What I learned on highschool swim

let's get one thing straight here i alyssa illy mation made the varsity swim team in my sophomore year of high school not because i was the best swimmer not because i was a good swimmer either but because my school was so small that if you expressed any interest in swim team you'd make varsity no matter what so that's how i got this big f can i get a red f in the chat boys whoa now i'm sure you're wondering what would prompt young high school illy to randomly join a 10 person swim team and it's simple really enemy video game sorry what and i'm a video game sorry i couldn't hear anime video game gosh at the time i had a ps2 and i was obsessed with the game persona 3. the premise is you fight evil shadow spirits in tartarus at night but you're a normal high schooler by day so when the game asked me to join the swim team i said sure i got time and then back in real life when the morning announcements asked if i wanted to join swim team i said sure i got time so one fall afternoon i showed up to room 767 or something and met coach jackson but i didn't really know any of the other people there so i was tempted to just go home and play persona thankfully the first day was just a meeting and since miss jackson was also the freshman english teacher she had a powerpoint to teach us some super helpful swim vocab swim meet that's where you meet up and compete against other schools event that's the kind of swim you're doing and when you have to do it you get a little sheet of paper for each one and that's called a time card the block it's those step stool looking thingies that people jump off of in the beginning heat okay so basically there's a bunch of kids and only like six lanes so we gotta take turns when the final bell ended school we'd all meet in miss jackson's classroom where we'd do homework and wait an hour or so for all the buses to finish dropping everyone off then we'd take a 30 minute ride out to a pool in the middle of nowhere literally it was like in the middle of a big field and swim practice would run for an hour or so then we'd shower ride another 30 minutes back to school and we'd need a ride home around seven and you do this four out of five days because tuesday is dry land day that's where you run sprints and miles and do weight lifting and stuff but uh someone who could never finish the mile in middle school i skipped dry land day a lot my head hurts i had mac sticks for lunch dry land tuesdays that was this tuesday but i wasn't the only one i remember miss jackson being very disappointed in us for skipping practice and her explaining over and over a strong runner is a strong swimmer you must have high endurance good form and learn to pace yourself with controlled breathing so following that logic i recruited some of my band and theater friends to do swim too it was kind of the same skill set going on but hey that's just a theory a swim theory take it from me i had none of these skills i did theater but i wasn't spectacular i struggled to lift cat litter and i still do and i have asthma that's like the opposite of controlled breathing so i don't know why i thought i'd be any good at swim persona 3 made it look so easy so when we got to that pool out in the middle of nowhere and everyone's diving and kicking and flipping they were all just so majestic and there i was forgetting to not breathe when i went underwater so while the big kids did laps and stuff my coach gave extra attention to us newbies she taught us freestyle that's the basic you know swim and even though it looks really simple looks can be deceiving you want your hands to dip perfectly perpendicular into the water and glide smoothly forward to reduce drag and then you want to stretch your entire body straight as a line to reduce drag then you gotta scoop the water under you like a human windmill to propel yourself forward and on every third or fourth reach maybe more if you're really good that's when you suck in as much air as possible and those pictures always turn out really scary like man i didn't know a face could look like that and you should really wear this little swim cap thingy to hold in all your hair as well as a swimsuit that's two sizes too small on purpose and it is recommended that you shave just a little extra to reduce drag i'm dead serious about that last one though my team and i weren't that serious but you know who was north carolina school of science and math our biggest rivals not only was their mascot literally a unicorn not only did their 50-person team work 3.141 into their chance not only did the majority if not every single boy on that team rock a speedo as a power move but i also heard a rumor they had their prom at the dinosaur museum like how cool is that so yeah i don't know i think they're neat they were simply the best of the best the cream of the crop and we could never beat them i mean we had some awesome swimmers but our team was tiny and i don't need to go to ncssm to know that that just don't add up this outnumbering normally wouldn't be normal or fair but hey middle of nowhere school district problems alright but on the bright side swim is also an independent sport every event you do you get your time card back and keep track of your personal records and it's an awesome feeling to shave off a good chunk of time and that's how they dictate which heat you're in me and all the noobs started on 50 meter sprints because that's the shortest possible distance you can swim we'd also be placed on 200 meter relay races and we do the same 50 meter thing but as a team of four and after we were cool with all that then we'd be bumped up to do longer events or even different strokes if we were interested the thing is though in my first year i don't remember getting bumped up to 500s or breaststroke or even 100s if i'm being honest cause i could barely finish a 50. my dives were painful belly flops my form was awful i didn't know how to flip turn without choking on water by the time i was turning back to finish the race everyone was done and i was so exhausted and i felt so defeated i'd literally dog paddle to the end and everyone would cheer and encourage me even the other schools and although i understood they were being nice people had to help me out of the pool sometimes it was so embarrassing and i'd cry a lot i'd try so hard at practice and i'd try so hard at the next meet but it was the same thing over and over for my entire first season i felt bad participating in secret santa and other little things we did as a team because i felt like i didn't deserve to be there you know i was the weakest link but the amazing part is no one ever made me feel bad about it in fact an upperclassman approached me one day and he offered to teach me how to dive and i was like dude coach jackson couldn't fix this are you sure and he was like yeah dude of course what are teammates for and i don't know how he did it but something clicked that day and my dives weren't just good they were beautiful it was just a matter of form and momentum speed i am speed so thanks to him junior year started off a lot better i knew how to dive and i stopped skipping dry land day as often and i was finally able to finish a 50 free without people having to pull me out of the water whoa and of course coach jackson took notice of my improvements which meant one day on her way to a swim meet she handed me not one not two but three time cards a 50 free a 100 free and a 200 free and i was like and she just looked at me like miss jackson i just learned how to breathe above water instead of underwater you can't put me on a 200 i'll die and she was like well our 500 free girl is absent so someone had to take her spot and now someone has to do the 200 and that someone is you so good luck despite the progress i'd made i was not at all ready for this a 200 and anything above that that's for people with mega endurance and again this asthmatic tiny two left feet haven't hooligan here just isn't built for stuff like this and since i'd never done it before i was thrown into a random middle heat with the kids from ncssm there was no way i'd be able to do this without avoiding absolute embarrassment but i had to do it i couldn't let my team down i couldn't let coach jackson down so i hopped on the block i smacked my goggles real good took a deep breath and waited for the whistle i launched myself in there and just counted my breaths i didn't know any strategies to this so i had to come up with my own just keep swimming wait no that's copyrighted um just don't give up yeah as long as i just keep going keep breathing just do as best i can even if i'm tired if i don't give up at least i can finish why is everyone screaming what you got seconds and i just stood there just huffing and puffing like hold on i got a second me and sure enough they wrote it on my time card second place sadly my family and i couldn't find all my time cards since this happened so long ago but we did manage to find this a plaque given to me for being the most improved swimmer for that year so read it and weep and when i find my time card i'm gonna post on instagram and twitter at illymation come vibe i loved swim team i loved my coach i loved all the friends i made and all the things i learned and even though it was hard for a really long time i'm so glad i didn't give up trying new things can be nerve-wracking especially when you're bad at it but please take it from me don't give up on yourself too soon if something isn't working there might be another way sometimes slow and steady does win the race or at least get you second place so with that thank you for watching my video promise me you'll never give up hit like if you liked this subscribe to hear more stories and as always stay safe oh and don't breathe underwater [Music] [Music] you

Channel: illymation

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Id: oIVSKQ8NMqk

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020