Free Trial Email #3
Hello!
As you may have already noticed, our website got a facelift this week- we've also updated it with all the information pertinent to the 2022-2023 season, so the dues and schedules are now up there!
Registration/Fees information:
- we've reduced the registration fee, and added a multi-swimmer discount for families with more than 1 athlete.
Fall Practice Schedules:
- note that the Augusta schedules have slight changes to them in the winter, while HS swimming is taking place along side us at the AAC. The Aiken schedule will not change.
Fall/Winter/Spring Meet Schedule:
- before getting into this, you'll need to know where your athlete is training. Each group has their own schedule, and each group will have 9-11 options throughout the year. Because of the differing needs of an 8 year old in their first season vs the needs of a 16yo who's trying to qualify for Nationals, we've got to do some dividing and conquering. This schedule has ALL the meets. Nobody will go to all these meets :-) I will have a big Q&A for the Meet Schedule out in the next week that will hopefully answer all your questions. That said, MOST of the first year members can safely assume you'll be following the In-House meets and ASL hosted meets at the Aquatic Center. If you have a 12-over athlete, you may want to look at a travel meet or two, but there is no rush in the first year- we'll reach out if we think its necessary.
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I've also updated our Group Descriptions to help show the development path for all athletes. I'll elaborate a little further below.
ASL is broken up into 4 different SQUADS- Development, Age Group, Junior and Senior. These are broken up by AGE, with slight overlaps. This is to ensure that all athletes are in training groups that are made up of their peers, so that the pace of the group is appropriate, with proper coaching techniques being applied at each level. The way you'd teach a skill to an 8 year old is different than how you'd teach it to a 14 year old, etc.
Each of these squads is broke up into 2-3 GROUPS. These are made up of the athletes that your swimmer will train with when they come to practice. While the squads organize athletes by age, the groups organize them by their ability. This allows for workouts to run smoothly, with all athletes at the same basic level, working on similar intervals and working at the same pace.
Movement through the groups happens at the end of each season, so we'll do group moves at the end of December, when we re-start in April, when we start back up in September. Athletes can move UP groups, or OVER squads, however, we like to see athletes demonstrating the attendence and focus of their desired next group for at least 2 months in their current group before making the move. I'll say this often, but IT'S ALWAYS BETTER TO MOVE SOMEONE UP A SEASON TOO LATE, THAN A SEASON TOO EARLY, and as such, we'll always play it safe with move-ups.
For FIRST YEAR SWIMMERS, the expectation for attendence is 2-days per week. That's it. If, after a few months, your athlete is begging to go to more, great- bring them! But I'd much prefer they take it slow and methodically at first. Rushing "all-in" too soon can have some long term negative effects, and my goal is to get everyone to the age of 18 with us- so I'm not in any rush with the first year athletes. Communicate with your coach (or reach out to me) and we can let you know when the time is right to start coming more! We ALWAYS want for the athletes to show up, but we also understand that patience is crucial in getting them to that point.
Expanding upon the analogy I used in an earlier email, the DEVELOPMENT SQUAD is where we are prepping the land, making our plan on where we want to dig to set the foundation for their future success. Athletes here are generally younger, in their first year or two on the team, and we are just trying to get them to find comfort in the water- lots of kicking, sculling, foundational skills and drills, and a lot of racing disguised as game playing. We essentially want them to learn to move through the water more efficiently, and to have fun doing it.
The AGE GROUP SQUAD is where we start digging the hole for this foundation. The deeper and wider, the better. Athletes will now begin learning racing stroke technique, and some basic training skills like reading pace clocks for themselves, leading their lane/group, etc. The more CONSISTENT they are in these years, usually 2nd-5th graders, the deeper and wider the foundation can be. It's not so much quantity, but a steady diet of quality. So we don't need 4th graders coming to 5 workouts a week, but a steady and consistent 3-4 is great.
When athletes get to the JUNIOR SQUAD, we are pouring the concrete and laying the pillars for the future. They are learning how to build strategies for racing, and this is where they begin to 'do work' in training sessions. This is the age where the aerobic foundation is set, so athletes in these groups will be doing the majority of their training in the aerobic zones, working on intervals that keep them moving throughout the session. The more work, the stronger the foundation. The Junior Red group is the first group where coaches will push attendence to be towards the maximum, as this is the last chance to solidify that base before we begin building in the Senior Squad.
In the SENIOR SQUAD, we look to compete at the best of their abilities, and compete in the highest level competition possible. This is where we first start to look at results with any sort of critical eye, and will seek out competitions that push our athletes mentally and physically to get the best out of them. Training sessions will get to be very personalized, with each athlete making choices that will affect their performances in meets. This is where we are building our houses, or buildings, or towers, and which one is dependent on the quality and strength of the foundation it sets on.
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As of right now, you all are set- no need to register for the team, you won't need to do that until September 24th. If you haven't had an evaluation, please swing by the Augusta Aquatics Center Tuesday through Thursday of this week, from 6-7 and Coach Evan will take care of that for you. It's just a way for us to get kids placed in the right groups before the season starts, to eliminate one source of confusion (where do we go?) in that first week.
I'll be adding an Aiken evaluation day for next week, and I'll announce that date here and on Social Media later this week.
If you have any questions on any of this information, or anything at all, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask
Greg Gillette
coachgreg@gillette.net
206-518-1500
