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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Water sports & recreations > Swimming & diving > General
'What would it mean to name this place I'm in, to map it? To say:
this is the landscape. It looks like this, smells like this, at
night these are the sounds that carry on the wind.
Almost-motherhood . . .' When Miranda Ward and her husband decided
to have a baby, they were young and optimistic. But five years,
three miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy later, she is still
dealing with the ongoing aftermath of that decision, and the shadow
it's cast over her relationship to her partner, her body and her
future. In this searing, lyrical and radically honest memoir, Ward
charts her journey through the uncertain landscape of
almost-motherhood, asking questions of geography on the most
intimate scale. How can we learn to be at home in our own bodies,
even when we feel adrift from them? What language do we have for
the spaces in between, the periods of wanting and waiting? And how
do we maintain hope as we navigate towards an unknown future?
Since before the turn of the twentieth century, ocean swimmers have
had aspirations of "Swimming the Light." The route chosen by these
early adventurers, and dreamers, went from the bridges in
Charlestown to the Boston Light, on Little Brewster Island, in the
outer Boston Harbor, a distance of twelve miles. In 1907, a Boston
Light Swim Race was inaugurated. Of the twenty-seven swimmers who
dove in at the Warren Bridge in Charlestown that year, not one
succeeded in touching the shore of Little Brewster Island. The very
first known, and documented, swimmer to succeed in reaching Boston
Light from Charlestown was Alois Anderle, in the Boston Light Swim
Race of 1909. Anderle was 40 years old and a native of Austria,
then living in New York City. His time was 5 hours, 40 minutes.
Once other swimmers learned from Anderle's success that this
marathon swim was possible, others followed with successful swims
to Boston Light. Even though victory became more common after 1909,
however, most of the contestants still failed to stay the whole
course. In fact, of 435 starters of the Boston Light Swim Races
between 1907 and 1941, 363 failed to reach the Light, most defeated
by the cold and choppy water, and the seemingly endless distance
involved. This book covers the Boston Light Swim Races for the
years 1907 through 1941. After the race in 1941, the event was shut
down for the duration of the war. Even though World War Two ended
in 1945, the swim was not restarted until 1976, when Boston
marathon swimmer, Jim Doty, took it upon himself to reorganize it.
The Boston Light Swim Race continues, alive and well, to the
present day. The percentage of contestants finishing the grind
nowadays is much higher than that of the early era. This may be
attributed to several factors, not the least of which is the
shortening of the course to eight miles. Other factors may include:
a greater knowledge of tides, currents and other conditions; the
evolution of more efficient swimming styles and strokes. The swim
is considered an excellent test for the aspiring English Channel
swimmer. The conditions of both swims are similar, with cold and
choppy water. The two main differences are the shorter distance,
and the scarcity of stinging jellyfish in the Boston swim.
Nevertheless, many swimmers have based their decision to make the
trip to England upon their experience in the Boston Light Swim.
Neither swim is a test for the faint of heart, and the simple
attempt at either one is, in itself, a significant measure of
success.
This manual contains vital information for parents including:
*How to select a qualified swim instructor and what to expect from
the instructor.
*What makes a successful swim program and how to locate one near
you.
*Determine the proper age to enroll children in swim lessons.
*Benefits of small group and private lessons.
*Advantage and disadvantage of parental involvement with
lessons-parent /child instruction.
*Getting what you pay for.
*The importance of follow-up lessons for several years including
stroke instruction classes.
*Water safety tips to prevent fatal accidents.
*Disadvantages of floatation devices for young children.
*Proper diving safety tips.
*Caution when allowing children to visit someone with a pool or
body of water nearby.
This manual will inform parents on how to eliminate the anxiety and
discomfort often associated with swim lessons. Parents must
understand that the first phase in preparing their child for a
successful experience with swim lessons is to accept responsibility
in the child's learning process. This manual will help prepare the
parents with that responsibility.
The author's reasons for writing this book were, first, to provide
readers with some basic hydrodynamic tenants that will help them
understand the reasons for the complex nature of the stroke
mechanics employed by elite, competitive swimmers. The first three
chapters on resistance and propulsion were included for this
purpose. The second purpose was to describe, what the author
believes, is the major propulsive mechanism swimmers use: shoulder
adduction. A third purpose was to comment on some of, the many
"fads" and misconceptions about stroke mechanics that abound in our
sport. His final reasoning behind writing this book was to
speculate on some theories about stroke mechanics he developed over
the years. The efficacy of these theories have yet to be validated
by research, but are worth considering nonetheless. These purposes
were met by the individual chapters on each competitive stroke,
plus a chapter on stroke rates and stroke lengths. This book is not
a continuation of the Swimming Faster series, although it contains
some of the same information. Therefore, the author purposely
changed the title to reflect his purpose in writing it. It contains
descriptions and summaries of the most important research on
swimming hydrodynamics over the last several decades, in his
opinion. The descriptions of stroke mechanics are supported by
photographs of some of the greatest swimmers in the world, both
past and present. They were made from in-competition videos where
one can see how they really swim, as opposed to what they think
they should be doing, which is what one often sees in pool
demonstrations and out-of-competition instructional videos.
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