I Love to Swim, My Mentor

I love to swim, I’ve always loved to swim.  I’m pretty good at it.

Madam toastmaster, fellow toast masters and treasured guests, let me tell you I am not as good at it as I could be but I am better than I used to be.  An excellent mentor helped me get a lot better.

We need to back up in time a bit.  About 10 years ago I decided I wanted to exercise more.  There are only a few kinds of exercise I do not hate.  But I love swimming.  I love being in the water, I love the feel of the water as it moves over my body.  I love floating and playing in the water. 

As a child swimming was one of the few things I felt I could do better than my sisters.  I took swimming lessons and learned how to move in the water more effectively.  I thought I knew how to swim.

I bought a membership to the local pool – Steinbach Aquatic Center – Now I must side track long enough for a quick commercial.  It is the best pool ever!!!  Amazing set up for kids.  Nice changing rooms.  Amazing staff – right staff I’m wanting to tell you about my mentor.

I started swimming, some laps. More laps, really quite a few laps, enough to add up to 1 km.  My back started to hurt.  I wanted to swim better.  Finally I asked a guard if she would give me any tips about improving my swimming.  Her response was enthusiastic.  In fact I think she had watched me enough she already had her answer.  She gave me two things to try.  I worked on those things and asked for another hint.  She told me to come to “masters swim.” I had seen the people who do masters swim – they are racers doing a gazillion laps or are working on doing a triathlon.  I was not in that category.  The lifeguard who became my swimming mentor convinced me that I was able to come to masters swim, that at masters swim everyone works on their own skills and at their own rate. 

Toastmasters makes a clear definition between a coach and a mentor.  And although Danny coached me on many specific aspects of swimming she became a mentor.  She saw me as a swimmer, and helped me to see myself as a swimmer, one that could swim master’s class.  She asked me what I wanted to get out of swimming, talked to me about my sore back, gave me attention in spite of my feeling so awkward in that situation.

I showed up for Masters and found out I do everything wrong.  No one said this it is how I felt.  Everyone was welcoming and totally kind.  I needed to relearn front crawl and back crawl completely.  Now, the instructor did not say that right out, but I did figure it out.  Worse some of the things I had been so proud of like how I held myself straight like a board in the back crack were now considered incorrect.  There were two major problems.  One, I was unaware of how I was positioning my body and; two, what was correct technique in swimming had changed since I had last taken swimming instruction.

Danny, short for Daniele felt that my back would not be stressed if I swam with my head in the water.  I was shocked!  I did swim with my head in the water - - apparently not. It was hard for me to accept that this was a problem for me at first.  We worked on many drills and reminders to keep my head down really down.  Sometimes I wanted to yell back at her –  “my head was down.” Obviously it wasn’t. 

Soon Danny saw the other part of my problem.  You can’t keep your head down when you are swimming unless you role making getting a breath possible.  I was trying to just pick my head up but then you can’t get it back down again in time.  So we did many different drills and activities to get me to roll.  Danny came in the water with me and turned my body to show me.  I was so pleased that Danny could see what I needed.  She was always encouraging.  When I dunked myself trying a new drill she laughed and said well that wasn’t the answer let’s try something else.

When I did get it right or closer to right Danny was very clear.  That was it.  You had it for the first part of that lap.  Wow I wish I could video that to show others etc..

Now this sounds like a coach and Danny is a great coach but even when we were working on one or two specific skills Danny always kept the whole picture in mind.  “OK we’ve been doing slow drills so far today why don’t you do a different stroke for a while so you get some exercise in today.  She checked if my back was feeling any better, which it was.  She remembered to check that I was still meeting my goals and that I was overall still enjoying swimming.

I think Danny’s most common phrase to me was, “good and now…”

She made sure to point out to me the gains I had made.  You used to have trouble rolling but now that is good we can work on something else.  Or we have made so much progress with front crawl maybe we can leave that for a while, What else do you want to work on?

One day there were a lot of people at Masters.  My amazing mentor did not check on my swimming.  I wanted to yell, “Teacher, Teacher! Look at me!”  I cannot remember feeling this way so clearly in my life.  I needed her to tell me I was doing well.  I wanted to know what to work on next. 

As a protégé relearning swimming I realized that I had a general idea of what I wanted to do and to get better at but I needed help in seeing the specifics and finding ways to work on it.  I could see her keeping my goals in mind as we worked on specific skills. 

I have been in several mentor and protégé situations over my career but it is this teenage girl that showed me a lot that I think of when I am teaching and I hope to remember when I am mentoring.  Remember what the protégé wants to learn.  Always be encouraging.  Work on one skill at a time.  Find a new way to approach   if the first way isn’t working. Be specific in encouragement and skill development.  Add skills at the rate the student can learn.  People, especially protégés want to be noticed.  Mentors are the people who can do that.