Monday, December 24, 2007

The hurt-pain-agony approach

Mostly what I write about at my other blog has nothing to do with triathlon, but I thought I'd link to something I wrote just now on two swimming books I've read recently.

(Hmmm, there is a picture that is slightly NSFW--consider yourself warned...)

Here's a taste, one of my favorite quotations from a book I have fallen absolutely in love with, Counsilman's The Science of Swimming (I have the first edition, in a rather dour library binding; I feel that the second edition cannot possibly be quite so delightful as the original):
It is extremely difficult for an intelligent, mature athlete to form an identification with a coach who sets himself up as a dictator, and whose authoritarian manner must be accepted unquestioningly. Athletes of low intellect, weak or unstable personality, or those who are lacking in maturity, may respond to a martinet, but if, in a free world, we do not look upon such tactics with favor in other aspects of human relationships, certainly we should not in athletics.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I left two comments for you with links on "Light Reading" to articles about coaching swimming. I could almost imagine swimming when I read about you doing it, but then I remember 25 years ago taking the swimming test in college and being in the best shape of my life but STILL being barely able to make it to the end of the pool.

Jenny Davidson said...

I hear you! Crazy how fitness is so sport-specific... Thanks for the links.