Swimming Builds Self-Confidence
by jianyong | Dec 10, 2012 | Latest News | 0 comments
Over the past four years, Patrick Keith has been training with his swimming coach, David Laudati. During this entire period of time, he was not only able to improve on his swimming skills, but he was also able to experience an increase in his self-confidence too. Currently, he aspires to be an Olympic swimmer and according to his mother, he didn't just watch the last summer's Olympics, he studied them.
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"He knows everybody's qualifying times, he knows their personal bests, and he watched all the stories about how they got to where they are. And it's led him to believe that if he focuses really hard and works really hard, that he can do that someday too," stated Annie Keith, his mother.
Patrick has also set goals for himself that he is determined in accomplishing. "I want to flood the crowd with water by my swimming. I want to blow the arena on fire with my speed. I don't want to, I will," he claimed with confidence.
His mother did mention that her 11-year-old son wasn't always so self-assured. "Back when Patrick started swimming, he didn't have a lot of confidence in the sporting world," she recalled. His instructor, David, eventually recommend him to join the swim team. "I saw that he had a lot of energy. I could see that with proper teaching, it would help him relax and it would make life easier for him," said David.
"Within his first year he was helping set team records and then he started setting records on his own, and it just gave him a lot of confidence," stated Annie.
David isn't the typical sort of swimming coach that focus solely on teaching technique. "I would say that the one thing that we work on is building confidence. I think in all sports, if you build the athlete's confidence, they will do much better. When Patrick first started, he wasn't really into a lot of other sports, and now he loves other sports. That's because we started from the ground up and built his confidence so that he felt confident in himself, in not just the pool, but in everyday life." For the full story, you can read it from here.
Happy Fish Swim School agrees that swimming shouldn't just be about learning water safety and survival skills. It should encompass other elements such as building one's self-confidence as well as develop one's love in other sports. Our Swimming Lessons For Kids is designed to be enjoyable and fulfilling at the same time, so do check it out!