Ok, so I may be beating a dead horse, but this is the issue that just won’t die. There are so many opinions, and I am forming mine as I research the issue. Here’s another go round.

1. financial reasons

I originally dismissed this one out of hand. It’s a stereotype that all blacks are poor, and I’m not going there. But this article approached the issue from a different direction. So much about swimming is about time. You really must put the hours in, and that’s where finances can become an issue. You must pay for all that pool time, and many of the practice and meet hours may conflict with working hours. Add to that issues of one or no car per family, and you have a problem.

2. lack of role models

My research has me leaning toward this as the major factor. Swimming just doesn’t seem like a ‘black thing’ if you can’t find anyone black who’s ever excelled in it. The reason I talk so much about Cullen Jones here is that he’s the dude who’s out there taking names now. We need more people to bust down the doors and keep them open. I think it’s only a matter of time. It helps that Cullen is doing Make a Splash and trading on his celebrity to encourage other black kids to get in the water. Time shall tell.

3. fear of the water

This is the generational factor. ie., My mother was afraid of the water and she told me to stay away from the water, and I’m scared. . . This is a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself. The problem here is that this fear has done nothing to curb the drowning rate. Being afraid of the water is a dangerous stance to take. I think we address this with understanding coaches, and black swim teachers and lifeguards can’t hurt.

4. hair

I was talking to my cousin the other day about my daughter’s plans to go swimming on her Christmas vacation. I had thought it would be an awful lot of trouble for her to get her hair wet while away from home. My cousin lamented that hair would even be an issue. I do too. I quit getting perms so I could pursue swimming. I wore braids and and now get my hair done a couple times a month to accommodate my love of swimming. It is doable, but still a pain. I definitely want to try wrapping my hair in plastic wrap before putting on my cap! I will let you know how it works.

5. history of racism

I didn’t want to go there, but when we have stuff like what happened in Philadelphia this last summer flare up, you know it’s an issue to contend with. I’ve talked about the incident here, and I found this article which also addresses it. Part of our reluctance to swim comes from being denied access to pools. Godfrey Cambridge joked in the 60s that the colored pool and the white pool were just the same, only the colored pool had no water in it, and the diving board was higher. The idea that blacks and whites definitely better not mix in the water has been prevalent in this country for a long time, and the Philadelphia incident shows that it has not died quite yet. I’m not sure, but I think excellence, influence and affluence will address this issue. Excellence like what Cullen Jones and younger swimmers behind him are pursuing. These young swimmers also carry the burden of influence on their backs. Just doing their thing will influence other swimmers to come and join them, not to mention normalize the whole idea of black swimmers. Affluence is something all of us can attain. Make your plan, put your head down, pursue it, and then open your own pools, clubs and resorts. And use good old competition to drive the racist institutions right out of business.

Yesterday I asked the question if black swim teachers matter. Here’s a black coach speaking for himself. Let’s keep this dialogue going. What do you think?

I was just looking for information on the French swimmer, Malia Metella.  Unsurprisingly, I found little about her.  But I did find an interesting article written by David Owen in 2005.  What caught my attention was that in addition to  asking Metella about herself and her success as a swimmer (she won silver in the 50 free in Athens 2004), Owen asked her why there were so few black swimmers.

My immediate thought there is, why would she know that?  What does that have to do with her, really?

And then the article forgets her altogether and goes off in search of its answer.  Owen cites studies which point to blacks having denser, heavier skeletons, blah, blah, blah.  Then he finds another researcher who said that skeletons change quickly, and the reason for the dense skeletons may be the lifestyle of the person. So this thing perpetuates–black people generationally don’t swim, and their skeletons are denser because of the stress and work black people generationally do, and so on. In other words, because black people don’t swim, they don’t have ‘swimming skeletons,’ not the other way around.

Then they bring up the socio-economic reasons again, ignoring the one point Malia Metalla did have to make about the issue.  There’s just not a lot of encouragement for black swimmers, because they don’t see a lot of other black swimmers.  That is neither a poverty argument, nor an evolution argument.

It smacks of the truth.

I first heard this name back in 2006.  USA swimming was so serious about raising its minority profile. I didn’t think much of it at the time; certainly didn’t expect it to last.

But now I’m finding just what John Cruzat has brought to swimming in the US.  The former Army   Infantryman  was awarded the Bronze Star for actions in combat Desert Storm. After retirement, he was Vice President of the Urban League of the Pikes Peak region until USA Swimming recruited him.  He is the mind behind the Make a Splash program I talked about yesterday.

What I think is cool is that Cruzat is not just focused on the bottom end of the swimming scale–learn to swim initiatives.  He also created a Diversity Select Meet where children aged 13-18 had to post certain times before they would be accepted. This is from the application for the camp, held this year in March.

Purpose of the Camp: To instill a vision of success and inspire athletes from ethnically under-representedpopulations to become leaders in the sport of swimming. Coming to the Olympic Training Center to train with other selected athletes and meet with other coaches in a great environment is certainly motivational. The Camp also seeks to further empower the athletes and their coaches to achieve performance excellence and assist in recruiting more swimmers and coaches of color to the sport of swimming.

When Cruzat first got on board at USA Swimming, he was very excited and acknowledged that he couldn’t make changes overnight.  It’s been a few years now, and he has made some positive changes in the National Swimming scene.  I can’t wait to see what else he has up his sleeves!

It feels like all swim workouts have an element of swimming while tired, but today I was above and beyond tired.  It was a combination of having gotten up an hour earlier than I had hoped, and the heavy dinner I felt on my stomach in the 6 o’clock hour.

But that was too bad.  I pushed through the fatigue to do my set.  The one place I gave myself grace was on my yardage.  Rather than push myself to swim 1500 total yards, I swam 1400 again, as I’d swum on Friday.

My IM times were slower than last time:  2:51.56 and 2:51.51–at least I was consistent!

I also worked on my flip turns, but I isolated it to the front to back variety, rather than the other way around, or back to back or front to front.  I got the hang of taking one last big breath before going into a turn, hurrying up as I went into the turn, and then, after the turn, doing butterfly kick to get myself up and floating on my back properly.  I was more comfortable doing these turns by the end of my set.

Ever since I started going swimming with my daughter, I have been pulling harder in my freestyle, and it has made all the difference.  Rather than stroke with bent arms, I fully extend them, having them almost straight when they enter the water.  I feel myself gliding better, moving across the water faster, and my breathing is even coming easier.  What a relief!  It has been a long time coming.  I ended up with 450 yards total freestyle and backstroke again today.  Next time I go swimming, I want to push the freestyle up to 500.  I might do the same thing with the backstroke.

Even as I wrote last time about every workout being swim practice, there was a part of my training I’d neglected.  I am really bad at flip turns, and it is a source of embarrassment for me.

My swim team trained kids haven’t been much help in the past.  My son just thinks I’m pitiful, while my daughter would admonish me not to flail my arms so much.

But now she’s swimming with me, and she is much more helpful.  She even went down the lane with me, she on kickboard, I swimming freestyle.  First she corrected my error of taking a last ditch effort front facing breath before going into the turn.  She had told me not to do that before, that it slows you way down.  But this time, she also told me what to do instead:  take a big breath on the last breath and then go into the turn.  I’ve been working on my breathing enough that this is doable now.

Turning from the back is tricky.  I’d watched Coach Vince tell the kids to count their backstroke to the wall and turn around on the last stroke.  I know that after the flags, I have five strokes before I should turn over to go into my flip turn.  But my turns, especially in shallow water are very clumsy.  In the shallow water, I go way too deep after the turn and brush the bottom of the pool.  In the deep water, I try to come up too soon, and inhale water through my nose.  Talk about a chlorine headache!  And a mistake like that usually means I’m done practicing flip turns for the day!

I was driven to perfect them this time.  My competitive drive got the better of me.  I saw another black woman in the pool.  She was a good swimmer, who did effortless flip turns.  Here I am with my stroke getting more and more refined, yet I can’t do a basic flip turn.  Flip turn, thy time has come!

On another note, I decreased my back stroke by another stroke, sometimes 2, and it did translate to better IM times.  My first IM came in at 2:45.88, and my second time was even better, if only slightly:  2:45.05.  I also increased my freestyle and backstroke yardage to 400 each. My total yardage for the day was 1300.