Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I am Chris DeSantis, and I am joined as I often am by the king of the Pacific Northwest, Joel Rawlings. Joel Howard.
SPEAKER_02Not even minor royalty of it, but that's I'm good to be here. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_01You're not even a you're not even a baron.
SPEAKER_02Not even an archduke, not a baron, not not even, yeah, none of those.
SPEAKER_01I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure Baron is the lowest. Archduke's pretty high up there. Okay. I think the only thing higher than a duke was an earl. Wow. That's my knowledge of the hierarchy. Maybe a viscount like was below a baron.
SPEAKER_02That would be a good title to have. But yeah, I mean we're learning so much on these podcasts all the time, but uh about uh positive psychology, uh different orders and rankings of royalty. It'd be good, yeah. And maybe a little technique. You got it all rounded out.
SPEAKER_01I was down in Savannah last week. I was pondering this question because I I saw that there I went into a church that was, you know, the seat of the Catholic diocese, and I was like, what's the difference between a diocese and an archdiocese? Anyway, let's get into the podcast and talk about some swimming.
SPEAKER_02Sounds good, yeah. Let's hear it. Right, true.
SPEAKER_01Um, so I wanted to take the opportunity, I guess, you know, I was looking at what caught my eye in the last week, and I think what caught my eye more than anything was just the quality of swimming coming out of Bob Bowman's pro group um at this most recent pro swim series. And um I just I I think it's an opportunity for me because we've been we've been kind of touching on the Bowman stuff in a lot of these podcasts, but let's devote a whole one to it. And the the thing that I wanted to devote to, I I told you over text is Bob Bowman is perhaps the most extreme example of having coached somebody who's like the best swimmer you've ever seen. Because he literally did coach the best swimmer most of us have ever seen.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Right. And um, you know, I I I guess the the the topic, guiding topic for today's podcast are like what are the pitfalls of the experience you get from coaching the best swimmer you've ever coached? Um and I think you had some you had some ideas on it. I had some directions I want to take you. I'm gonna let you go first because I'm a gentleman and you know I always care about you and want to let you, you know, speak your mind. So when you think about this question, when you think back about the best swimmers you've ever coached, what were some of the challenges maybe that created for you in your coaching writ large?
SPEAKER_02It's been interesting, yeah, that when you talked about the two different directions of thought about because right away I started thinking about when you said the challenges was part of it like when I was at a club level, we had a couple women that are excellent distance swimmers. And so they needed pool time. You know, they're going to Olympic trials and they needed pool time uh at different times than other people that were tapering for like a state meet would need, and things like that. And so I would, you know, run an extra practice, I would do all these things, I'd be like, oh, we need to get the yardage in. And right away the first thing is you get the parent group going, that's favoritism. You know, that's that's just you know, treating them differently because they're good, because like somehow I'm gonna get something extra out of this because my extra three weeks of travel away from my family becomes the successive reward that I become entitled to. And at the board meeting, I said, you know, the funniest part to me was like we we have a uh we had at the time of um a boy that had autism, and uh some days we just there was an extra lane and we would do a set where you know instead of doing 75s or hundreds, he was able to do 50s on the same interval as everyone else, and he just loved being a part of that. And so he had a lane to himself, and no one ever came up to me and accused me of of playing favorites, you know, no one ever like there wasn't the same, you know, torches and pitchforks at the doorstep when you give that lane to that. And so right away I was like, well, you know, I I think that basically we're looking at trying to you know address everyone's needs. And so if 50 people can be net with one practice for an hour and a half, then that's great. Why should I have them come do extra practices upon extra practices that that are just there to be fair or whatever? Um, so that was one of the thoughts I had when it came up. The other thought I had was um just from a uh personal standpoint that they would have uh a disconnect sometimes with their teammates. We had a woman that came in that transferred in, and and she was significantly better than the rest of the team. And so um it was one of those where she would get out of a swim, and if she were like in the breaststroke, if she went like a 105 or 104 that day, you know, it was like for her, it is it was pretty traumatic. You know, she was like, This is just the worst day ever, you know, and you're like trying to talk her off the ledge. Meanwhile, if you get these other people like, I would kill to go that time just once in my life, you know, that kind of a thing. And so to start to explain to them is like, well, what happens if all of a sudden you win a 119 100-yard breaststroke instead of a 113? You know, it's like, how would you feel? I feel so it'd be it's one of those things where I think sometimes when you have a certain swimmer that that's uh that's achieved a lot at a certain level, everyone has this perception of what it would feel like if they had that, you know, so that they immediately think of all the the the accolades, they think of all the other things that go with it rather than the work and the the pressure that can be on them sometimes of like you've got to carry a relay, uh you've got to score X amount of points to win this meet or whatever it might be. And I think that they just look at it from their point of view of boy, I would love to swim that fast, and therefore all the woes would be taken care of, you know, versus the it's it's just the same for them. And also on the other end, getting um that person to realize that sometimes the thing that she would say, even though innocuous, could come off very negative to a teammate, where where it'd be like, you know, you know, I wish I could do this or this or this, I can't, I'm training for nationals. And like right away, you're like, um, you know, when you say that, it kind of points out the difference between you're going somewhere that they're not going to go to. You know, and so um that's that's that's what I always find was the communication and perceptions that that people have it so much better, and therefore not only is it better because they swim faster, but their lives are better. You know, that the sun's a little bit warmer, you know, the chlorine's a little less, their quality is better on their lane. They always assume that everything is going to be taken care of if they just had that little extra whatever it was that made that person faster. And so those are the pressures I always felt was just trying to make sure that the team was cohesive. And uh a friend of mine that coached basketball said that you know sometimes the head coach's role is to just make sure that the team doesn't kill the elite athlete. Because in basketball, you'd have one you know player that's really good and the plays are coming his way. That's just how it's going to be. And you've got to do your best.
SPEAKER_01And if you have one player that's really good, that makes a giant difference on your team, right? I mean, that's exactly.
SPEAKER_02And when you're at a smaller school, you have one athlete that's able to get a relay to nationals, you're like, let's make sure that this is taken care of because it's helping a lot of other people too. You know, and and I guess the last part I'll get to, I don't want to dominate it, was the idea that you know, what took them to get to a certain level of whatever they're swimming, is it means they've got some traits that are gonna be different than everyone else. You know, a swimmer that's gonna be an elite-level distance swimmer, they had a mindset to get in and train, they had a mindset to be at every practice, they had a mindset to do all this stuff, and that mindset might be the same thing as being more self-focused and narcissistic in a sense, you know, to other people that won't they won't see. And so, like in a pool setting, you get it. And then in every other setting of their lives, people just don't get it. And and so again, there's there's a part that's gonna make them a little bit different. I mean, that's again, everyone that's a elite in any profession or sport means that they've spent a lot of time in that field, and therefore maybe their uh you know knowledge of European history like yours just isn't quite as well developed.
SPEAKER_01Well, so you have so many things there that I want to talk about, and I actually see I see the connections between what you're saying because I think in the first one you you speak to you know this concept of favoritism, right? And then you talk about um some of the dynamics within the team. I mean, my I've I've adopted uh a mantra that I've seen all over the place, but my basic attitude is um fair but not equal, right? I strive to be like if I'm leading something, I want to be fair, but fair does not mean equal, right? So if you're offering uh extra practices to kids because, for instance, you have somebody that's coming to basically all the practices you have, and that's what you think that that will help them to be even better or achieve whatever they're trying to achieve, to me that's fair. It's not equal, right? It's not equal because not everybody is getting the opportunity on the other end. And those uh like, don't get me wrong, those things can be extremely challenging. That can be very, very challenging to communicate out and like and lead a group of people and get them on board with you being like, hey, guess what? There's gonna be there there is gonna be some different opportunities for different people, and that those opportunities are not just gonna be based on like, hey, if you you know, if you pay the same amount of dollars to be on this team, then you get all the same opportunities, right? That there's actual there's there is more to this equation in terms of what people are gonna get back out than the other one. And and if you take that away, right, like what I guess you you it you you disarm yourself from the potential to do more for people who I don't know, you think I I I I'm I hesitate to even say that people that you think have earned it, but just people that I don't know deserve it, people that um you just want to. I don't know, you know, people that you want to encourage. Um it can be really hard to like disarm that piece of it, and there's a certain uncomfortability that people have with this whole conversation that I think you hint to in the second piece where you start talking about, yeah, like okay, um it it can be very hard to empathize with somebody who's truly excellent at something, like, or somebody that you just perceive as better than you, because you know, you can become so you can become so shuttered in your vision of just seeing the fact that they have something that you don't have. And you can't visualize um the big picture in those situations. Um I was talking with somebody I was coaching yesterday, and you know, uh this is something I've learned through some coaching that I've received, is that like every moment you have of that jealousy, right? That like, oh, like she thinks she's so cool she gets to go to nationals, like that that ugly piece of you that gets um that gets unearthed in those moments, that's just you realizing what it is you want. Because if you didn't want to go to nationals, like you don't care. That's a good point. If yeah, if you're if your teammates going, like you're like, okay, good, have fun. Right. Like, because I don't care about going to nationals, I'd like just want to drink beer this weekend, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, no, it'd be like me being upset about not winning refrigerator repairment of the year award. Yeah, like uh what? Right.
SPEAKER_01Or gosh, another day and I failed to become an astronaut, right?
SPEAKER_02And I really thought I could, and I wanted to, and you know, or I I think also like um again to kind of take the pro sports analogy, where like um, you know, someone like John Wall who was sitting, who was like basically told, don't even come to practice, we're gonna pay you your contract 30 million a year, don't come in. And so then everybody in the world is like, oh, I'll take that deal, I'll take 30 million to sit around and do nothing. And for John Wall, it's the more you you read about, the more it's like this created a lot of mental health issues for the guy. And again, it's like the reason you're okay taking 30 million and sitting out is because you're not wired like that level athlete that makes 30 million dollars, where they're wired to be out there competing and doing what they can to win and to be a part of a team, and that's everything to them. The 30 million is secondary. Meanwhile, the rest of us in the world will be like, I'll take the 30 million, I don't care, do what you need, or like the kid that gets a scholarship on a swimming team. Oh, injured sitting out all the time. I'll take that, never go to practice and get everything paid for, pretty sweet. And and I think they don't realize again, again, if a guy like John Wall, who's making 30 million and is access to mental health counseling and all these things, is seriously thinking suicide. Imagine again, just the the swimmer on your team that is um you know getting that same kind of thing where there is no empathy, because like, geez, I'd be happy just sitting out and getting a scholarship and sit on a walk-on and I have to go to every practice. Like you said, it's like now we see what you want. You wanted that scholarship, you wanted that spot so much. But obviously, something in your wiring is a little bit different where you're okay to settle, and that person is not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like I what I'm about to say, if somebody wants to give me $30 million, like I am game, I am game for it, but I totally understand what's going on with John Wall. And on a, if I can just separate like you know, the emotions that I have um about it, I can recognize that it is actually truly miserable to get $30 million to do nothing. That the because all the like we weren't we weren't wired as human beings to just get rewarded for doing nothing. Like that's a miserable state for our for our mind. Our mind wants to work hard to do stuff. That's actually that's where I see the value of swimming, and where I actually can connect with this, like, you know, work works vein in the sport of swimming. There, there is a piece of it where we we know we have like the key to true happiness, which is like you work really hard at something, it is challenging, it pushes you to your absolute limits, and you achieve something, and that the feeling, the good feeling that you get from that, you can't $30 million cannot buy it. It just can't. It can't even come close. Um, in fact, it probably buys something quite the opposite. So um I think it it can be it can be easy to be envious of somebody else's um achievement and maybe what they get for the achievement, but but you don't see the work that was behind it, and that's that's that is it, that that that misery kind of aspect of it.
SPEAKER_02And every now and then, you know, that the mouse that finally gets a little piece of the cheese, that's the reward. That's enough to trip our dopamine circuits, or like we'll keep on doing this forever. And and again, they never see that work that goes into it. So the people saying, Oh, look at this person, she or he or is you know entitled to all this stuff. Like, yeah, meanwhile, so around March, when you're off in Daytona sitting on the sun drinking beer, and this person's at Nationals, that that's why maybe that's a little bit different right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right, right. And I mean, I've um I was definitely somebody who, like, I if I look back at my college swimming career, I was so jealous of the kids that I swam with that got to go to an NCA meeting or got to train and can keep going through those things. And um, I will say the one guy that I had on my college team, I had to wake him up for morning practice and drag his butt down, our one consistent NCA qualifier. So that probably wasn't very good for my own psyche in terms of like I wasn't totally watching him work hard to get there. Um but still that if I tap into um that jealousy, a lot of it came out of moments where I was just pushing, actually pushing away from what it is I really wanted. You know, like where I was um drinking myself into an absolute stupor on Saturday night, because then I could go like, oh, well, you know, I just want to have a good time. And that's I guess that's why I didn't make you know nationals this year.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, and I think if you kind of boil it down, uh kind of the the big thing here is is uh the idea that we've talked about in the past is the communication level of understanding what's really being said here. So rather than addressing a symptom of like small, like you know, under occurrence of passive aggressive behavior and little sniping things like that. Okay, what is it that you really want? And I think I think what what I've really learned from speaking with you is the idea that just put them on the spot sometime, call them into the office, whoever's like kind of being the leader, but that what is it you want? You want to go to nationals? Right then then let's let's try to figure out a plan for you to get there. And it's it's not gonna be easy and it's definitely not gonna be guaranteed, you know. But but if if you can either keep going with what you're doing or or we can take that energy and put it to something positive. Or or the kid, and I actually was speaking to a coach just yesterday, and he was talking about like what do you do when they're the kid who's just constantly negative about practice, constantly down about things like, well, I would, you know, again, it's kind of like the idea if you have a strong dog and you pull on that dog, they're gonna pull straight ahead. If you pull a little bit to the left, it knocks them off balance, knock them off balance. So, so what is it that that's upsetting you? What why why is it that you'd be so negative about this? I mean, you you came to practice. What is it? So just by switching the script a little bit, I think is enough to get the the true communication. And what you said originally, like that's what they want. They want the 30 million, of course you do. They want to go to nationals. I understand that. Now let's let's have them bring that to the forefront of their brain rather than sitting there in the back of their head getting covered up by the negativity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think even in your dog analogy, find a way to make the direction they already want to go and work for you. Yeah. You know, like you got somebody that's giving you a hard time about, oh, my kid doesn't get an extra practice. Oh, you want more practice. Great. You know, like let's let's talk about how that how that actually happens. Like, um, you know, let's see if we can't get um junior to you know all six practices he's being offered already, and then I'm I'm happy to talk about a seventh practice. Like I I want I want him to swim seven times a week, but right now he's swimming four times a week. So we don't offer him seven. We offer him six right, right. You know, like just finding a way to give people um get people into that space where they're actually talking about what they really want and looking for that commonality um of what you want too. So here's some of the stuff that I'm thinking about when I when I look at this, and and what I what I was thinking about as I actually asked the question, and I'm gonna see if I can do as good a job explaining this over text. Um sorry, explaining this on the podcast as I you seem to get it over text. So now I'm hoping that our audience will get it too. No, no, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it, Joel. I'm gonna I'm gonna speak for myself. I'm a big boy. I think I think when I look back on the best swimmers that I ever coach, I think they are dangerous. I think they've been dangerous for my ego. And what I mean by that is when I when I talk about ego, you know, I think as a coach, we all want to believe, like we we believe in some level in our knowledge, right? We we like we know like we're in it because partially because we believe, like we know what um that swimmer in front of us should do to get to where they want to go, right? And I think the best swimmers I've ever coached, they are people who can synthesize all sorts of different things I might try coaching-wise and make them work on the other end. So, like, you know, I try to adjust the way they swim a little bit, and they're like, oh yeah, I got it. And they just start doing something right away, you know, and you're just like, whoa, this is, you know, your ego says, like, whoa, this is magic. I am the most amazing coach in the world. Like, see, I just said that one thing, and now they're swimming completely differently, and like, look how cool it looks, and you know, you can start to like sort of roll downhill with this. And the thing is, it's so intoxicating that I I think you can get to a stage where you think, like, this is how it should be. And you start looking at other swimmers that you coach and you go, like, well, why don't they magically start doing it? What uh no matter like. You know, whatever I try. Like that person doesn't seem to get it. That must be their problem. Right? And then I think you can really back yourself into a corner trying to coach a group of people because you know, it may be that the person in front of you just is not they're they're just not as good at synthesizing. You know, they're not as good as taking whatever it is you've got coaching-wise and turning it into something in the other end. Um and then what you know, you can you can stay in your corner with your ego and go like, well, it's your fault. It's not going to be a very productive place to be, coaching-wise. It's not going to be very productive for the atmosphere of your team or the enjoyment or the experience of anybody there, but I guess you can. But I that's sort of what I see as the big danger. And that's sort of that is what I think about when I think of Bowman, like he must have coached Michael, and like Michael could just take stuff that he was offering up, and almost no matter what it was, he could make something amazing out of it. You know, and he could take it in an amazing direction. And you're just not ever going to coach anybody. Well, maybe, maybe Marshall, you know, is is close to it, right? But but um you're just not gonna coach that many people that can do that same thing. And if that starts to become your image of what coaching is, I think it could be really dangerous for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's what really is like um because my initial thought was just the whole conversation that you have with parents with the athletes around the elite-level athlete, as well as the elite level athlete. But when you mentioned that, I started thinking right away, like in the pro sports analogy where you know you have an offensive coordinator, offensive scheme that you're running, it's like, well, you have Michael Jordan on the team. It it works pretty well. You have Patrick Mahomes on the team. Whatever offensive scheme you're running, it's gonna work pretty well.
SPEAKER_01But then so the not a lot of people are running the triangle without Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. That seem to be the only two teams they did the triangle.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, and that's that's exactly the the chicken of the egg kind of conversation where you're like, well, is it this that made this or was it this that made this? And it's the same thing with swimming, where you can go down that path and think, well, this is how we did things, this is how I explained things, this is the progression that we've used. And I think anytime that you have an organized progression, people will succeed. And some are gonna you know succeed at a much faster rate than other people. Some will be slow adapters, some will be very quick adapters. And yes, I think I think you're absolutely right, where you get this idea that there's a quick adapter. And what I think is what you can do with that, though, is as a coach, you start to build your own confidence up as well. So that can be bad, like you mentioned, where all of a sudden you start to rely too much on what's going on. But I think that confidence on the sports psychology aspect is also something that might help more of the team. We're like, I know this is this is you know, this is the magic taper that we're gonna need. You know, that again, that that that magical phrase of taper, where you know, no no coach ever really says that, but it becomes one of those things where whatever it is, this is the test set that makes you great. This is the practice that made this person. And so you can reference back and start to create your own little mythology or your own group of heroes that this person did this set on this time, if you do this set on this time, I guarantee you can do this. And that'd be the first time someone's like, I guarantee, all I have to do is do what's on the board. I have to work hard, I listen to you, I will get those rewards. Fantastic. And I think there's a certain part that can feed into that because you have that confidence to keep moving forward. And I see, and I I don't mean to offend anyone, that a lot of times it's that bully kind of mentality of a coach, you know, where you kind of bully the swimmers into doing what you want, and you do it based on I have the experience, I'm the smartest person in the room, I know exactly what it takes, and it works until it doesn't. And then you become that one guy speaking at the uh the high school clinic, talking about how back in 1994 you had that one guy breaststroker that went 56-1, you know, and you keep referencing back until all of a sudden 56-1 is in such a great high school time, or whatever it is, you know, because because times keep moving so fast forward that basically that that canned talk you have for what made that person great has an expiration date on it. Of as soon as every kid, you know, no one wants to hear how you made that 5,800-yard backstroker anymore. They want to know how you make the 4,800-yard backstroker. And so I think that's where you can get caught up, and we've talked about this in the past too, of being uh aggressively and assertively uh willing to change. You don't be the dinosaur where you're just expecting that this is what worked. I'll keep on doing it and keep on doing it until I die. And I think a lot of times older coaches will get stuck in that mentality. And as a master's coach, I can see that in swimmers coming in, especially with their breaststroke. I'm like, obviously, you swam in like 1990s, you know, you got this wave style. Yeah, you swam for in the 70s, got that flat kind of style breast. So that like whatever little slice that they grew up in, they still have that and they're still holding on dearly with that. We're going two foot forward starts, we're getting in the water fast, getting to the surface and racing. All right, go for it, Patif.
SPEAKER_01Go for it. So, yeah. Well, so in in your description there, I think you keyed into me a way to flip this a bit, this pitfall that I imagine. And this is you know I love to do this. So um, I love that we've had this conversation and I can um start to wrap my mind around this. I think that, yes, so so your best, the best swimmer you ever coach, they're gonna be amazing at synthesizing coaching that you give them. If you can figure out how they're synthesizing what you're doing, you can teach other people how to do that, right? Like, so the difference between, I I think um the one of the biggest differences between the best and worst swimmer on any given team that you're coaching is that the best swimmer is just better at synthesizing more stuff into something that's productive for them. That's see, that's how I actually visualize when people talk about there's a million different ways, you know, to train people and a million different ways up the mountain. I don't think it's I think about it in the other direction. I think that like really good athletes, they'll figure out a way to make whatever you're giving them training-wise into something that will get them better. Like they will just they'll they'll sort it out, you know, they'll they'll turn it into a productive session. Um, and so if you can figure out like how they're doing it, you can teach other people how to do it. It's interesting. And that's really like a process more than than the techniques you're doing.
SPEAKER_02I was just listening to this podcast the other day, and um I it's a fairly well-established quote in science, and of course, it eludes me immediately. But the idea that um that if you have the principles behind something, if you have the principles behind the science based on something, or the movement pattern, or the training principles, or what adaptations you're trying to get. So if you have those principles, whatever methodology you use is fine. It's it's gonna work because you understand what's going on behind it. If all you have is methodology, you're just gonna be lost to keep on repeating the same mistakes that all these other people, you're just gonna be stuck in the history of whatever time period that that worked. So this breaststroke or this thing worked at this time slot, you're gonna keep on trying that and hoping that that again, that Michael Jordan or Patrick Mahomes comes in there and can make it work, even though it's really not principle-based. It's not something that's gonna work because it's based in science. It's just based in your own, again, your own mythology that you've created. And I think that's that's the key here, is so many times you go to these clinics, like what is it that that you can boil down to like Bowman's training styles or how he works or his progressions on things? Those are always far more interesting and far more important than what was the set that Michael Phelps did 18 weeks out of Olympic trials? You know, and and and you see all these people, it's just scribbling like mad and taking sets and workouts, basically taking all these puzzle pieces, and I'm gonna go home and just make my own puzzle piece. And it'll it'll kind of work, it'll look like a puzzle, but it's not gonna have the picture on it. You've got you've got the methodology, you you understand what to run. But you might not really know why it was run like that or on that day, or why it worked with that person. And that's I think where you get down to it. And that's why I always interested in like the psychology that that we to we talk about, because again, so much of what you have to get down to is communicating with the athlete and communicating with them what you're trying to get across so that they have more of those aha moments rather than just the accidental epiphanies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, and nobody you you use Bowman as an example, but again, it my mind immediately goes to Eddie Reese. Nobody has had more people go, oh, I read this cool Eddie Reese set, you know, and I'm like, do you think that he's really still kicking so much ass at 80 because he has the best like I don't get like I think what you're saying what I'm hearing and what you're saying, what I I agree with is that you know, and he was legendary for coming up with practice on the fly, but it's like when you know what you're when you know what you're trying to accomplish, it's pretty simple, like what you're gonna do at the other end. Right? It's the sets is not that doesn't take a lot of time to like design practice on the other end when you know what you're trying to accomplish in any given practice. You can come up with that on the fly.
SPEAKER_02And speaking of that, remember the old uh what was that flow swimming? Uh remember watching that that was that was the greatest clips, and I loved watching the Eddie Reese ones. I remember there's one uh that we'd watch quite a bit. It would be like the it was a set of like, you know, you do a 300 freestyle like on like I don't know, three minutes, and then you do a 275 backstroke on three minutes, and just keep on repeating that over and over again. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, watch it. This is just insane how everyone's going so fast. And everyone's scribbling this workout done. And at the end, they interviewed Eddie Reese, and he's talking about how obviously for them to be able to do what they're doing right now, the kids have gone home, they've gotten the rest, they've hydrated adequately, they're getting the good nutrition, they're making sure they're getting eight hours of sleep. And so basically it's like the principles of what you need to go into that practice were the things that he really valued. The practice is like, you know, for him, it could have been I scribbled that on the way to the bathroom this morning. That that's not, you know, that's not the magic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's gonna be a good hard practice, but like, you know, the it's it's it's almost brings us full circle to you talk about the two best swimmers on your team, you're offering them another practice. It's like, oh yeah, well, we don't get to do, can't, I can't even ask them to do this set if those first 10 things aren't fulfilled.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. That's and that's the magic. And that was the magic of Eddie Reese, was the idea that he was able to develop a culture with a new freshman class coming in and all these other seniors, all these things like that, the culture that this is what you do to take care of yourself to prepare for the next day of practice. So again, the methodology, it was good, obviously it's great methodology, but the magic was always what you did to get those kids to that per certain point in time and able to not only get to that point, but able to bounce back the next day and come back for another workout, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, and now we've gone far afield, I think, from the topic of you know, the best swimmer you've ever coached, but um it's been it's been it's been a great journey anyway, um, as it always is. Um and uh you any anything last thoughts to add to this um before we turn the corner to the silly part of the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's gonna get it's gonna get all right. Well, no, I I'm I'm kind of now I'm a little nervous, so just go ahead. Just hit me with what you got. Let's hear it.
SPEAKER_01Well, I want to talk about Magic Five. Um, they're a sponsor of this podcast, Magic5.com. You go magic5.com slash swim the swim brief. Sorry, the swim brief. Um don't mess that up because you won't get your 15% off your goggles. Um, you won't support this podcast. And um I've got a pair of magic fives, you got a pair of magic fives. We both love wearing them. Um and uh and it's uh it's a new new era for me in goggles. I had I got really nervous last week, Joel, because I went to go swim at the pool and I you know reached into my bag, no magic fives. And I was like, oh, Chris, you idiot, you know, like you lost your amazing brand new pair of custom fit goggles. Like, what how could you? Luckily, really good lost and found at the pool where I swam. I took every item out one by one until I found my magic five goggles again. They've been recovered, and um, I'm taking better care of them. I'm gonna get a new swim bag that's not so stuffed, so when I pull stuff out of it, it doesn't fall on the floor. You got any uh new experience?
SPEAKER_02Maybe she maybe she can do like an apple item, one of those little tags that you can put on the back of them, then you can always know where you're at. No, I I'm switching over, I'm switching over to uh open water. So I I did like uh a stupid long just straight swim, kind of a work works kind of a day for me. And uh and yeah, it was actually really nice. You can you honestly can tell the difference when you're wearing these, especially a long distance swim, is you just it yeah, how long were you? 6,000 just kind of straight swim. I'm building up, I got a big swim coming up, and so uh yeah, so 6,000 yards, didn't have to take them off. The the NFO coating was really good, and um honestly they felt really no problem at all. Because I I used those for open water, and then I went um did it, I was in the pool working out, and I it was uh you get you get used to those goggles pretty quick because all of a sudden the other goggles are fairly uncomfortable. So that there's the problem. Once you buy it, you're gonna you're just gonna end up being with those all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you are gonna be ruined. Oh, how how long is that race? Now you got my curiosity peaked. How long is that?
SPEAKER_02It's a little over 11 miles.
SPEAKER_01Damn. Yeah, I can't relate to you people, but um well, no, it's not really, it's just my own stupidity.
SPEAKER_02It's it's because we didn't adapt to the uh the metric system. I thought I saw 11, so I thought, oh, it's 11 kilometers. Well, that's awful. I can do 11k, no problem. And then it's 11 miles, and there's uh a slight, slight difference between those two numbers.
SPEAKER_01So it's a little more like 18Ks? It's big.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was dumb. Again, it's what uh much like master swimming, it's one thing to have an entry time, it's another thing to do it. Uh it's another thing to have an entry in a meet like that. It's another thing to actually attend, start it, and finish. So I guess it's three completely different things that go into a race like that.
SPEAKER_00And what are you doing the race? Uh July. Just for the listeners so we can follow.
SPEAKER_02I'll wear my Apple i tag because I'm borrowing your goggles. Uh, it's gonna be first week of July, I believe. So I so I gotta start getting fit.
SPEAKER_01I got my big meat in a month. Um, I'll give more updates on that in the uh extra podcast that I do. But I'm gonna I'm planning on shaving for my swim meet in one month. I've been feeling really good in my training.
SPEAKER_02That's that's burning the that's burning the ships. I had to warn the wife. That's that's burning the ships moving forward. Yep, there you go.
SPEAKER_01There's no going back. I had to go to my wife. I got to go, like, just so you don't freak out in a month. I am gonna shave for this competition. And she just she just sort of stared down at the ground and shook her head and was like, all right. Yeah, that's that resigned. There's no going back. Yeah, I guess I married you. Yeah, that's I knew what I was getting into. Um so yeah, I'm I'm excited uh for that as well. For those of you who want to follow for bite-sized uh positive psychology content, Christy underscore coach on Instagram, Chris Dcoach uh on Facebook. And um, I got a class going on, just about to finish up. It's been really, really great. Um, if people are interested in classes, uh I'm starting to put together stuff for another class. You can see that on my website, Christycoach.com. Sign up for coaching. Um got a couple spots opening up for coaching. So if anybody's out there listening to this and you know you want to start putting some of this stuff into practice in your own life or you know, somewhere where um you think it would be really helpful to them, I'm here for you. Uh and then for everybody else, thank you for listening. Thanks for sticking with us. If you stuck all the way to the end, I appreciate you. And um keep up, keep up the good work and we'll see you again next week.