The Making of a Champion

From the time he was little, Ryan has taken naturally to water. I remember taking him to the Rec Center when he was not even 2. I would have to keep a firm grip on him, or he likely would have taken off across the pool! We began swimming lessons shortly thereafter!

Our Rec Center has six levels of swimming lessons. Our sessions are every day for two weeks. In the past, we have done one level for several sessions during the summer. Level 2 was quite difficult, as was level 4. He spent a bit more time in those. We had been told by some family friends with older kids that level 5 was very difficult. That is the level where kids learn all of the different strokes (including the fairly difficult Butterfly). Several families had told us that their kids had to take level 5 several times in order to pass off all of the strokes. Ryan started level 5 earlier this summer. He passed it the first time! I asked him if he felt that he needed to take it again to improve his strokes. Absolutely not. He was so proud that he passed it the first time, that he wasn’t about to take it again by choice! Two weeks ago, he moved to level 6, the final level.

On the first day, the “warm up” was a 300 yard swim! The teacher asked the kids to go back and forth across the pool using every stroke they knew. There were 12 kids in the class, and Ryan was the smallest and youngest. He really had a rough time keeping going, but his strokes looked great. After class, I talked with his teacher. She also said that his strokes looked great, and that the purpose of this level is to work on their endurance.

Most of you know from this post that Ryan is a big Michael Phelps fan. Ryan informed me that he could swim better if he had some “jammers,” the tight knee-length suits that competitive swimmers wear. I looked on eBay, and they were between $20 and $30. Ryan informed me that he could not wait for the jammers to be mailed – that would be too late. He needed them NOW! We went to the local sports store where we found some for $45. Normally I wouldn’t spend that much on a swimming suit, but he insisted that they would help him swim better.

We went to swimming the next day, and he truly was amazing! He had more confidence and more endurance. Amazing what those jammers can do! Who knew that it was the jammers all along? :)We are now ¾ of the way through the class. Five kids have dropped out. Ryan is still going strong. Every day they swim between four and eight FOOTBALL FIELDS! Ryan’s next goal is to try out for the competition swim team, the Tsunami. I’ll keep you posted.

Remember this picture of Michael Phelps doing the Butterfly?I took this one of Ryan doing the Butterfly today. It's not very clear, so I need to take a better one. But he sure looks like a champion to me!