You may be wondering "what should we do after summer swim ends?"

You have options!

The best program for your child and family is a very personal decision. It must balance the needs, interests, and goals of the swimmer with the appropriate commitment for both swimmer and family. Placing a strong swimmer who has no real interest in swimming into a demanding, highly competitive program will only lead to frustration for all involved. Similarly, placing a weaker swimmer into a highly competitive program before they are ready for it, can lead to frustration and burn-out as well.

Options for the fall, winter, and spring include: lessons-based programs, recreational-level swim programs, and USA Swimming Club-Level programs.

Lessons-based programs. You can find these at the Y, hire a private instructor, or with  the Coast Guard Blue Dolphins' DophinSwims program. CGBD's DolphinSwims program follows the SwimAmerica lesson plans. The Lessons-based program is appropriate for any swimmer ages 3-16 who is not proficient in all four strokes. I know there is a lot of fear about participating in a CGBD program, but the lessons program does not require meets or extra commitments of any kind. It is strictly lessons, taught by highly qualified swimmers and coaches who have taken the training to learn various techniques to break the strokes down to help swimmers gain the confidence and skills they need to become strong swimmers --  without any pressure to compete.

Once swimmers are proficient in freestyle and backstroke, and have a good understanding of breast and fly, they are ready to move to either a recreational program like that at the Y, or move to the Bridge program with CGBD. CGBD offers three bridge programs, one for elementary age students (Dolphin Bridge), one for middle school students (Seahawk Bridge), and one for high school students (Tsunami Bridge). The Bridge level at CGBD offers the FLEX level membership for USA Swimming, and four recreation-level competitions. 

Swimmers at the Bridge level are gaining the competitive proficiency necessary to complete in all four strokes and the IM. It introduces swimmers to training and competition with lower levels of commitment for families and swimmers. You can find more information about all of the different training levels here.

Once swimmers are able to swim all IMR events, and are making practices and meets regularly, they will be invited to move to the Competitive level of CGBD. The Competitive level of CGBD does have a higher level of commitment of families and the swimmer to practice and meet attendance.  The Competitive level repureiments include competing at a meet once every other month, as well as attending a championship meet at the end of each season.

CGBD does have even higher levels of training and competition, but anyone moving from summer swim to CGBD will need to begin at one of these three levels of learning/training in order to reach the thresholds necessary to train in the higher groups. 

If you have any questions about the CGBD programs, or what placement your and your swimmer(s) should consider, please feel free to reach out.

Now, back to finishing summer swim STRONG!

Coach Lisa

(p.s. I don't know which group(s) I am coaching yet. Most likely it will either be the Middle School level Seahawk Bridge/Competitive or the High School level Tsunami Bridge/Competitive level.)