DROITWICH DOLPHINS

NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2005

Christmas Break

Last Friday Training – 16 December 2005

Last Sunday Training – 18 December 2005

Last Tuesday Training – 20 December 2005

Last Wednesday Training – 21 December 2005

Training resumes on Tuesday, 3 January 2006

There will be a special session on Wednesday, 28 December for selected swimmers – please see notice board for names

Presentation Evening

On Saturday, 28 January 2006, at The British Legion Club, Droitwich. Followed by Disco. Times to be announced

Forthcoming Events

Friday, 6 January 2006 50m Sprints Back and Fly

Saturday, 7 January 2006 Starts and Turns Clinic

Friday, 13 January 2006 50m Sprints Breast and Free

A Xmas message from Simon Hillson

It is good to be back on poolside, having been hospitalised for a short period. Thank you to every one who signed my card, the get-well wishes certainly cheered me up, and made my wife laugh.

The final round of the Speedo league has come and gone, although it was unfortunate that we finished 6^th the team performance was excellent. We were unlucky to have a number of disqualifications during the evening, and in events where we finished high up, at this level of competition we can not afford to have any disqualifications. However disqualifications can happen at any level from club championships to Olympic and World championship finals and frequently do. If you are disqualified for anything the only thing you can do is learn from it, move onto the next swim, and forget about it.

On the poolside we are starting to become a true team in performance context. By this I mean the team working together as one and supporting each other. By being a true team and supporting each other we can achieve better results both individually and as a team. Remember swimming is an individual team sport.

Christmas and the new year is come up very quickly, and now that the Speedo league has finished we can start training towards the Worcester County Championships next March and the Nuneaton Junior League starting in April.

Whilst we are on the subject of Worcester County, the Training and Development Squads are finally getting started again, with a tough selection process. I am going to be working with a small group of swimmers and conduction swimming specific test in order to gain selection. There are only 72 places cover three squads for swimmers from the 14 County clubs, so the competition for places is going to be very tough.

As there is a very tight time scale (3 weeks) to compete all the required tests I am going to be testing a maximum of 20 swimmers who are committed to training and who I feel have a very good chance of achieving selection. Those who gain selection will be attending regular monthly training sessions and training camps with the best swimmers in the County. Over the next 12 months more swimmers will be tested so that when the opportunity arises they too can be put forward for selection.

Over the last 12 months the club and swimmers performances have continually improved, in order to maintain this improvement, every one has to continue working hard and pick up their game by making sure that the basic things in training like strokes, turns, streamlining, push-offs, and kick off the wall are better not just once a week but, in every training session, on every length, start and turn. In order to improve we have to do the basic skills perfectly 100% of the time, as this is the only way to swim faster. Remember doing things right 99% of the time is the same as doing it 100% wrong. Everything has to be 100% perfect 100% of the time.

I hope that all the gold swimmers are filling in their logbooks, and I will be going though these with the swimmers over the next few weeks. Starting in the New Year, logbooks will be given out to the groups starting with the silver group.

I hope that you all have an excellent Christmas and New Year and that you get what you wanted.

Remember swimming is just like a bank, the more you put in (training) the more you can take out when you need to, and the better the performance will be!