Best part about coaching!

(This is my second post today, unrelated to the first one)

At this point, I've been coaching for Potomac Marlins and Alexandria Masters for a month.  I've gotten into the swing of things and have come to know almost all of my adult swimmers and a good number of my little kiddos.  I'm coaching several groups:

• Monday evening: One of my three Masters practices.  With the exception of random swimmers from the morning practices, I know all of the swimmers.
• Tuesday afternoon: My Tuesday/Thursday kiddo group (Mini Marlins, the second practice group up the group hierarchy).  I know all of them.
• Tuesday evening: My second Masters practice.  Most of the swimmers are regular Monday/Thursday swimmers, too, but some I only see on Tuesday nights.  Again, I know all the regulars.
• Thursday afternoon: My second Mini Marlins practice, same group as on Tuesday.
• Thursday evening: The last of my Masters practices.  Normally it's the same group as on Monday, with a few other people thrown in.  I know all the regulars.
• Friday afternoon: My age group practice (fourth practice group up the group hierarchy).  I've only coached them once so far, so I don't really know them yet.
• Sunday afternoon, session 1: Sunday Mini Marlins group--this is a largish group, around 18 kids, and I'm struggling with their names.  Only know about 2/5 of the group by name, but know 'em all by sight.
• Sunday afternoon, session 2: Sunday Stroke School group (introductory group, the first on the group hierarchy list)--this is a large group, around 22 kids, and I'm doing even worse with names than with the Mini Marlin group before them.  I know about 3/4 by sight, but only about 1/3 by name.  Sigh.
• Sunday evening: Just picked this one up this past Sunday, but it's two of the area summer league teams that have a weekly winter swim session.  Don't know which kids I'll be coaching on a regular basis.

With all this coaching, I've got some favorite swimmers from each group.  One of the little girls from my Tuesday/Thursday Mini Marlins group, Hannah, is probably my all around favorite kid.  Cute little pint sized kiddo who is invariably polite.  "Hi Coach Tim!  How are you?"  "I'm doing great, Miss Hannah, how are you?"  "I'm doing well, thank you."  And then after practice, after I've told her she did a good job (what I tell all of the kis): "Thank you for practice, Coach Tim."  Cracks me up every time.  She's also at the top of the group, as far as ability goes, and pays the closest attention to what I say in practice.  Scratch that, she's the only one who gets stuff on the first try, without me having to repeat what we're doing two...three...four times.  As far as I can tell, she's legal in all four strokes.  I'm actually kinda bummed about that, since it most likely means that I'll have to move her up to the next group in a month or two, which would mean that I wouldn't coach her anymore.  Sigh.  On a side note, she's the one who said I was her favorite teacher when I asked the kids how school was going a few weeks ago.  Anyhoo, she's usually very attentive to what drill I'm showing them how to do and tries to do everything properly.  Not that she actually does everything properly, but she's 7, so 'tis to be expected.

That all leads into the main point of this post.  The best part about coaching, in my opinion, is seeing my swimmers actively work on something I'm trying to teach them.  Whether that's Hannah struggling mightily to master the dive (we've worked on it as a group for three practices now, often with quite hilarious results across the board--it's rather hard to stay *professional* when these kids dives make me laugh out loud pretty much at every attempt) or one of my adult swimmers finally fixing a head positioning problem I've been working on with them for a few weeks, or something else along those lines.

There are a number of my adult swimmers that I've been working with more than the rest, as they've either actively sought out my feedback or have proven to be extra receptive to my suggestions.  Three of them have names that start with an A, so I'm calling 'em A1, A2, and A3.

• A1 is a guy who only started swimming in the last 6-9 months, I believe.  If I remember our conversation from a few weeks back, I think he said he decided back in the spring that he wanted to train for a triathlon, so he started running and swimming then.  He's lost way more weight than I have in that time frame, so I give him huge props for that.  As a self taught swimmer, he's made vast strides since he started on the team.  Over the past few weeks, I've worked with him in a butterfly and a flipturn clinic.  Flipturns are still problematic, but he's now legal in butterfly.  He won't be swimming any butterfly at any meets, but to see that level of improvement after just a 45 minute clinic on butterfly is immensely gratifying as a coach!
• A2 is an older lady who had shoulder surgery a while back and has been gingerly getting back into swimming.  Since we do a LOT of IM work in my practices, we've had several conversations about how she could alter her stroke so that she could swim butterfly.  We've also had some fairly in depth conversations about freestyle technique, specifically about how changing her pull technique could reduce the strain on her recovering shoulder.  Seeing that level of interest from one of my swimmers is awesome!  Quite a few of my swimmers are extremely set in their ways in regards to technique, so to see someone like her who's been swimming for who knows how long be open to changing technique based on my feedback is a heck of a job satisfaction boost!
• A3 is a few years older than me, but hadn't swum since high school up until a month ago.  And when she swam in highschool, she said the coach never really gave any sort of correction or feedback--I'm guessing she swam for one of those teams that was all yardage and no technique.  Anyways, she's been very receptive to my feedback at practice and I've worked on her technique with her for 15 minutes outside of practice.  I really appreciate the effort and interest she's putting into this, and she seems to be even more appreciative of the attention I'm giving her, which is just awesome!
• K is one of my good friends on the team and is my main freestyle competition during practice, since Dan and Katie are out of my league.  Anyhoo, I've mentioned some body positioning tips to her and she's been working on them--I noticed last night that the issue in question last night was looking a whole lot better than it had a few weeks ago when I first mentioned it to her.  Fantastico!
• J is new to swimming, as far as I can tell.  She can swim free and back, and can swim the other two strokes rudimentarily.  She participated in the fly and flipturn clinics that A1 also participated in and I've seen a lot of improvement since I started coaching her in September.  She's got a long way to go like A1, but I've been very impressed with the amount of improvement I've seen thus far.

I've got plenty of other swimmers who've been taking what I say to heart, but this group of swimmers really make me happy to be a coach!  It's just very cool to see someone I've worked with make such strides in their swimming technique, and really makes me glad that I'm their coach!