Jen Button Clinic

Wow was I impressed with the expertise and panache that Jen Button brought to our club in tonight's clinic. For those parents stuck behind the glass, here is a recap of the evening...

Jen began by talking about her career and accomplishments. Coming from the small town of Fort McMurray, AB, Jen Mentioned that her club's rule that if the morning temperature dropped below -50 degrees (which it often did between October and May), practice was cancelled. Keep this in mind in the coming months when you're too cold to get out of bed and its only -20.

Jen swam with me for Dean Boles in the 1990s. She was a workhorse and often butted heads with team mates that were not working as hard as she was. She had the benefit of training with some other accomplished athletes. She got along with some and didn't get along with others. She, too, referenced Laura Nicholls who she trained with. Laura and her both wanted to make the 1996 Olympic Team very badly. When Laura made it and Jen failed to qualify, Jen was initially crushed, but then realized that she helped Laura accomplish Laura's dream and was able to celebrate that. Her point is an incredibly important one, that I mentioned the other day: We all make each other better; Therefore we all should celebrate each other's successes. This was a key message in what Jen had to say today.

Our water workout began with a general warm up and then jumped very quickly into fly kick. Jen was very good at exposing the weaknesses we all had in the water in dolphin kick. We learned some things about our core, the kick itself and the required amplitude through the water that I think made a lot of our athletes begin to understand the importance of this skill.



Further to that we worked on some kick with fins and breakouts off the wall, which again, exposed some weaknesses. I am not afraid to expose these weaknesses... in fact, that is the entire reason that Jen came to town. Our athletes do not understand the importance of this skill and the applications that it holds. Bringing in an expert to help was crucial.

We finished the workout with some butterfly drills which I'm pretty sure were exhausting. The amount of coughing you will hear the in the videos below and the looks on faces tells the story of a group surprised by how hard simple tasks can be when done slowly and meticulously.



Jen ended with some great advice below. Please take the time to watch the videos, especially if you are an athlete. The information is great and the presentation is fantasic. Jen really is passionate about what she does and offered her time to us for next to nothing. Thank you, Jen, on behalf of the Halton Hills Blue Fins!!



Note to swimmers: This information cannot just be experienced once and forgotten; the information must be used on a daily basis in your training. As Jen said, your competitor is somewhere else right now working hard on this skill... so what are you going to do today to make yourself better?

Upcoming events at HHBF / More reflections on our banquet

We have some VERY exciting things happening at HHBF over the next few weeks and I thought I would share them all with everyone in case you were not aware.

1.) Underwater Speed/Fly Clinic with Jen Button. On Saturday October 16th, Former Canadian Record Holder, 2 time Olympian, former team mate of mine and current employee for the IOC (International Olympic Committee), Jen Button will be coming in to work with the Elite, Platinum and Regional Development groups from 5pm to 7pm at GHDS. The goal and focus of this clinic is to improve and instruct dolphin kick both off walls but also to drive Butterfly in a better direction. If all goes well, we would love to have her back to work with other groups.

2.) LC workout at Wilfrid Laurier University: Sunday October 17th from 2:30pm - 4:30 pm, the Gold Group, Regional Development, Platinum and Elite all will do a long course (50m) workout at WLU. Although we are in short course season, there is NEVER any harm to get more pool time when it is available, especially very coveted long course pools. Special thanks to Nandi (Head Coach of ROW) for making this possible.

3.) Jen Noddle Breaststroke Clinic: On Tuesday October 19th, former National Team member and UCLA Alumnus Jen Noddle will be visiting the Gold group to run a Breaststroke Clinic. Specific focus on skills, dives and turns for those in Gold. If all goes well, we would love to have her back to work with other groups.

4.) Beginning on Wednesday October 20th, Anne Ottenbrite-Muylaert will be visiting the Elite, Platinum and Regional Development groups for an 8 week course on mental skills and race prep. Some parents may recognize her name from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, CA, where she won a Gold and Silver Medal. Anne is the last Canadian Swimmer to win an Olympic Gold. She was also one of my first coaches. By all accounts, this is a fantastic program and worth doing by everyone in those groups.

5.) GTA West #1 has been canceled due to construction at the Mayfield pool that is going longer than anticipated. The meet will be rescheduled for January. This only affects Gold, Silver, Bronze and Intro Comp. More details will be announced when they are available.

Coming soon...

An opportunity for Team Building amongst the Elite, Platinum and Regional Development groups, More Swim Ontario and Central Region camps, more long course training, more guests, more Olympians, more everything. I am a little worried of exhausting my resources too early in the season, but I am working hard all the time to network and get these opportunities to drive HHBF further.

Please remember, attending these opportunities is not like eating a steak... bare with me, this one is going somewhere... You can't just swallow the information, feedback and experience and then never think about it again; the information provided to you by these guests and clinics is there to bring into your normal training. The importance is not just attendance, but diligence.

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I want to refresh something that Dean Boles said at our banquet the other night, because I have been asked similar questions this season. Dean recounted the story of the first person he had ever put on the Olympic team, Laura Nicholls. Laura's parents were concerned about swimmers at Etobicoke training so many more hours and being better right now (at the time, Laura was 14). Dean's response was that he was confident that his training methods were right and that he could build Laura over time while others were burning out. Dean proved to be correct and by 17, none of Laura's competitors could touch her. She made the Olympic team that summer.

I think this is relevant because there are competitors of ours that do swim more. In some cases it is ridiculous. There are certain 12-13 year olds that train 22 hours/week. There are 15 year olds that train an extra 4 hours... but my philosophy is pretty strong. Where do you go from training 22 hours at age 13? 28 hours at 18? 32 hours at 21?? Will you make it to 21? Aside from which, will you be interested when you're 21? Why do most Canadian Swimmers quit before or during university when the fastest swimmers in the world are in their mid to late 20s?

Our programs are not limited. We train intelligently I plan to get the most bang every day. We do not waste a single pool block. We will see athletes that will contribute to Canadian Swimming long from today. I would like to use the words of Dean Boles "Trust me".

We have come a long way with limitations on our program, but I feel that we are better equipped to make significant gains this season than ever before. I am very excited to get to racing... are you?


Dean Boles awards Kyle Haas the Silver Medal for Mens 50BK at the 2010 Ontario Senior Provincial Championships in London, ON.

Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF

1st Annual Blue Fin Banquet

Thank you all that attended last night's diner and awards banquet. This was a new idea for HHBF. Many other clubs have them, but we have always incorperated awards into our year end party. The problem is that we are now a lot better than we used to be! Not a bad problem to have, am I right!!??

Last season, our year end party was held on Monday June 14th... however, we had 5 meets that our athletes competed at after our awards/year end party. It is a very positive thing that our athletes are qualifying and competing at these meets later in the season and I felt that the right thing to do is to publicly recognize their achievements.

Winners of our new awards were as follows:

Record Breakers (people who broke a club record and held it at the end of the season). The list of records broken last season is so long that I will only mention their names. For the complete record board, please visit http://www.haltonhillsbluefins.com/?page_id=94=. The winners are:
Elizabeth Skuriat
Emma Fender
Keri-lyn Copeland
Tessa Cieplucha
Sam Ceci
Kaitlyn Daley
Kyle Haas
Terevor Burwell
Matt Fox
Karl Massey
Bjoern-Ole Schrader
Mitchell Krafczek

The fact that this many records were broken speaks volumes about what our club is doing. Congratulations everyone!

Other awards were given out by achievement. Qualifying and participating in Central Region Championships, Ontario Junior Provincial Championships, Ontario Senior Provincial Championships, Canadian Age Group Championships, Eastern Canadian Championships and Canadian Senior National Championships. The winners of those awards are:
Brautigam, Aaron
Burwell, Samantha
Burwell, Trevor
Ceci, Samantha
Cieplucha, Tessa
Copeland, Keri-Lyn
Daley, Kaitlyn
Fender, Emma
Fong, Veronica
Fox, Matt
Gergely, Kristen
Haas, Kyle
Haas, Nolan
Harris, Clancy
Jaggard, Quinn
Jans, Michael
Krafczek, Mitchell
LeBlanc, Corey
Leckie, Aysia
Loder, Kaitlyn
Lubja, Alicia
Massey, Karl
O'Brien-Egesborg, Loren
Olmstead, Paige
Schrader, Bjoern-Ole
Smith, Kelly
Smith, Ryan
Tarczy, A.J.

HHBF has consistently produced a more and more athletes that are qualifying for more and more things. Anecdotally, when I took over as head coach in 2008, we lost 4 of the 8 provincial qualifiers that we had. By the end of that season we were back to 8 qualifiers. Last season, we lost 1 of those athletes and 2 of them suffered injuries preventing them from competing at the provincial championships. By the end of the season, after losing 3 athletes, we had 10 Blue Fins representing at the LC Provincial Championships in Ottawa. I cannot say enough about the ability of our athletes when they give themselves a good chance to succeed.

Last season also marked the highest number of athletes we have qualified for the Central Region Championships with a total of 28 athletes (previous high was 14). This season, our focus is for MORE athletes to get qualified and to next focus on having the most ever athletes OVER QUALIFIED for the meet.

The 2010-2011 season will also mark the first time that HHBF will be represented at Canada Cup in November, since 2007 when Tasha Truscott competed with an HHBF cap. Kyle Haas will be the first man from HHBF to ever compete in this event and will hopefully do us all proud.

My old coach and Provincial Mentor Coach, Dean Boles, was our guest speaker last night and he said a lot of very meaningful things about our club, swimming and coaching in general. The most poignant thing that I believe he refered to was "Individual Achievement By Teamwork". No one in our club does anything by themselves. It takes the support of team mates, parents, coaches, the executive committee, the Town and just about everyone in it to be as successful as we are. As we celebrate individual acheiement, it is actually the group colaberation that we are celebrating and I do not want that to get lost in the event.

I want to thank Dean for volunteering his time to come share with us. It means a lot to get that type of recognition from Swim Ontario who has become increasingly interested in us in the past 2 seasons. Thanks from all of us, Dean!

Dean said that one of the most important moments in his swimming career was in 1984 when Victor Davis called him from the Los Angeles Olympics to say "Thank You," for helping him (as a team mate) get good enough to win a medal. I think that was a statment about Victor and his personallity, but lets not forget how important everyone around you is to how you make out at the end.


Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF


*This video has absoluetly nothing to do with what I was just talking about, but still important.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving (Thanks Giving??... I've been out of school for too long). I am thankful for too many things to name on my blog. I just try never to forget how lucky I am to remain thankful.

I am in London right now at Comp Dev workshop#2 (NCCP level 3/4) and Train to Compete training camp and am having a great weekend. I know that my swimmers love when I go away to these things because I come back with so many cool ideas. I bet you all can't wait for me toi try out my new stuff on them (cough cough).

Quick reminder that we have our first annual banquet is on Wednesday October 13th. HHBF familes, please include this in your plans.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Enjoy your day off.

Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF

Damn you, Brent Hayden!!

All kidding aside, Brent Hayden made me eat my words today by posting the fastest time of this year in 100FR and being the first man under 48 seconds since the suit ban with a time of 47.98. Hats off to you, sir. Way to make me look foolish. In honor of Mr. Hayden's accomplishment, lets take a close look at this achievment, shall we?

Hayden's previous best was 47.27 set in Rome at 2009's World Championships, just before Canada banned the tech suits, but not before the FINA ban. At that specific time, Hayden's time of 47.27 placed him 4th behind 2 Frenchmen and Brazillian Cesar Cielo, whose time was over a second faster than Hayden's @ 46.91. Cielo, who has called for his own World Record to be abolished since the suits were banned, has not been able to beat 48.48 set at Pan Pacs (where Hayden also beat him).

Cielo isn't the only person to fear here. 100FR is a tight field, however, the closest swimmer to Hayden's time right now is Micheal Phelps, who's time of 48.13 is less than .15 off of his, and fellow American, Nathan Adrian, is only .17 off of his time. After him, the field opens up with people as far away from his time as .25 seconds.

As we have seen, the Americans have treated this season as an off season, with very few of them in top form for Pan Pacs. We are 2 years out of the Olympics and 1 year out of World Championships. The likelihood is that we will see some VERY strong times from Americans (who are not represented at the Commonwealth Games) in the next 2 seasons. Also, we are missing Nikita LOBINTSEV (whose video I posted about a month ago)who hasn't raced since the begining of August and is not even the fastest Russian Freestyler this season. England's Simon Burnett, the defending Games champion, was second in 48.54 and jumped 12 spots in the world rankings to become #10 in the world.

The question is: are we setting Hayden up to fail again? I would say, "yes".

Having someone perform in top form while no one else is, can be extremly misleading. There is a story of an American swim coach that tricked his athletic board by holding dual meets against big football/basketball schools who had terrible swim programs. "Look who we beat," he would claim. "Our team is on the rise". My fear is that putting Hayden on this pedistool is creating false hope in a "Must Be" hero, when Hayden is a "Should Be" hero right now and in danger of a "Should Have Been" status.

Fellow coach and good friend, Tony Cowx, points out to me that the job of the SNC is to pump heros like Hayden and that they should be making a big deal of his season. I agree with this point, but am weary about putting all of our country's eggs in the 27 year old's basket for another 2 years. The media (including myself) really tore him up after the last Olympics, and I don't really think its fair; not his fault that everyone bought stock in him... but I do think that the SNC is doing a fabulous press job with him.

My final thoughts are as follows: Congrats, Brent! Great work and PLEASE keep it up. Next season is going to be tough. Posting worlds best right now is a big deal, but its a little like being over qualified for a regional championship and blowing everyone out of the water... come the big meets, you'll have more formidable opponants knocking at your door. I just hope for your sake that you can deal with it. A year ago, I said that you'll never go 47 again, but you made me eat those words with a great performance in Delhi. You're slowly gaining my confidence, for what its worth.

Wednesday's Video: Commonwealth Games

SO far it looks like we're doing okay in India, although we still seem to be clinging to the hope that Brent Hayden will do something, even though Ryan Cochrane is already kicking ass. In fact, that is the point of today's video.

We may win a few medals here, but don't forget that the USA is HUGE right now and are not at that meet, same as many countries in Asia that are not represented at these games... so we may come top 3 in mens 200BK with a time of 1:59... but lets not forget that this season there were 7 men under 1:57 and 6 of them were american (1 of them was Michael Phelps). Though Stefan Hirniak medaled in 200FLY, there are 19 men listed as faster than him so far this season...

I think Cochrane has the right attitude. He says that its about racing at a high level. Granted, I have never won a Commonwealth Games Medal, nor have I even made the Commonwealth Team, but I can tell you that its hard to boast about winning when there are 8 Americans faster than you. I think that Cochrane understands this concept. And since we don't pour all of our eggs in his basket (for some reason that I cannot understand AT ALL), he is likely going to be a pleasant success story when it matters for the next 2 years.


Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF

I'm Back!

Hi guys. Sorry I was away so long this early in the season. My family had booked a trip to Disney World and they twisted my arm to come along (hack, hack). I will only mention a little bit about my trip:

If any of you are fortunate enough to take your children to Disney World one day, it is honestly worth every penny that they get from holding you upside down and shaking you. I was there for 7 days and have never seen a look on my 2 and 1/2 year old daughter's face like the one when she saw Whinnie the Pooh and Tigger. Monday night was the most crowded that I have EVER seen anywhere; I had to fight my way through a parade crowd to wait for 30min in line for the Dumbo ride... but the look on her face for that 90 seconds absolutely melted my heart. I have never seen her so happy. It was the greatest 90 seconds of my life!

Anyway, I am glad to be back. Looks like things went pretty well while I was away. I am now here for Wednesday and Thursday morning, then I am away again for the weekend as I will be at the Swim Ontario "Train to Compete" camp in London and continuing my "Competition Coach" (level 3 and 4) training. I will return to my regular schedule the day after Thanks Giving.

On Wednesday October 13th, HHBF has its very first awards banquet for individual performance. I am very excited that we are now recognizing performances in addition to leadership, improvement and development awards. It is no small feat to qualify for regionals or provincials, or even medal at these meets. I feel that it is of utmost importance that we recognize and celebrate the achievements of our team mates and see what is possible and available ahead of you in your swimming career.

Aside from the awards, my old coach, Dean Boles (also the coach of many Olympians and a former coach on the Olympic team 1996 and 2000) will be speaking and presenting. He has a lot of wisdom to share about swimming in general as well as our club's role in the expanding landscape of Central Region and Swim Ontario. It should be an excellent evening! You wont be disappointed. Please order your tickets ASAP.

Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF