will make it easier to plan for how many swimmers there will be and how many races they will be able to swim. For this meet I'm hoping to pick a couple races for the swimmers, and also allow them to pick a couple for themselves. At the end, I'm also planning on having the kids try a relay because most were not able to do one at Mayflower because of the technical difficulties. More info should be coming out via email from Coach Matt in the next couple of weeks. Please be sure to check your emails from the club regularly.
PRACTICE IN FEBRUARY
Over the course of this month, I believe JD has made some huge improvements. Every one's butterfly is coming along well. Towards the end of the month we've been doing some freestyle work, specifically on swimming with high elbows. I've already seen a great change with this work. All the swimmers showed a lot of independence this month when it came to using the clock and starting themselves. The work we've done on streamlines is starting to pay off as I see swimmers doing it without me having to constantly remind them! Our 200 timed kicks were a huge success as we had almost 100% best times. Many swimmers took off 10, 20, or 30 seconds just from last month! Tristan even took off a whole minute! I am very proud of the swimming that everyone has done this past month! :)
MARCH...
The month of March will see us continuing with the work we've done so far on all four strokes. I'm going to try and emphasize doing good quality swimming, but on shorter rest. As well, we will be continuing to do more 50's and even 100's as many swimmers will be starting to do 200m events at swim meets as we move into the last part of the season. As well, I'm going to try something new in March. It's going to be called "Stars of Practice". It will be a chart where the swimmers will earn stars for doing "good" things. I have asked the swimmers to come up with ideas for things they believe would deserve earning a star. I gave them examples of supporting team mates, streamlining every time, and being a good listener. Once the swimmers help me come up with a list I will put it up on my blog.

If anyone has any questions or concerns feel free to email me or talk to me at the pool!