Swimming

My swimming competition ended yesterday, marking the end of 2 years of trying to swim competitively. As far as I’m concerned, competing is simply a motivation to work smarter and train harder – hoping for medals is unrealistic, having joined at such a late age.

Technique and water confidence aside, the real takeaway is in the life lessons learned. Usually, competitive sport is supposed to inculcate the determination to train and the resourcefulness to train smarter – and I’ve definitely learnt quite a lot in this respect. But as a relative outsider, I see swimming in a rather different way from the others.

Most competitive swimmers that I know started young – in primary school or earlier. Most of them come from relatively well off backgrounds and have extensive parental support – such as being fetched to and fro from trainings, as often as 6 days a week.

While a small percentage are serious and determined – and these tend to be the ones winning the medals – many seem to lack the motivation to train harder or smarter. To them, they have lost the desire to win and training has simply turned into a routine: they just do whatever the coach tells them to do and then go home after that.

At the same time, there are others who didn’t have the opportunity to swim when young who join, even if they have no chance of winning. Usually these people are from poor backgrounds, but on a whole their motivation level is much, much higher than those who started young.

After all, swimming is just another activity that one can do: This pattern of a small group of enthusiasts and the rest just going through the motions or being there for the bragging rights is, after all, common to almost any other activity.

If anything, this pattern challenges the notion that the best way to raise kids is “starting early” by loading them with all manner of stuff: it may actually hurt them by decreasing their “hunger” – essentially the motivation to learn.