Kirill zubaryev

Swimming at the LAHS Pool

Kirill Zubaryev

KNOWLEDGEMENTS

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I want to thank all of Freestyle Academy for helping me on this project Special thanks to Ms.Parkinson Great thanks and warm hugs to my family and sister And a big thanks to Adobe InDesign for not crashing on me

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.........7

Introduction.............9 What is LAHS Swimming Like?............11 What is the Personality of the Team?..........13 Running a Swim Meet..............15 What is the Swimming Pool Like?...........17 Conclusion...............19 Works Cited...............21

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PREFACE

When this project was first given to us, my first idea was to do a documentary on a Russian restaurant and grocery store, but that soon fell through. The reason why the idea of the restaurant didn’t work out was because the owners of the restaurant felt that it wasn’t worth their while to respond and that they had more important matters to tend to. I soon decided that I might as well aim for something that’s closer to home: swimming. I have been swimming for a great portion of my life, and I continue to do so. After contacting my head coach and getting the all-clear from him, I had to start drafting interview questions, seeing who could be a possible interviewee, and determining how many interviews I’d have to conduct. After getting all the necessary materials, I started asking the people I wanted to interview if they were willing to be recorded; surprisingly, all of them said yes. Unfortunately, due to conflicting schedules, some of the interviews got pushed to a later date, a date that wasn’t very close to my comfort zone. I always found swimming to be a rather interesting sport, and many people don’t even have a practical view of what swimming is; they only view it as a race, nothing more. I find swimming to be more than just a race – it’s a way of life, it’s a sport that keeps you in shape, and it’s a sport that you can do at any age. But that’s just my opinion!

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O N D I o i TR Ct n

Many people have an adequate understanding of swimming. Swimming is good at helping you maintain physical condition as well as being a life saving skill. The swimming team at Los Altos high School is a good place to become a good swimmer. The team at LAHS is very demanding yet at the same time limits itself to more practical strokes that are the most useful. Swimming is not the only aquatic sport taught at LAHS, as there is also a water polo team and a diving team.

So the swimming team there ends up being a large mix of swimmers, divers, and water polo players. The coaches at LAHS coach all three of those sports, catch is is that they have to do it pretty much at the same time. Swimmers at LAHS are very determined as swimming is very hard and there are no shortcuts to getting better. Swimming at LAHS is a very important sport because it is one of the most demanding sports in the high school yet it often times goes far less noticed than other sports such as track or badminton. Yet the district and the school are highly supportive of all high school sports, especially swimming because sports are an important part of the high school experience. With some sports it is difficult to make the team without having been in youth leagues since a very young age. In order to succeed in swimming you need to focus on it full time and not do another sport such as tennis as it will be hard to succeed in either one of those sports as you are dividing your time, only weight lifting can be an exception as long as it doesn’t overlap with the swimming practices. Put yourself in the place of the swimmer, you have to wake up at 5am if not earlier to go to practice that lasts from 5:30 until 8:30, the pool water is freezing but your bed is warm, but you know you have to do it because you need to stay in shape and you feel that swimming is something you want to be not only good at, but great at. When it comes to competitive swimming, such as the type you see at LAHS, you will always run into swim meets. Swim meets are a crucial part of competitive swimming as they give you an update on where you’re standing, it’s like receiving a report card from school.

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“We went 0 for 6 last season, it was really hard for us, but we’re rebuilding and everyone is trying hard, so we’ll get there soon enough”. (Coach Seth)

глава uno (Chapter ONE)

What is LAHS Swimming Like?

The Los Altos High School swim team is very demanding, everyone tries hard and performs their best, just like Coach Seth said “All the swimmers want to be here, they all try hard, they put swimming first and they know that it’s demanding”.

Coach Seth has been coaching at Los Altos High School for about 5 years, he grew up in New York and has been around water his entire life, he felt that it would be a good decision to become a coach and later pursue his teaching degree. But hard work doesn’t always lead to success. Coach Seth told me that

“We went 0 for 6 last season, it was really hard for us, but we’re rebuilding and everyone is trying hard, so we’ll get there soon enough”.

With the team rebuilding its even more practical for everyone to be there, to be at practices, to come to all the meets, and to do your best.

Attendance can become an issue with some as they start putting other things before swimming. It’s

hard to be determined on one thing for such a long period of time without having a lot of minor goals or steps to fill all of that time in. For swimmers it can become a big issue as it takes a lot amount of time and effort to become even slightly better as the swimmer can get side tracked. So, the swimmer has to fill that space in with minor goals that will help them achieve the overarching goal. Those minor goals may be a slight perfection of technique, or a better regulated diet, a different type of workout, cross training, etc..

By having all those minor goals to focus on, the swimmer has a big-

ger sense of accomplishment and performs better. The team may be described as having a bland workout, and Luca, a swimmer, says that “I feel that Coach Seth gives us a lot of workouts that consist mainly of freestyle, and he rarely gives us workouts that contain other strokes.

This makes us, at least me, very wound up and sore, I definitely feel the workouts can use some diversity.”

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So what makes us different is the student athletes we have, they are committed, they work hard daily and they want to be good at the sports that they do. For water polo and swimming its very demanding, we have a lot of morning practices, not everyone can handle being on the water polo and swim teams and you have to have a lot of character and want to push yourself and get better everyday.

(Coach Seth)

Chapt r

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What is the Personality of the team? son wearing a shirt was late and also making that person feel uncomfortable, in a way teaching “We’re like them not to be late. The varsity a brotherhood, team does a lot of events outside especially in varsity bethe pool, such as barbeques, and cause we do so many things basketball games. The coaches together. I feel that its a safe are very supportive of the team environment and that I won’t and act in the best interests of get bullied here because every- the team and the swimmers, one here knows better and will whether it be extended practices stand up for the person being or rewards. Unlike many other bullied” (Luca) coaches, the coaches at LAHS take the time to get to know each of the swimmers personally, they believe that a good The team has a lot of customs relationship between a coach such as pushing late swimmers and the student is the key to a into the pool, or pushing in swimmers who take a long time successful career. Like Coach Richard said “Its funny how the to get in. The team also has a season starts to in late January, unique custom of making late people wear a shirt in the water, beginning of February, and by signifying to others that the per- the time it ends in April/May The team at LAHS is very diverse tight nit group, as Luca Nardin said.

you only then have the feeling that you truly know everybody and when you look around, the seasons over. And so next season you get a completely new set of swimmers and you have to start all over.”. Coach Richard and swimmer Luca show us that the team is very close and that they all support each other in different ways. Coach Richard often times brings doughnuts for the team, especially for swimmers who performed well in swim meets.

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“Home meets are nice since you don’t have to travel and you get home earlier.

Otherwise, meets are pretty similar from school to school. There are some schools that are very organized and things run very smoothly and others where they don’t run smoothly.

Running a swim meet is totally dependant on parent volunteers.” (Coach Richard)

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Running a swim meet!

Running a swim meet varies from school to school and everyone wants to have one at home. A swim meet is a swimming competition in which two teams compete to see who is better overall. According to Coach Richard “Home meets are nice since you don’t have to travel and you get home earlier. Otherwise, meets are pretty similar from school to school. There are some schools that are very organized and things run very smoothly and others where they don’t run smoothly. Running a swim meet is totally dependant on parent volunteers.”

He shows us that home meets are slightly better, but its also more of a burden on the

coaches because they have to make sure they have enough parent volunteers to make sure everything runs smoothly and everything gets done. But it is true, many people like to have a home meet because it makes their lives easier. Swimmers also tend to be more relaxed during a home meet because they are more surrounded by people they know and they are in a familiar environment, so they also tend to do better. Stress is a big part of swimming, a good amount of swimmers will perform better at practices than meets, why?

Because when a swimmer gets stressed out or nervous before an event he tightens up, his lungs squeeze in and become

smaller, his muscles aren’t as relaxed as they need to be, he ends up performing worse than he could have. According to Luca, a swimmer, he says the root of the problem may be that “We have very few quality club swimmers and a lot of water polo players who are here to only stay in shape for the water polo season, then we have a lot of new swimmers who have never really swum before.” As Luca pointed out, the team has a few amount of swimmers who have never really felt what a swim meet is like so they will react more negatively, they will become more nervous and thus perform better.

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The swimming pool is nice, the blocks are very grippy, they scraped my skin a couple of times, you know the first layer. They recently renovated the pool so its nice, I like it. Its fun. (Luca)

Chapter 4

What is the Swimming Pool Like?

The pool at Los Altos high School is very unique, as Coach Seth said “This is the best pool in the area. It was renovated last summer, we have a state of the art pump and filtration system, new solar panels. This is the best pool around, we keep it warm and covered all the time, the kids are never complaining about the pool, so I couldn’t be happier about the pool at Los Altos.”. Also, according to coach Richard “The district and the school are highly supportive of all high school sports. Sports are an important part of the high school experience.

With some sports it is difficult to make the team without having been in youth

leagues since a very young age.” Both coaches show us that the school and district are very supportive of swimming because they put in the money to renovate the pool and to keep it going. It also helps outline the idea that swimming is challenging because coach Richard said that “With some sports it is difficult to make the team without having been in youth leagues since a very young age.”. Coach Richard wouldn’t have said that if it wasn’t relevant to swimming, meaning that with swimming is challenging and its hard to succeed in swimming without having been doing it for a very long time.

The district and the school

want to challenge their students, and swimming is a very challenging sport, so one might make the claim that the district and school support it more because they renovated a pool that was already in great condition.

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Conclusion

Swimming is a hard sport, its hard to be good at it, everything about swimming is hard. The swim team at LAHS is no exception, while the equipment may not be the best, everything else is. The coaches there are amazing, the pool is state of the art, and everyone is happy. The team has a huge personality and keeps itself mentally and physically ready that way to compensate for possible lacks in performance. The practices according to some swimmers may be better as the swimmers say they are bland but the coaches seem to have a reason for making them that way.

The team struggles with meets but keeps its head high, and just like everyone else it aims to get better.

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Works Cited

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Swimming | Sport.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2015. [1] Poiler-Leroy, Olivier. “10 Things Non-Swimmers Will Never Understand About Swimming.” SwimSwam. SwimSwam, 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2015. [2] “Swimming Health Benefits.” Better Health. Better Health, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. [3] Tasman, Seth. Personal interview. 4 March 2015 [4] Nardin, Luca. Personal interview. 24 March 2015 [5] Llewyn, Richard. Personal interview 6 March 2015 [6]

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