Friday, April 26, 2013

Volunteer for Learn to Swim from Scratch DVD

Dear Swimmers

We're at it again! We are about to start work on producing some new material for a new Swim Smooth DVD, similar in many ways to the Learn 2 Swim from Scratch DVD we produced in 2008: http://swimsmooth.com/learn2swim.html albeit updated with many of our new methods.

We are seeking 1 or 2 non-swimmers (one female, one male potentially) from here in Perth who would be keen to go through the Swim Smooth Learn 2 Swim process whilst being filmed at the Claremont Pool. This might be a friend, partner or work colleague who's been badgering you about wanting to learn how to swim freestyle but hasn't had the time, knowledge or confidence to yet take that bold step - can you help them by offering them up the opportunity to partake in what promises to be a great few training sessions with myself, Paul Newsome?

There is no cost involved, but the participants will need to be available in the following time slots:

  • Wednesday 1st May at 2-5pm
  • Thursday 2nd May at 12-3pm
  • Tuesday 7th May at 2-5pm

Participants should:

  • not be able to complete a 25m length of freestyle
  • be happy to be filmed and to be engaged infrequently in chats directly to the camera (no major stress!)
  • may be suffering from some degree of anxiety, e.g. putting face in the water
  • want to learn how to swim freestyle themselves!

Applicants should please reply to this email by Tuesday 30th April at 12pm (midday) giving a brief bio on their quest to swim freestyle to this point and also a contact number that we can call to discuss further details with them. We won't be able to invite every participant to attend unfortunately, but hopefully with what we're able to produce, this material will go on to helping many more people out there get into this great sport and healthy lifestyle!

Cheers

Paul



Sunday, April 21, 2013

ANAZAC DAY

Dear Swimmers

Owing to the ANZAC Day Public Holiday the pool will be closing at 6pm so sadly we have to cancel the 6.30pm squad session with Sally just for this week. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Cheers

Paul

Friday, April 19, 2013

Rottnest Channel Swim Records and the Kokoda Trail

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're all well - great to be fully back into the swing of things and to know that all our sessions (especially the 9.30am ones) are back to normal at the Claremont Pool!

Just two notes this week from squad members:

Kokoda Trek
 
If anyone's interested in doing the Kokoda Trail this August, Serena Wells (5.30am, Tuesday and Thursday nights squads), her brother, Mitchell, and a couple of others are looking for some people to join their privately guided trek.  The relevant dates are 3 to 13 August (being the arrival and departure dates from Port Moresby, which includes travel time to/from the Trail).  If you're interested (or know of anyone that might be), please give her a call on 0457 896 665 or email: serenawells11@gmail.com

Rottnest Channel Swim Records

John Guilfoyle (one of the founding swimmers of the first Rottnest Channel Swim) is compiling some historic records of the event and wonders if anyone can help him out with the following (please contact John directly on jonhguilfoyle@bigpond.com if you can):

"Some of the RCSA records for solo swim are incomplete, at least ten swimmers have had their swims not recognised either due to them not applying to the RCSA committee for ratification or were disqualified from the race but completed the swim to Rottnest resulting in their swim not being ratified by the committee. The present committee know about the situation and will not act until the swimmers apply for recognition. Could you please ask your squad and to let John know. They must apply themselves for ratification.

Some of the team records of the race are incomplete from 1991 to 2003. If any swimmers have records of their swim team, name & age of swimmers in the team and their time and result, please let John know.
 
He is also interested in solo swimmers who were asked to stop and leave the water, the reason why, and if they were advised that they could swim to the nearest part of the island to have their swim ratified?"

Cheers - have a great weekend!

Paul



Thursday, April 11, 2013

Applications for Perth Swim Smooth Squad now closed…please, no further submissions at this point. Thank you!

Dear Swimmers

Many thanks if you applied to join the Swim Smooth Perth Squad - that was a pretty full-on 2 hours, but all applications are now closed, thanks!

Please see below the allocations and the reserve lists that we have created in response to this. We will not add any additional places to the reserve list as it will just continue to grow and grow, but will contact those of you already established on that reserve list if more spaces become available.

We anticipate running a similar mass mail out like this again in July or as / when we manage to establish any additional space at another venue. Thanks again for your patience!

Those of you whom have secured a spot can now proceed to purchase a PAYG card at http://swimsmooth.com/perth_buycard.html and then attend the next available session on the list below from this Saturday 13th April onwards.

P.S apologies in advance if I replied to you stating you were (for example) 3rd on the reserve list but are in actual fact 4th etc as I made a slight error on the lane numberings quoted in the last email and subsequently confused a couple of you...as such I had a minor bit of tweaking to do to ensure that the ordering was correct. Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you.

Here are the allocations:

  • Monday 7am (technique session) - 3 places in each of the 3 lanes available (9 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 1 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
SELECTED: Lane 3 = Roger Lewis & Zane Randell & PLACE; Lane 2 = Lisa Palmer PLACE PLACE; Lane 1 = Craig Bell & William Hart & Lisa Wolyniec 

RESERVES: Lane 3 = ; Lane 2 = ; Lane 1 = Kelly Cadeau & Annette Andrews & Adrian Boniface & Rachel Baghurst & Carrie Anderson (confirm lane) & Alison Whitelaw & Chris Murphy & Greg Fox & Kathryn Batchelor

  • Tuesday 6.30pm (technique / endurance session) - 2 places in each of the 3 lanes available (6 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 1 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
SELECTED: Lane 3 = Derek Cross & Lisa Palmer; Lane 2 = Julia Mansfield & Tony Sheppard; Lane 1 = William Hart & Lisa Wolyniec

RESERVES: Lane 3 = Bec Smith & Roger Warne & Sally Mauk; Lane 2 = Lindsay Dodd & Stuart Wright; Lane 1 = Kelly Cadeau & Edward Para & Renee Webster & Georgie Gallagher & Rachel Baghurst & Hesson Razavi & Tania Ashworth & Sam Wolyniec

  • Thursday 6.30pm (threshold development session) - 2 places in each of the 3 lanes available (6 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 1 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
SELECTED: Lane 3 = Roger Lewis & Derek Cross; Lane 2 = Julia Mansfield & Tony Sheppard; Lane 1 = Rhian Chin & Rachel Baghurst 
RESERVES: Lane 3 = Lisa Palmer & Denita Slatter & Sally Mauk; Lane 2 = Lindsay Dodd & Josh Wozniuk & Stuart Wright; Lane 1 = Kelly Cadeau & William Hart & Tania Ashworth 

  • Saturday 1.00pm (open water skills session in the pool) - 4 places in each of the 3 lanes available (12 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 1 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
SELECTED: Lane 3 =PLACE PLACE PLACE PLACE; Lane 2 = Julia Mansfield & Tony Sheppard & Lisa Palmer PLACE; Lane 1 = William Hart & Brayden Jamieson & Rhian Chin & John Mitchell

RESERVES: Lane 3 = ; Lane 2 = ; Lane 1 = Lisa Wolyniec & Julien Roby & Georgie Gallagher & Bianca Fitzsimmons & John Haig & Rachel Baghurst & Carrie Anderson (confirm lane)

Thanks again, your level of interest in what we do has been simply overwhelming!

Paul



Swim Smooth Perth Squad lane availability April 2013 onwards

Dear Swimmers

As promised earlier this week, I have the pleasure to announce a limited number of spaces in particular lanes within particular sessions, available as of today. These spaces are being offered on a strictly first-come, first-served basis and given we have 235 people on our squad wait list, the anticipation is that these spaces will fill immediately. 

Going forwards, we will be closely monitoring numbers over the colder winter season and offer additional places as they might become available. 

We are also investigating another couple of venues from which to run a 'mirror-version' of the program offered here: http://swimsmooth.com/perth_timetable.html - so if you miss out this time around, please be patient as we may be able to offer something to you soon.

We have been absolutely shocked by the level of building interest in the squad in the last 12-18 months and would like to firstly express sincere thanks to those of you whom have been supporting the program for multiple seasons. As we continue to operate with the PAYG card system as per http://swimsmooth.com/perth_buycard.html (which we believe to be the most flexible and fairest approach for you the swimmer) it is often tricky to monitor exactly how many swimmers will attend a particular session, but we hope to keep this at an average of ~8-10 swimmers per 50m lane...sometimes it will inevitably be a little more, sometimes a little less but hopefully you find that the flexibility of not being charged for sessions you cannot attend (e.g. doctors appointments, sick kids, late from work etc) really makes the program work well for all parties.

OK, so we can offer space in the following sessions in the very short-term...swimmers MUST be within the speed range suggested for the particular lane as we have ascertained these allocations to avoid over-crowding in a particular lane despite the average number of swimmers per lane possibly working out to be 8-10 swimmers. This will allow good management and flow within the lanes and to help keep everyone happy. On that note, these pointers on lane etiquette will ensure everyone works well together as a squad: http://swimsmoothperth.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/lane-etiquette-and-saturday-training.html

IMPORTANT: if you are already swimming with the squad and have been consistently for at least the last 6 months, you do not need to re-apply for your place...its safe! :-)

  • Monday 7am (technique session) - 3 places in each of the 3 lanes available (9 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 3 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
  • Monday 9.30am (technique session) - sorry, no availability
  • Tuesday 5.30am (technique / endurance session) - sorry, no availability
  • Tuesday 6.30am (technique / endurance session) - sorry, no availability
  • Tuesday 6.30pm (technique / endurance session) - 2 places in each of the 3 lanes available (6 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 3 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
  • Wednesday 5.30am** (long endurance session) - sorry, no availability
  • Wednesday 9.30am (threshold development session) - sorry, no availability
  • Thursday 6.30pm (threshold development session) - 2 places in each of the 3 lanes available (6 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 3 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m
  • Friday 5.30am (threshold development session) - sorry, no availability
  • Friday 6.30am (threshold development session) - sorry, no availability
  • Friday 9.30am (technique session) - sorry, no availability
  • Saturday 1.00pm (open water skills session in the pool) - 4 places in each of the 3 lanes available (12 total) - speed range for lane 3 = 1:16 to 1:30/100m*, lane 2 = 1:31 to 1:50/100m, lane 3 = 1:50 to 2:20/100m

*these speed ranges relate to CSS (Critical Swim Speed) pace, i.e. the pace which you could maintain for a continuous 1.0 to 1.5km swim as per details on this topic at http://swimsmooth.com/training (this very much forms the basis of how we refer to speed / intensity within the program, so if you're new to the program it is highly recommended that you familiarise yourself with this system)

**all sessions are 60 minutes in length, apart from the Wednesday 5.30am session which is up to 90 minutes

WHAT NEXT?

So, if any of these squad times work for you and you are within the speed ranges suggested, please apply simply by return email stating:

a) your full name, email address and mobile contact number
b) which session you want to attend
c) which lane you believe you would be in

...best of luck!

We cannot promise to reply back to every applicant given the sheer volume of people on the wait list, but will publicise the additional squad selections tomorrow (Friday 12th April) at 11am. Anyone unfortunately missing the 'cut' will be kept on the wait list (unless you advise otherwise) and will be notified with a similar selection process again in due course and as space becomes available.

Thanks for your time!

Paul

P.S for your reference we are now taking bookings from November 2013 onwards for our 1-2-1 video analysis and stroke correction sessions as per http://swimsmooth.com/perth_videoanalysis.html



Monday, April 8, 2013

A reminder for the 9.30am squad this week

Dear 9.30am swimmers

Please be reminded that due to the final two carnivals of the season, this Wednesday's (10/4) and Friday's (12/4) 9.30am sessions will be held down at Cottesloe Beach, meeting on the grassy bank to the north side of the Indianna Tea Rooms just before 9.30am. The sessions will consist of some open water skills work, i.s. sighting / drafting and entering and exiting the water etc. They will be a lot of fun so hope that you can make it down.

A note on squad numbers:

Since I've been back I've been assessing lane space availability within the squad and within each lane at each session and have tried to estimate how this will unfold over the colder winter months. As such, on Thursday this week at 1pm I will be releasing some limited-release spaces within certain sessions for new swimmers who seek to join the program. Some of the more popular sessions still remain fully booked, but from the trends that I've been assessing we have seen a couple of places thankfully open up. Rather than offering, say, 4 general places in a 6.30am session though, I will be offering specific places within a given lane, i.e. 2 places in lane 1 on Friday at 6.30am for those swimmers capable of swimming 1:52 to 2:10 per 100m for a harder threshold set. As such, only those swimmers who are at this pace and can make this particular time slot would be offered a spot. 

We shall be offering these places on a strictly first-come, first-served basis and will also be offering them out to the 230+ people on the squad wait list at the same time, so the anticipation is that they will fill quickly. If you've been swimming with the squad consistently over the last 6-9 months, then we have accounted for you still swimming with the squad unless you've informed us otherwise, so your place is safe - just continue attending as you are.

The unprecedented level of recent interest in the squad has sent me back to sourcing out alternative local venues to cater for the demand. So, if you happen to miss out one of the limited release sessions, please bear with us as we hope to be able to offer something additionally soon.

Hope that all makes sense?

Cheers

Paul