Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa has brought you all you could have wished for! 

Enjoy the rest of your break, and be ready to come back in the new year refreshed and determined! 

I can't wait to see how every one performs in the next few months given how well everyone is training! 

See you in the new year! 

Coach Rob 

Goal Setting Meetings

I have been asked by a few swimmers/parents if I could help with filling out some of the goal setting forms. In the new year I will arrange some 10-15 minute slots after some sessions where swimmers and parents can sit with me and discuss their future. It will probably be in the form of a sign up sheet on the notice board. 

Coach Rob

The results are in!

The points have been counted, and the winning team will be announced at the Presentation Evening, Saturday 11th January. Make sure you don't miss out on the prize! I can tell you that there were just 4 points separating 1st and 3rd! Who'd have thought it would have been so close?! 

Coach Rob

Team Points

All I can tell you is there are currently only 10 points between the current 1st and 3rd place! Its tight! Make sure you're doing all you can for your team in this last week to be in for a chance of winning!

Coach Rob

Goal Setting

I will be emailing round a Goal Setting sheet for all swimmers to fill in and return to me after the Christmas holidays. 

These are really important to help put you all on the right road for success mentally! The ones who win and are best swimmers are the ones who know where they want to go, and how they want to get there - and it all starts with a dream. Michael Phelps said at 12 to his coach Bob Bowman that he wanted to go to the Olympics. The other kids laughed - but look who he is now...

Coach Rob

Counties Entry Deadline Looming!

Please remember the County entry forms need to be completed and returned to Loz by the 20th December! Please don't worry if your swimmer/s doesn't have certain times, as we can update the entry forms after the Time Trila in the New Year.

If you cannot attend the minimum required, please make sure you email/speak to me.

Coach Rob

Water Polo!

A message from Ian:

We will be playing water polo for the second half of the session on Thursday. Make sure you bring down your A game! This could be your last chance to win points for your team, so make sure you don't miss out!

Christmas Holidays

Lucky for you guys, I don't finish University until the 20th! (Very late!) So my last session will be next Wednesday the 18th. I am told sessions will be covered by various coaches until my return no later than the 12th January.

For those of you that I won't see, have a great Christmas, and a Happy New Year! Try and get a few swims in over the holidays, even if it is just at public sessions. I'm looking forward to starting the New Year with so many young swimmers with so much potential!

Points for the last 2 weeks will be kept a secret, and the winning team revealed at the Presentation Evening in January.

Coach Rob

Time Trial - CANCELLED

We will be postponing this time trial until the new year to give us a little more time to organise it. 

Still enter the events you wish to enter, even if you haven't got a time. We will then update the entries before they are sent off. 


Coach Rob

Team points after week 5!

This week, no points were awarded during training. However, Ruby, Sahana and Aahana all completed some research into their team mascots, winning them 10 points each. The totals therefore are;

Red: 49
Blue : 36
Green: 54
Yellow: 31


Coach Rob

Counties

Just a reminder that the entry forms for now available from the newsletter email and off the club website. These need to be done ASAP please! Please also remember that all Juniors are required to compete in 2 out of the 3 Saturdays - I will require an explanation form the parents of any Junior that isn't. We are really trying to get a big turn out for the competition, so every swimmer counts!

City of Birmingham Trail

I'd like to wish the following swimmers the best of luck in their trail with City of Birmingham tomorrow evening;

Asha Gurung
Ellie Sibbald
Daniel Hindle
Maya Graves 
Karnell Nunes - Smith 
Stefan Davies 

They have been selected by Ian and myself for their current ability and their future potential, not to mention their effort and attitude. 

Swimmers have to be a minimum of 9. Niamh Bevan and Jodie Carreon currently train with City of Birmingham a number of times each week, and are clearly reaping the rewards! 

For those that don't know, City of Birmingham is a Squad that brings together all the best talent from the Birmingham area, giving swimmers the very best chance of reaching their potential. 

The club has directly or indirectly sent a swimmer to every Olympic games since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics - so they know a thing or two about swimming... 

Everyone in the Junior squads should be aspiring to eventually train here. I can tell you from first hand experience, training twice a day is no mean feat! But nothing good comes easy, and if you really want to succeed in such a tough sport then that's what's required!

If anyone wants to find out more about City of Birmingham, feel free to have a chat with me. 

Coach Rob

Team points after week 4!

Here are the points with just 3 weeks left!

Red: 39
Blue : 16
Green: 54
Yellow: 31

Green are disappearing into the distance with Red and Yellow fighting it out for second! Blue have got some catching up to do in the final weeks - there's nothing like a good comeback! 

Coach Rob

Counties - 94 Days!

Below you will find the events you can enter for the Counties;

Saturday 1st March, Session 1 (Morning)

*Female 4x50 Fc Relay (9/10)
*Male 4x50 Medley Relay (9/10)

Male 200 Bk
Female 50 Bk
Male 100 Brst
Female 200 Fc

Saturday 1st March, Session 2 (Afternoon)

Female 200 Brst
Male 50 Fc
Female 100 Fly
Male 100 Fly

Saturday 8th March, Session 3 (Morning)

Female 200 I.M
Male 50 Brst 
Female 100 Fc
Male 200 Fc

Saturday 8th March, Session 4 (Afternoon)

*Male 4x50 Fc Relay (9/10)
*Female 4x50 Medley Relay (9/10)

Male 100 Bk
Female 50 Brst
Female 200 Bk 


Saturday 15th March, Session 5, (Morning)

Male 100 Fc
Female 100 Bk
Male 200 I.M
Female 50 Fly 
Male 50 Bk

Saturday 15th March, Session 6, (Afternoon)

Female 50 Fc
Male 200 Brst
Female 100 Brst
Male 50 Fly
Female 200 Fly


*Subject to team selection. 

Please sit down with your little swimmers and take a look at the events. I will be creating a form for you (parents) to complete on the events you think your child/ren will be swimming, so we can start to think about the relay teams. 

Please remember we are expecting all Juniors to swim a minimum of 2 out of the 3 Saturdays!



Coach Rob

Team points after week 3!

Here are the current standings after week 3 (Revised)! 

Blue: 27
Red: 16
Green: 49
Yellow: 20

Green are stretching their lead into the far distance! The other teams need to start developing their comeback strategies!

There are 4 weeks left, so everyone must be pulling out all the stops for your team.

So far I have still only had 3 pieces of research on your team mascots - you can email them to me at guestrm@aston.ac.uk of bring them to me at any of my sessions to win some more points. 

Thank you Shyan for your piece on Rebecca Adlington, you won 5 points for the Red team!

Coach Rob

Counties - 98 Days!

As of tomorrow, there will be 98 days until the first day of the Counties competition!

Luckily for all you Orion swimmers, the Counties in the West Midlands takes place over three consecutive Saturdays in March - 1st, 8th and 15th. Back when I was a little boy, the Derbyshire Counties took 3 whole weekends, with each day not finishing until 9 or 10pm!

As this is another great opportunity for you all to get lots of race experience (not forgetting in a 50m pool!) myself and Ian have decided you are ALL required to swim in 2 out of the 3 Saturdays, in both sessions (so 4 sessions total). If you want to do all 3 days, even better!

There are usually 2 or 3 races you can enter per session, however I will be sending out a list of recommended swims for each session soon.

I will also be entering as many relay teams as possible! It would be great if we could get 2 teams for each relay race.

So, to try and get the ball rolling, I will have Loz email out a form which I'd hugely appreciate you filling in and returning to me at the first opportunity. This will help the Coaches put together who will be where and when (mainly for relay organisation).

Forgive our stern approach, however it is a plain and simple fact that we need all the Juniors to be getting involved in more races and competitions! Besides, having a large team at these events makes them so much more entertaining for everyone!

If your son/daughter is unable to swim at a minimum of 2 Saturdays, you will be required (as parent or guardian) to provide a suitable reason as to why not. Please be aware this may jeopardise your child's future in the Junior team/s.

Enjoy your weekend!

Coach Rob

Turns

Please take a look at a few videos below to see how you should be doing your turns!

The first video looks at the turns in a medley race i.e 100 IM / 200 IM. Please don't worry about the first back - brst turn where he uses a backwards roll! The breast stroke and butterfly turns are just the same as brst - fc. 

Next is a great example of a tumble turn, or as the Americans say - 'flip turn'. Notice what the swimmer does with her arms during the actual turn, and that she pushes off on her back, rotating as she does her fly kicks.  

Next is the backstroke turn. I found it difficult to find any good tutorial videos that worked in the blog, however it doesn't get much better than the 100m Olympic final in London. Watch right until the end for a slow motion replay. 

And finally, I thought I'd finish with some Michael Phelps highlights...

Remember, the devils in the detail! Look how close half those finishes were. He could have so easily come second many times. Only perfect practice makes perfect!

I hope you are all a little inspired!

Coach Rob

Team Mascot Research

So far I have had 2 great little articles from Daniel Hindle and Ellie Sibbald-Perkins, both from the Yellow team on the sprinter Cesar Ceilo, and how he inspires them as swimmers.  

I actually learnt from Ellie that he has in fact had operations on both of his knees, yet still fought to win the 50m Fly and 50m Freestyle in the 2013 FINA World Champs! 

They have earned 15 points together for the Green team for their effort, and being the first to respond to my request. Lets see some from the other teams please!

Coach Rob

Boldmere Open - Day 2

Day two of the open meet saw some more great swims. Almost all of the times over the weekend (irrelevant of a DQ or not) were PB's - 43 I Believe! This is great, however is not to come as a surprise - at this stage in a swimmer's career every swim they do should be a PB, other wise I'm doing something wrong!

Due to the number of disqualifications, the next few training sessions will be drilling in the basics even more to ensure all the Juniors can swim their races without making silly mistakes. This started tonight (Monday) and to be fair some good progress was made.

The Team Challenges/Relays will take place only when I am satisfied - no matter how long it takes!

Coach Rob

Boldmere Open - Day 1

Today saw 9 of our Junior swimmers competing in the competition. 2 of which, Niamh Bevan and Jodie Carreon, swam under City of Birmingham. 

The main emphasis of this meet for the Juniors was simply to gain experience in events most had never swam. It was good for all to set some benchmarks to see where they are at, and also to see first hand some high level swimming to motivate and inspire. 

We saw some great swims throughout the day, and even gaining few medals with great swims from Niamh, Jodie and Asha! 

Unfortunately the day also saw quite a few disqualifications due to a lack of basic skills in the pool. I cant stress how important what we work on in training is, especially the finer details! All the time and effort you invest in your swimming can be so easily thrown away when you ignore the foundations - correct turns, finishes etc.

Hopefully, in future open meets more swimmers will get involved in these sorts of competitions, adding valuable experience to their swimming and accelerating their progress. 

Tomorrow will see more swims from Niamh, Daniel Hindle, Maya Graves and Karnell Nune-Smith, hopefully with some more great swims!

Coach Rob

Team points after week 2!

So far, points have mainly been given out at the end of sessions to swimmers who Ian or myself have felt had gone above and beyond their normal standard of swimming, and impressed us! 

Blue: 19
Red: 14
Green: 32
Yellow: 18

Its tight for 2nd, but Green are slipping ahead into the distance! 

On Monday, lots of points will be going out will be awarded for the team games, so make sure you don't miss it! 

I would also like volunteers from each team to do some research on their Team mascot. If you can write a paragraph or two, describing what they have achieved, and more importantly, what inspires you about them, and then have a parent email it to me. You'll win even more points for your team for effort, content and appearance!   

Just a reminder:

Blue: Michael Phelps
Red: Rebecca Adlington 
Green: Cesar Cielo
Yellow: Rebecca Soni

Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see those racing at Boldmere tomorrow!

Coach Rob 

Boldmere Open Meet

Warm Up times are as follows (for both days):

Warm-up 08:00

Male: 08:00 - 08:20

Female: 08:20 - 08:50

Start 09:00

Warm-up 12:15

Female: 12:15 - 12:45

Male: 12:45 - 13:05

Start 13:15

 

All swimmers should be at the pool 15 minutes before the warm up session starts. Ensure you bring along plenty of warm kit to wear in between races, including shorts/trousers. If it is your first open meet, make sure you also have plenty of drinks and food for the day - however no sweets/fizzy drinks. Sandwiches, fruit and healthy snacks please. If you have any other questions don't be afraid to ask any of the coaches or older swimmers.

 

Junior Swimmers (and anyone else who wants one) will receive a Race Warm Up plan off me either at training or at the weekend.

 

Coach Rob

Starting next week...

As of Monday 18th November, we will be stretching for 15 minutes after all of my sessions. Ian may do the same, but this is tbc. I encourage as many of you to stay behind for this as it is hugely important in your progression as a swimmer.

However, this is not compulsory and if you need to get away for whatever reason then please don't worry.

We will also be doing a few team challenges on Monday to try and liven up the competition a little. Please do your best to attend, and if you have any team colours make sure you're wearing them! (This can include t-shirts etc to wear whilst stretching).

Coach Rob

 

Welcome to the Orion Junior's Blog!

Welcome!

I wanted to create somewhere that would give you, the swimmers, and just as importantly, the parents all the information you need on anything and everything going on at Orion.

Hopefully you will all find it very useful, and I welcome any feedback you have!