What is your swimming identity?
This is a guest post courtesy of Jak Mullins of Millfield Swimming. Jak is the lead boys coach and has coached athletes at the highest level. Jak brings a distinctive brand of energy and drive to coaching which he aims to infuse into all of his swimmers and a determination to be on the cutting edge of technical analysis.
Identity is a strange and wonderful beast that can stop us in our tracks, help us along the road or send us on a pointless journey. It is so changeable in fact, that it can affect you in the smallest ways day to day. Of course, creating an identity for yourself in general life is important to how you develop, how you form relationships and how you progress personally, but our performance identity is a different animal entirely.
To illustrate this; a short story…
I was a young, naïve and fresh faced (beardless) swimmer, that had done relatively well at Counties, had qualified for Regionals, and was beginning to be recognised around poolside. I had a few friends at different clubs and was very content with myself. One of these friends was a fellow County superstar and a genuinely nice guy that I would generally warm up with, chat throughout meets with and have a good old time. He was mild mannered, had a great sense of humour and was as good at pushing into the sprint queue as myself.
Then he joined my club.
I can honestly say I have never had such an intense rivalry with another human being in my life since then. The fun and games at meets was gone, replaced by a hunger to beat each other every time we set foot on poolside. He had changed from a friend, to a competitor. He would leave two seconds early on repeats to beat me, he would make sure the coaches knew if I had missed anything, he would throw my fins further away than his whilst I was swimming so I had to get out to get them.
Honestly; it annoyed the living hell out of me.
But it helped me form my own identity. I quickly decided that I would prove I didn’t need cheap tricks to beat him. I would let him go early and then do everything I could to catch him. I would choose not to wear fins when given the option, I would make sure that my underwaters, my starts and my turns were better than his. And now, 14 years later, I can say that that decision was one that still helps me today. It gave me an identity when I needed it most; I was the guy you didn’t want to wind up, because I would take you down.
Ok, so not a short story. But relevant.
This leads into your own performance identity and how it can shape every part of your swimming. When the morning is dark, the evenings are pure hell, the pool is freezing, you feel like your brain has been shaken continuously for hours or any other variation of these, you need an identity. Having something to grab hold of in these moments can give you the greatest rewards.
So, who are you?
Are you the person that can lead the lane during a kick set? Are you the guy who looks forward to pull sets? Are you the girl that loves attacking a set of 200's? Are you the most skillful swimmer in the pool? The one who stays late to practice starts? There are so many identities that are essentially up for grabs in the pool that can help you. They drive you when you are down, they can lift you on days where you think nothing can go right and they can influence others to drive their performance further.
Your identity carries beyond the pool.
Further on from my swimming career and well into my coaching life, I had a conversation with a fellow coach and old friend about a swimmer that had left our club and continued in swimming along the coaching road. The ex-swimmer was searching for a job and the fellow coach was asking my opinion. I replied with a short sentence:
“He was the guy you could always count on to anchor that relay”.
That was enough. Those words said more about his character than pages of references. Now think about this; how would you describe yourself to a coach or future employer? How much does your swimming identity say about you? Create an identity. Own it.
Originally published at http://wow.commitswimming.com on July 5, 2017.
