Prose and Kahn

IMPORTANT REMINDERS FOR ALL DAM MEMBERS

OLDTIMERS – Now that the weather has finally changed for the good, we’re picking up new DAM members every week. In fact, since the first of March, 56 swimmers have registered for DAM on the USMS website. Part of the DAM renown is not only our team size, but our legendary camaraderie. Let’s all make sure to welcome new members onto the team. As DAM Ambassadors it’s our responsibility to introduce ourselves to new faces and begin instilling our special esprit de corps.

One way is to lead by example.

• Volunteer to help with the pool covers. That means EVERYONE of the 6am swimmers is invited to help take off the covers, and ALL of the 7:15pm folks are invited to stay and help put them back on again.
• Wouldn’t you know it, after having said all that, summer is here and the covers will soon be off until September.
• DAM members who want to bring a friend to tryout our team should know that each prospective member gets 3 FREE PRACTICES within a two week period. (Open Lap Swim on the weekends does not count as a practice).
• Also note, any swim guests who are USMS members, but are just visiting, should pay the $10 visitor/drop-in fee.

 
NEWCOMERS – Here’s some basic reminders to help you navigate our DAM waters:

• Stop at the poolside podium & sign in on the daily attendance sheet. Be patient as the coaches learn your name.
• Be on time. After 5 minutes into the practice, any lane that reaches a 5 swimmer capacity is typically closed and additional swimmers are not allowed. If you enter the pool before the 5 minute window closes, the coaches have the option of placing 6 swimmers in a lane if the practice theme warrants.
• Check to see which equipment has been placed on the deck. Long fins, Zoomers, paddles and pull-buoys are of different sizes and shapes, and selected by personal preference. The kick boards are generic. (Occasionally an individual DAM swimmer will take a piece of equipment from the closet that’s just for them and NOT part of the practice theme. Don’t get distracted. Just look for what the coaches have on display.)
• Check the top of the whiteboard for the weekly rotation of Lane Assignments.
• All practices begin with a ‘Do Your Own Thing’ 10 minute warmup. The warmup ends at 10 minutes after the start of practice. Please watch the clock and be at the wall at the appropriate time; you don’t have to wait for the coaches to yell at you.
• Circle swim in a counter-clockwise direction. Leave 5 seconds apart, unless otherwise directed.
• When stopping during a set, wait in the oncoming right-hand corner.
• When stopping after a set, wait in the oncoming left-hand corner.
• A tap on the foot means the person behind you would like to pass.
• If the swimmers in your lane are too fast for you, and there is room, move down a lane. Permission is not required
• If the swimmers in your lane are not as fast as you, and there is room, move up a lane. Permission is not required.
• Swim the practice with as much personal intensity as the session calls for. Stop and rest when needed.
• Since attendance at DAM is not mandatory, and we never know who’s coming to practice or not, the coaches don’t build recovery days into the training calendar. Every practice offers some element of challenge and intensity.
• The DAM training pattern follows a 4-day emphasis inside of a 5-day week. The easy-to-remember sequence is the acronym KISD. Kicking & Pulling day is always followed by IM/Stroke day. Then comes Sprinting (High Intensity) followed by Distance (High Volume). Whatever is swum on Monday is the repeated theme on Friday. Please note: Saturdays, Holidays and Long Course do not follow the above pattern.

SUMMER SWIMMING – From June 4 to August 8, DAM will offer long course practices at the Schaal pool on the UCD campus.

• Practices will be on T/TH only, at 6-7am (4 lanes) beginning Tues, June 4, and 6:10-7:10 and 7:10-8:10pm (4 lanes) starting two weeks later on June 18. There will be no Arroyo practice on those mornings but the Civic practice will be maintained at 6 and 7am. There will not be Civic practices offered during the evenings on those days.
• The user group in the water prior to our DAM evening session is swimming yards and they end at 6pm. It takes about 10 minutes to switch the pool over to the long course configuration, thus the 6:10 starting time.
• DAM swimmers arriving for the 6:10pm practice will be expected to help put the long course lane lines in the pool, while the DAM swimmers staying through the end of the 7:10pm session should plan on helping take the lane lines out.
• Please remember that DAM swimmers who bring visitors to Schaal that there is a guest fee of $10/swim, payable before swimming.

LONG COURSE CHAMPS – The PacMasters Summer Championships will be back at the College of San Mateo this July 12-13. Full meet information can be found online soon at www.clubassitant.com.

An “I’m interested in Long Course Champs” sign-up sheet is posted at Civic pool. Please let the coaches know your intentions asap. It will help us secure the best possible hotel accommodations and begin planning our relays. Last summer, DAM took 35 swimmers to the meet and took second place in the medium size team division.

USMS NATIONAL CHAMPS – The long course championships will be in Mission Viejo this August from the 7^th through the 11^th. Full meet information is available online at: http://www.usms.org/comp/onlineentry.php?MeetID=20130807MVNLCNL

Another sign-up sheet is posted at Civic Pool for this meet. Please let the coaches know if you’re interested in attending asap. We’ll try to get a block of rooms at a discounted rate at a nearby hotel.

 (end of column)

DAM Workout and Lane Etiquette Reminders

from Coach Stu & Coach Mary

 ·Guest swimmers and tryout swimmers. Visiting USMS swimmers pay $10 per swim (or $16 per week if on a short stay). Relatives and guests of DAM members must be USMS registered and pay the visitor fees. Swimmers trying out the club for the first time, may attend 3 coached practices in a two-week period. The weekend lap swim is for registered USMS members only.  Please sign in for both weekday and weekend sessions.

· Red Card swimmers MUST present their red cards to either the coach or lifeguard for sign-off prior to each swim session. New cards must be paid for and authorized by a coach or lifeguard.

· Be in the water on time. Priority numbers and workout assignments will used to balance the lanes up to 5 minutes after the start of practice. After the 5 minute mark, a lane with five swimmers is considered closed. If you’re late and your lane is full, look to move UP a lane, not down, if you want to swim. Coaches reserve the right to organize and reassign swimmers to lanes according to group and practice needs.

· Do the warmup. Recent studies agree that functional motions, not static stretching, are necessary to increase muscle elasticity and elevate heart rate. Since not all practices begin with a pre-set, utilizing the 10 minute warmup will help prepare you properly. Please watch the clock and plan on stopping to listen for directions at the 10 minute mark. Warmups should include drills, kicking, sculling and a wide range of strokes and motions.

· Introduce yourself to fellow DAM swimmers. We’re the largest Masters club in America with over 500 members. Get to know your teammates, they might just be your neighbor.

· LISTEN CAREFULLY to coach’s instructions. Duh!

· If you arrive at practice late, alert your lanemates of your arrival. Don’t assume they see you jump in.

· If you touch someone, go ahead of them.

· If your lanemates are too fast, move down one lane.

· If your lanemates are too slow, move up one lane.

· After a repeat, wait in the left-hand corner (as you arrive).

· During a repeat, wait in the right-hand corner (as you arrive).

· If you leave practice early, alert your lanemates before you go.

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 Did You Know?

That when viewing the monthly calendar you can click on the daily theme word to reveal the main set?

That during the OHS month Kim Elsbach's family contributed over 18,000 yards to the DAM team total? Kim's dad and brother who live in Omaha represented DAM, as did her sister in SoCal. Kim, who turned 50 in January and moved up an age group, was eligible to swim twice and totaled over 9600 yards by herself. 

That this is a quote from the New England Masters website. "NEM is the largest and most diverse club in the NE-LMSC. We have over 1500 members and over 80 different workout groups swimming in pools across every New England state. Our swimmers enjoy everything from beginner fitness swimming to local, and even Olympic, competition."

That February 10th is the deadline for the OHS entry at www.clubassistant.com and the final date to drop off dry goods or checks for the Yolo County Food Bank at Civic?

That on January 31, the Davis Parks and Rec Commission rejected the City sponsored pool feasibility study that recommended a 35 meter pool and water slide at the Community pool site? Instead, the Commission is supporting a further study into a competitive shaped, 50 meter pool.

That there 3 PacMasters swim meets within a 4 week period from March 10 through April 7? The Cal meet is outdoors at UC Berkeley, the USF meet is indoors and the spring short course champs are again in Moraga at Campolindo HS. If you're only going to swim one meet, choose the Moraga Champs. If you're looking for a pre-Champs tune-up, try either of the other two. The coaches will be at both.

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PERCEPTION STRETCHERS

(Excerpted from The Mental Edge –Maximizing Your Sports Potential With the Mind-Body Connection, by Kenneth Baum, 1999)

10 ways to help you change your thinking about what you can accomplish in sports, despite what you and others may have believed about limitations and shortcomings. They will warm you up for what’s to come, expand your vision, and help you prepare for athletic success.  

1. A loss becomes a gain – Rather than looking at ‘failures’ as major disappointments (which they very well could be), turn the loss into a gain, using it as a motivation to change your way of training and thinking in order to enhance your chances of future success.
2. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. – For many athletes, their egos are much too involved in their performance. As a result, they stubbornly resist making any changes, refusing to admit that there might be a better way to practice or to play. But, in fact, both the mind and the muscles grow through stimulation and by doing thing differently and better.
3. The imagination is more powerful than the will – Tap into your own creativity and apply it to your own training and competition.
4. Bodies work perfectly; the mind gets in the way – let your body function in the way in which it already knows how to work. That means analyze less, and just let things happen. If you’ve trained properly, both physically and mentally, your body will perform up to its own potential if you just step back and let it “do it’s thing”.
5. Limitations are temporary – Throughout life, we are constantly growing, reaching peaks and leveling off. But as frustrating as plateaus and apparent limitations may be in sports, they can become a launching pad to the next level of achievement. If you find yourself trapped beneath a seemingly impenetrable glass ceiling, desire is your greatest ally. You have to love what you’re doing and have a genuine passion to go beyond where you find yourself.
6. Anyone can play any sport better – pattern yourself after the excellence of others. Select an outstanding athlete and break down their skills into mini-steps that will create a pattern when you play. Use visualization and imagination to develop a better performance by seeing yourself exactly ass you want to be.
7. Events have no meaning except what you give them - Nothing really changes except the meaning we give it. Anxiety is not a tangible thing floating in the air around you. It’s something that you create internally. While you might think that stress is an inevitable part of sports, you can learn to eliminate it as quickly as you’ve created it, or use it play better.
8. Getting better is more important than winning – your goal should always be to perform at a peak level. An emphasis on winning limits you, and cheats you of some of your potential.
9. Practice like you play – practice the way you want to perform, because that’s the way you will perform. The focus and intensity you bring to practice will reward you on game day. Practicing perfection makes perfect.
10. The more you expect from a situation, the more you will achieve – modest expectations tend to produce modest results. Focusing on the possibility of real success sharpens the senses, soars the enthusiasm, triggers memories of real achievement, activates muscles to their highest levels and brings you a step closer to realizing your potential.

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2013 Swim Year ‘At-A-Glance’ 

Prose and Kahn

Dec 10, 2012

CIVIC THEFT UPDATE

We’re pleased to inform you that the thieves who took the wallet and iPhone from the Civic locker room have been caught. The suspects were two women from the valley who had stolen at other locations and were apprehended that same night in American Canyon (near Vallejo).  Please remain vigilant in protecting your belongings while swimming.