Swimmers refine techniques at swim camp under direction of Rhoten, Shaw
EDWARDSVILLE – The best swimmers around know that it takes plenty of work and refining of their techniques in order to reach the highest levels of their sport.
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Not only does it take hours of practice in the pool, it takes the effort of coaches who can spot flaws in a swimmer's stroke and make suggestions on how to correct those flaws.
Swimmers do begin their careers early in their lives and a camp at Edwardsville's Chuck Fruit Aquatic Center has been giving swimmers under high school age a chance to learn drills and techniques to make them stronger swimmers for the teams they represent.
“We are hosting our first-ever swim and dive camp for swimmers who are not of high school age,” said Edwardsville swimming coach Christian Rhoten. “This is for age-group swimmers 14 and under; it's really directed at swimmers who have some competitive experience; it's very technique-based. It's been a two-week (camp) where, in the first week, we worked on freestyle technique, flip turns and starts, and this week, we're working on the individual strokes – butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke – starts and turns for those.”
While the camp has been aimed at age-group swimmers, such as what's found on YMCA teams or on summer club teams, Rhoten and EHS assistant coach Samantha Shaw has been working with campers who are looking to improve themselves for their teams. “Anyone who has a little bit of experience with swimming that are wanting to get into it – we've got a couple of kids who have been doing lessons at the YMCA and are wanting to get into competitive swimming – (the camp) is for that kind of swimmer,” Rhoten said, “and we have those who are seasoned swimmers – they've been doing this for a long time, they're going into high school – and they want to get a little bit more technique-based instruction, so that's what we're doing.”
The camp has attracted swimmers from the Edwardsville YMCA Breakers team as well as a pair of swimmers who are coming to the camp from Centralia and participants who swim for Granite City's Paddlers swim club team and Edwardsville's Waterworks swim club team. “It's nice; it's a vast, different array of kids,” Rhoten said. “It's not the same kids you might see every day.
“I was honestly surprised when I heard that (the swimmers from Centralia) were going to come (to the camp), but we've gotten really positive feedback from them; they feel it's been worth it to drive here to enjoy our camp.”
The amount of swimming talent in the area is growing, Rhoten believes. “Every summer, we have someone new come in or move into the (Edwardsville school) district or someone who is just introduced to swimming,” Rhoten said. “There's no telling what the potential that some of these kids have; Without getting into the water – a ton (of potential); they have a great feel for the water, they're very athletic kids and they learn quickly.
“That's probably the No. 1 thing, that they learn how to do things very quickly, they have a great sense of their body movement; from that point, it's just teach them how to do everything and they're going to be a pretty darn good swimmer.”
The region's swimming community is a very good one, Rhoten thinks. “We have a very good swim community in the Metro East,” Rhoten said, “the longstanding tradition of the Edwardsville YMCA Breakers in the area; there's also teams up north in Alton, there's teams in Belleville and in St. Louis, on the Missouri side, there's a great swimming population.
“Swimming's becoming a really big sport in the area; it's a growing area, especially with the addition of (the Chuck Fruit center facility); we're definitely a sport that's on the upswing. It's exciting to see these new kids get into swimming, especially with (the Rio Olympics) coming up; we always see a big push right after the Olympics of swimmers getting involved.”
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