Newsletter March 2013

LBA Swimmers swim with Heart until the bitter end!! And We Couldn’t be more proud!

The last month of the Short Course season is always a busy one, however this year was no exception! With 6 meets crammed into one month, it was busy for Parents, Coaches and most of all for the swimmers! And LBA Swimmers do what they do best; step up on the blocks, and race their hearts out!

The first weekend of the month was the Metropolitan 8-under Championships held in West Nyack, NY. At first when we knew this meet was up in West Nyack, we didn’t know what kind of turn out we would for the 8-unders, but despite Sandy messing with our schedules, and the travel aspect of the meet, we are proud to say that we had over 30 of our youngest LBA Swimmers compete in this meet. We had very few DQ’s at this meet and each and every swimmer either did a lifetime best time or did an event for the very first time! How amazing is that!! Congratulations to each and every 8-under swimmer who are the future of our LBA ; Rio Arrengo, Chandler Asher, James Cash, Lily D’Andrea, Caroline Davis, Fiona Emiri, David Fayngersh, Ramiel Fayngeresh, Julia Gillego, Joseph Henry, Tess Howley, Sarah Kavanagh, Cooper Kramer, Katherine Lynch, Sarah Magen, Dylan Monaco, Margaret Moriarity, Sofia Paggi, Gwendolyn Posner, Charley Quinn, Delwin Santana, Daniel Savransky, Justin Shnayder, Steven Shnayder, Jack Skarren, Nora Smith, Samir Souidi, Luke Strauss, Alana Wangerman, Michael Wangerman, and Benjamin Zelentz!

The following weekend was two meets: Maggie Aroesty and Coach Gail traveled to Orlando, Florida for the 2013 NCSA Junior Nationals and 50 swimmers competed in the 2013 Metropolitan Junior Olympics. This was a new experience for Maggie and what an experience it was. Being just about the youngest there, and swimming besides the best of the best in the country (plus an Olympian in the mix) can be a daunting experience, but Maggie raced her heart out just the same. She swam the 50-100-200 breast, 200 & 400 IM and got a lifetime worth of experience from those few races. While Maggie and Coach Gail were in not so warm Orlando, the rest of us were back in Snowy NY for Junior Olympics. Junior Olympics was an odd meet this year, because of the lack of recovery time in between events that many of the older swimmers have become accustomed to at the bigger meets. It was a good learning experience for the swimmers to learn how to adjust to very little recovery time! While we had just under 50% of lifetime personal bests with 23 Swimmers doing a lifetime best, our goal is to always have a bit more than that at a championship meet, for this year for whatever reason that just didn’t pan out for us. But we are very proud of those swimmers who were able to race to a best time; Ethan Bonney, Kellie Cannon, Matthew Cannon, Kyle Cornish, JT Devine, Caroline Farrell, Malia Freedhand, Arjun Gupta, Brooke Harrington, Dylan Harrington, Morgan Harrington, Connor Lent, Caroline Longo, Mary Kate Maher, Emily McDonnell, Emma Meade, Erin Quinlan, Jose Santana, Kyle Sheinberg, Ryan Sheinberg, Arik Sionov, Kaley Skarren, Catherine Stanford, Kevin Stapleton and Brooke Waller! Whenever we have a meet that is trials-finals, of course our goal is not only to make finals but to swim fast in finals than you did in prelims (even if it is not a best time!)  Sometimes, the hardest part is just making it back, because once you make it back, the atmosphere and adrenaline take care of the rest! This year I can honestly say, we did a great job at this! Everyone who made it back for finals, swam faster in finals than in prelims, with some amazing lifetime bests as well along the way; congratulations to Ryan Aroesty, Matthew Cannon, Caroline Farrell, Brooke Harrington, Emily McDonnell, and Kaley Skarren!! Congratulations to all!

The following weekend was more travel for us! Some got on a plane and went south to Christiansburg Virginia for Sectionals and other of us drove out east to Sachem for the Bronze Champiosnhips! Coach Gail brought 5 swimmers to sectionals this year, 3 of them for individual events and 2 were kind enough to make the trip to compete in 2 relays! And What a great job all 5 did! Maggie Aroesty, James Canner and Morgan Harrington had the experience of individual events and Caroline Farrell and Caroline Longo were amazing team players and did amazing jobs on those relays. And while they were going after both team records, they did get one team record in the 400 Medley relay of Caroline Farrell, Maggie Aroesty, Morgan Harrington and Caroline Longo with a time of 4:11.02, the best they have ever done as a relay together and breaking a senior girls relay record (which the previous girls did when they were seniors in High school, and this group consisted of 1 freshman and 3 8th graders; Pretty amazing!) While that group was in Virginia, there were 65 of us out in Sachem for Bronze Championships. I’m not quite sure what it was about this particular meet, but I felt this was one of the best meets of the season, the energy was high and the swimmers were on fire in the pool! This really seemed to be the breakout meet for many of our swimmers with 98% of LBA swimmers doing at least one lifetime best! And some dropping over 10 seconds in just one event! Congratulations to our swimmers doing a lifetime best; Kailey Ahearn, Madeline Allen, Emily Bergin, Kyle Bergin, Ethan Bonney, Sean Carr, Samantha Chase, Kyle Chin, Danny Cornish, Kyle Cornish, Chloe Curley, Michael D’Andrea, Bella Davis, Caroline Dolan, Grace Dolan, Kate Duffy, Madison Ekstrom, Trevor Foti, Malia Freedhand, Isabelle Gaudet, Grace Gibson, Isabella GIllam, Kaleigh Gilroy, Deanna Gonzalez, Arjun Gupta, Hannah Harkins, Try Heller, Aidan Hoey, Ciaran Hoey, Onagh Hoey, Shane Hoey, Alexandra Hwang, Amanda Kipnis, Linday Krantiz, Andre Lipiec, Shannon Maroney, Neilly McCarthy, Emma Meade, Caitlin Monaco, Dylan Monaco, Sophia Munier, Makayla Pearce, Erin Quinlan, Amy Ramon, Freddy Ramon, Jack Rand, Erik Roll, Katherne Roll, Jacob Sanchez, Jose Santana, Remi Schott, Amanda Sciano, Faith Sheinberg, Michael Simao, Arik Sionov, Ben Sionov, Kaley Skarren, Gabriela Solis, Suraya Souidi, Brooke Waller, and John Weber.

The following weekend and finally the very last weekend of the season 5 LBA Swimmers traveled to Rochester, NY to compete as part of the Metropolitan Zone Swimming team, which consists of the best of the best from the various teams in the Metropolitan area! This is always tricky meet for swimmer, the 11-overs are traveling and staying as a team without their parents, it is also very likely that there will not be LBA Coaches on deck coaching them (just watching in the stands). So as coaches we always say, “we don’t expect best times at this meet, but we want them to have fun and learn some things along the way about themselves as swimmers” Well, we were proven wrong in the best possible way this year! Not only did the swimmers (coaches & parents) have a really good time, we are also proud to say that all 5 of our LBA Swimmers placed in the top 10 at this meet!! That has never happened where all of our LBA swimmers placed in the top 10 at a Zone Meet!! Although 10-unders did not swim prelims-finals, both Mary Kate Maher and Catherine Stanford placed top 10 in all their events and did best times in all their events (3 events each). The 11 & overs did have prelims-finals at this meet with the top 10 making it back, and the 3 of our 11 & over swimmers did just that. Ryan Aroesty made finals in the 200 fly swimming a 2:09.77 in the morning and 2:10.08 at night, very impressive for a grueling event! Caroline Farrell made it back in the 200 IM swimming a 2:15.24 and 2:15.98 at night, what consistency!! Michael McCarthy made it back in the 200 fly swimming a 2:05.39 in the morning and a best time of 2:03.56 in the evening!

What a truly amazing season this has been!! Congratulations to each and every LBA swimmer for a great season, which may have been full of ups & downs at times, but in the end we all raced our hearts out and showed what a team is all about!!

Congratulations to all!!!

Deliberate Effort

 

 

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“Normal People Don’t Do Deliberate Practice”

 

Guy Edson, ASCA Staff

 


First of all, there is nothing wrong with being “normal”--- it’s just that in athletics, and in scholarship, and in arts, and in business, and in charity, and in faith, and in relationships we take note of the EXTRA-ordinary person, sometimes with a bit of envy, but more often with a big smile, being happy for the person and what they have been able to accomplish.  What sets apart the normal from the extra-ordinary is oftentimes the result of deliberate practice.

 

 

 

Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, a professor of Psychology at Florida State University, has been a pioneer in researching deliberate practice and what it means. According to Ericsson:  "People believe that because expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance the expert performer must be endowed with characteristics qualitatively different from those of normal adults… We agree that expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance and even that expert performers have characteristics and abilities that are qualitatively different from or at least outside the range of those of normal adults. However, we deny that these differences are immutable, that is, due to innate talent. …we argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain." 

 

 

 

“deliberate effort”

 

 

 

One of Ericsson's core findings is that how expert one becomes at a skill has more to do with how one practices than with merely performing a skill a large number of times. An expert breaks down the skills that are required to be expert and focuses on improving those skill chunks during practice or day-to-day activities, often paired with immediate coaching feedback.

 

 

 

One time I said to our senior team, “We are now going to do 39 turns and in between each turn you have about 18 yards of swimming for deliberate, and conscious thought to evaluate your turn and make an adjustment for the next one.”  Most just swam a 1000 free.

 

 

 

Swimming is sometimes too coach dominated taking away the opportunity for the athletes to connect the dots on their own.  Counsilman said, During the initial learning stage the person much use the higher centers of his brain (the cerebral cortex) to perform the movement.  He literally thinks out his task.” 

 

 

 

“THINKS OUT THE TASK.”

 

 

 

Over the years I have had a handful of swimmers who deliberately practiced.   They often get in the water early or stay late.  They try new things.  They’re conscious.  They show me things and they ask questions.  They remind me of great basketball players who go to the gym for a few hours when no one else is around and practice deliberate hoop shooting.

 

 

 

Sorry to say that for most swimmers it’s just “swim a thousand free.”  But for the extra-ordinary ones it’s, “39 deliberate turns, thinking and evaluating.”  Ready go.”

 

 

Guy Edson has been on staff of the American Swimming Coaches Association since 1988 and is a part time swimming coach with a local club team.

Newsletter: September

Back to School and Back to Swimming: September Newsletter

The end of September is here, and finds us transitioning from Summer to Fall and finds the kids (and parents) transitioning from Carefree Summer Days to balancing School/Swimming and Family demands.

Being that we just began our season, there is not too much to report for this newsletter.  Red group and Senior group have just finished their first week back in the pool, and Blue, White and Senior Silver groups have the first day Tuesday, September 18.

As most of you know, we are no longer with Hobie Swim for our Speedo Dealer. We are now with Swimmers Choice in Syosset. We were with them many years ago, and we are very excited to be using them as our official Speedo Rep once again. They have already been out to us to do an official fitting. If anyone still needs to order any equipment, it can be done at any time. If you need to order a bathing suit, drag suit or new bag, those orders must be placed with the store no later than Monday, September 24. With this deadline in place, we should have our suits in time for our first meet in October. We also have a link to Swimmers choice on our website, and you can use the promo code of LBA2012 for 5% off all on-line orders. Thanks to the very hard work of the Parents Association, we are still using E-Van creations for our Team T-Shirts, sweatshirts, sweat pants, warm up jackets, hats and team caps.

As you all of noticed by now, we have a new team logo which means that all swimmers must have a Team suit, at least 2 Team caps, and 2 Team T-shirts (black & white). We are very proud of the team we have, and we need to look like a team at all swim meets.

Our first Swim meet will be the Marist Fall invitational at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY.  This is always a very fun meet both in and out of the pool. We look at away meets as a great opportunity for the kids to get to know one another a bit better, and also, for the parents to get to know one another better. Last year, a very large group of us went to the haunted mansion Saturday evening and what a memorable experience that was! I can honestly say that I will never forget walking through that haunted house, clinging to one another. A much smaller group ended up going to the “Walkway over the Hudson”, a bridge which spans more than mile and a half with absolutely breath taking views of the Hudson River.

Entries are closed for the following meets: Marist, Marlins 8-under meet, Marlins Distance meet, Diplomat TYR Cup, and Newburgh. Our next meet we will be taking entries for is the Long Island Express Thanksgiving invitational.  We will post the Meet information as soon as it is posted on the Metro website, and will begin taking entries at that point. 

Last year we had 2 more parents become Officials, bringing our total up to 6 and it was definitely noticed within Metropolitan Swimming.  But we still need more!! Part of getting to Level 3 in the club recognition program to have at least 5% official to swimmer ratio.  Who wants to fight for seating at meets when you can be part of the action down on deck, and really be involved with the sport? Not to mention the perks of not paying to get in and getting fed at meets! If you are interested in becoming an official, and have any questions, feel free to contact Larry Sheinberg: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

On the USA Swimming website, there is a Virtual Club Championships, which tracks all teams from around the county. We are so proud to say that in the last 3 years, we went from 22nd in Metropolitan to finishing 15th last short course season. In Long Course, in the last 3 years, we went from 17th to 12th in Metropolitan!! Each season, our goal is to finish better than the season before.

If you ever have any questions, about anything swim team related, please email Kelly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , and she will be happy to answer them!

We had one of our best years ever as a team last year, and we are looking forward to an even better year for 2012-2013!


SWIM FAST!! SWIM SMART!!!  GOLBA!!