This past weekend I had the great opportunity to travel and be a guest speaker at the Hawaiian Swimming Bi-Annual Coaches’ Clinic. It was a privilege to be able to travel to Hawaii and share my thoughts about coaching to the Hawaiian swimming coaches.
I really want to thank Coach Victor Wales the head coach of the University of Hawaii men’s and women’s swimming and diving for organizing such a great event and making sure that we all had a great experience. Coach Victor, the University of Hawaii and the Hawaiian swimming community suffered the tragic death of one of their swimmers the week before the Clinic. Peter Chi “went from being a walk-on swimmer, to a scholarship athlete, to a finalist at our conference, to achieving United States National Time, which is the highest thing you can get as a swimmer,” said Coach Victor (read the rest of the article HERE). 
Coach Victor told me that Peter had been an inspiration for everyone on the team and I could see in the conversations we had during the Clinic what a great effect this tragic death had in him and the whole community. Personally I have the upmost respect for Coach Victor and everyone in Hawaiian Swimming for everything they did. I wish him and his men’s and women’s team THE BEST in everything they do in and out of the water.
The Clinic this year had the following speakers:
Victor Wales – Head Coach of the University of Hawaii Men’s & Women’s Swimming and Diving.
Lori Briggs – Dry-land Specialist for the USA Swimming National Team.
David Meck – Santa Clara Swim Club Director of Competitive Swimming and Head Coach of the Senior Gold Group.
Dr. Jan Prins – Director Aquatic Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii.
The Clinic was a great experience for me. It was a very short trip, but an opportunity for me to be able to share my thoughts and experiences with almost 50 Hawaiian Coaches that attended the Clinic. Here are the topics of my talks
- 1· How can we be good if I don’t have the same resources to coach as…? – Don’t look at what you don’t have and utilize to 110% what you have.
- 2· How to create a “Tradition” and at the same time develop a high school swimmer into a USA swimmer and a college student-athlete. – “TEP” – Tradition, Excellence & Passion & Using TEP to develop swimmers to the highest level.
- 3· Simple Does It! – How to create a simple training cycle to develop successful and fast swimmers. – How to use the Aerobic, Race-Pace and Power-Speed training in a three day cycle and through a season.
- 4· My thoughts about Breaststroke Technique. – The way I see and understand Breaststroke from my experience as a world class breaststroker, from my Coach Joseph Nagy and from what I have learned coaching swimmers.
I traveled Friday morning to Honolulu once I got there I had my first talk that afternoon. The Clinic went on until Sunday afternoon. Right after the Round Table I took a plane to HILO with Coach Bill Sakovich, his wife Jean, Coach Jon Hayashida his wife and several other coaches from Hilo. Monday afternoon I gave a Clinic to the swimmers of three of the swim clubs from Hilo.
I spoke for an hour about a little bit of my background as a swimmer and as a coach, gave them some tips of how to correct certain errors in the strokes and then for over an hour we practiced some drills for breaststroke, butterfly and the streamline in the water. We had over 50 swimmers in attendance. It was very rewarding personally to be able to share my thoughts with these young swimmers.
Also I am very thankful for Coach Bill Sakovich and his wife for taking care of me that day. In the morning before the Clinic Coach Bill took me around and showed me the volcanos, the city and then we had lunch with his wife, mother and Coach Justin at the Yacht Club in Hilo. Check out the picture I think I have found the place where I want to coach in few years 😉 BEAUTIFUL!!!
Thank You to everyone for a great weekend and for such great hospitality. It was a great learning experience and also a good little break from what goes on back here in Jacksonville 😉
MAHALO!
