SAC - Competitive Swimming age group -8 & 9 yrs old in action

SAC- Elite Swimmers, Rain or Shine training as usual

Training session under heavy rain

Their Coach, my Champions in the making at Spore Sports School

Swimming Coach

Looking for a Swimming Coach
I'm Coach Jeff
Check out my swimming blog for more details
http://jeffswim.blogspot.com
or contact me at 9388 7383

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Advance Coaching in Competitive Swimming with National Coach David Lim : 19th -23rd Sept 2011

Its was a privilege to watch & learn from our National Swim Coach David Lim during a training session with his National Swimmers Rayner, Rachel & Megan. Me in the background learning from David on some swim drills

Does swimming make you smarter?

Research indicates: YES
LEARNING to swim could make children smarter, Queensland researchers believe.
A Griffith University research project will survey more than 10,000 youngsters aged up to five to find out if swimming advances physical, social, intellectual and language development.
Professor Robyn Jorgensen said anecdotal evidence found swimmers tended to be more confident than same-age, non-swimming peers.
She said the study was in its second year and is measuring the development of youngsters learning to swim against international milestones of child development..
"The preliminary data is coming back quite positive," she said. "Children in swimming schools appear to be more advanced in terms of their development." .
Ms Jorgensen said the research will also monitor young swimmers at 60 swim schools across Australia and cross reference the results with the earlier surveys..
"Then we'll take a smaller sample of children and test them against the milestones," she said. She said the swim teaching industry had ordered the research..
"When they're working with young kids, they've noticed the ones who have been in swimming longer are more advanced," she said..
Ms Jorgensen said this study was the largest of its kind in 30 years. The study will be run for four years..
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/sink-or-swim-does-swimming-make-you-smarter-research-indicates-yes/story-e6frfku0-1225946698740

Tri Z Sisters Open Water Swim at ECP 12Aug2011

Z sister Aiu & Linda Z








So steady..ponpeepee...pheewit









Me with them..smile :)
Last training before the event








Aiu Z in action








Linda Z in action

Streamline bubble breaststroke kick by Jin Xuan

Jin Xin 6yrs old learning the front crawl with Kickboard

Development of a Child in Motor Skill

A motor skill is a learned sequence of movements that combine to produce a smooth, efficient action in order to master a particular task.

Development of motor skills

Due to the immaturity of the human nervous system at the time of birth, children grow continually throughout their childhood years. Many factors contribute to the ability and the rate that children develop their motor skills. Uncontrollable factors include: genetic or inherited traits and children with learning disorders. A child born to short and overweight parents is much less likely to be an athlete than a child born to two athletically built parents. Controllable factors include: the environment/society and culture they are born to. A child born in the city is much less likely to have the same opportunities to explore, hike, or trek the outdoors than one born in the rural area. For a child to successfully develop motor skills, he or she must receive many opportunities to physically explore the surroundings.
Infantile: Early movements made by very young infants are largely reflexive. An infant is exposed to a variety of perceptual experiences through the five senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Gradually, the infant learns that certain involuntary, reflexive movements can result in pleasurable sensory experiences, and will attempt to repeat the motions voluntarily in order to experience the pleasurable sensation.

Repetition is an important concept in motor learning. New motor skills can be reinforced through practice in order to become stronger, more fluid, and more coordinated. With enough practice, these movements become automatic and require no thought on behalf of the individual to execute. The most common example is swimming, constant repeated kicks in the swim class until it reach a state of automatic..may take up to 6-9mths, some up to a year!

Children, through negative perceptual responses or no desire to partake in physical challenges, will show a delay in developing certain motor skills and automaticity. This is sometimes the cause of “clumsiness” that some children have.

Developmental Milestones: the age when a child is normally (compared to all other children) expected to be able to do an activity. Common milestones and the age expected are listed below.

• 6 months – can sit straight
• 12 months – takes first steps
• 24 months – can jump
• 36 months – can cut with scissors; runs on toes

Influences to development

Stress and arousal: stress and anxiety is the result of an imbalance between demand and the capacity of the individual. Arousal is the state of interest in the skill. The optimal performance level is moderate stress or arousal. An example of too low of arousal state is an overqualified worker performing repetitive jobs. An example of stress level too high is an anxious pianist at a recital.
Fatigue: the deterioration of performance when a stressful task is continued for a long time, similar to the muscular fatigue experienced when exercised for a rapid rate or lengthy period of time. Fatigue is caused by over-arousal. Fatigue impacts an individual in many ways: perceptual changes in which visual acuity or awareness drops, slowing of performance (reaction times or movements speed), irregularity of timing, and disorganization of performance.
Vigilance: the effect of the loss of vigilance is the same as fatigue, but is otherwise caused by the lack of arousal. Some tasks include jobs that require little work and high attention.

Stages of Motor learning

The stages to motor learning is the cognitive phase, the associative phase, and the autonomous phase.
Cognitive Phase: When a learner is new to a specific task, the primary thought process starts with, “what needs to be done?” Considerable cognitive activity is required so that the learner can determine appropriate strategies to adequately reflect the desired goal. Good strategies are retained and inefficient strategies are discarded. The performance is greatly improved in a short amount of time.
Associative Phase: the learner has determined the most effective way to do the task and starts to make subtle adjustments in performance. Improvements are more gradual and movements become more consistent. This phase can last for a long time.
Autonomous Phase: this phase may take several months to years to reach. The phase is dubbed because the performer can now “automatically” complete the task without having to pay any attention to. Examples include walking and talking or sight reading while doing simple arithmetic.

Feedback

During the learning process of a motor skill, feedback is the positive or negative response that tells the learner how well the task was completed. Inherent feedback: after completing the skill, inherent feedback is the sensory information that tells the learner how well the task was completed. A basketball player will note that he or she made a mistake when the ball misses the hoop. Another example is a diver knowing that a mistake was made when the entrance into the water is painful and undesirable. Augmented feedback: in contrast to inherent feedback, augmented feedback is information that supplements or “augments” the inherent feedback. For example, when a person is driving over a speed limit and is pulled over by the police. Although the car did not do any harm, the policeman gives augmented feedback to the driver in order for him to drive more safely. Another example is a private tutor for a new student of a field of study. Augmented feedback decreases the amount of time to master the motor skill and increases the performance level of the prospect. Transfer of motor skills: the gain or loss in the capability for performance in one task as a result of practice and experience on some other task. An example would be the comparison of initial skill of a tennis player and non-tennis player when playing table tennis for the first time. An example of a negative transfer is if it takes longer for a typist to adjust to a randomly assigned letters of the keyboard compared to a new typist. Retention: the performance level of a particular skill after a period of no use.

Types of tasks

Continuous tasks: activities like swimming, bicycling, running; the performance level is just as proficient as before even after years of no use.
Discrete tasks: an instrument or a sport, the performance level drops significantly but will be better than a new learner. The relationship between the two tasks is that continuous tasks usually use gross motor skills and discrete tasks use finer motor skills.

Gross motor skills

Gross motor skill require the use of large muscle groups to perform tasks like walking, balancing, crawling. The skill required is not extensive and therefore are usually associated with continuous tasks. Much of the development of these skills occurs during early childhood. The performance level of gross motor skill remains unchanged after periods of non-use.

Fine motor skills

Fine motor skill require the use of smaller muscle groups to perform tasks that are precise in nature. Activities like playing the piano and playing video games are examples of using fine motor skills. Generally, there is a retention loss of fine motor skills over a period of non-use. Discrete tasks usually require more fine motor skill than gross motor skills.

Alston doing his butterful

Swimming - Turns - Freestyle Flip Turn Step #5

YiLing age 2.5yrs in action

YiLing executing the bubble flutter kick despite her young age.

Elfa performing the Zipper Drill

Elfa is a talented girl, she just started with me for 3mths with zero Breast Stroke, now she has progress to freestyle, backstroke & now dolphin kick

Doreen & YuYun in action

Doreen learning the zipper drill just today & finally YuYun managed to lift her head up & able to swim the breast stroke after abt 10 lessons.
Doreen has progress to freestyle

Fatherly Coach Jeff - I love children, they are so adorable

Fun time with the kids during class
They waited patiently..when is my turn Uncle Jeff







Sandra is so happy when I carry her :)

Dynamite Kids at WoodLand Pool

The Dynamite 5






Ee Xian








Nicole Ann









Leif









Janzen

Private Class for 2 -Jing Xuan 6 & Jing Xin 4

Sis Jing Xuan & bro Jing Xin attending their Lesson 5









Jing Xin executing the Breast Stroke kick







Jing Xuan is doing very well just Lesson 5 she is able to swim the Breast Stroke for 5-10 metres..well fast progress..jiayu Jing Xuan..well bro is not too far behind considering his age









Jing Xin learning the glide..part of the breast stroke









Jing Xuan in a ready position for gliding

SengKang Saturday Beginner Class

Justine the newest to join the class today seems to be a fast learner



Great job Brian & Caden both have no fear to post for me underwater









Justine waiting patiently for his turn on his 1st day










Chie & Natashi too has no fear..hi uncle jeff







Nathanial here pretty cool underwater..seems to be enjoying himself









Caden is executing his drill confidently









Brian is also enjoying his drill

Wayne in action - Freestyle with board

This is his lesson 2 for his freestyle

Alfa learning the Breast Stroke - Lesson 6

Swim time, fun time for this 3 at the pool

This is Matthew age 4+ enjoying free hula hood class






My turn, Joshua age 4+ trying out







Gabriel the oldest here age 8 shows the little one how its done

Housewife WangYi learning to swim

WangYi & her daughter (background) enrolled in my Adults Class and this is their 4th lessons and progress is on track, infact the mother learn faster than her daughter..lol..so age is no barrier :)

Deepa learning the Breast Stroke

Deepa here learning the breast stroke ..she is learning fast as this is her 3rd lessons & she can also do it well

Sat Adults Class at Sengkang Pool

Ladies fellowship