 Life is about constant evolution, always better today than we were yesterday. There are no shortcuts to a successful fitness regimen, only hard work and consistency. And to navigate through the mountain of fitness advice available, candidates must learn to separate fad from function. I'm Daniel Fletcher. Welcome to the Only Easy Day was Yesterday, the official Navy SEAL podcast. In this extended series, we'll speak with select special warfare performance experts to clarify common training misconceptions and provide insight into areas of focus specifically important to special warfare candidates. Today, we extend our fitness series with a discussion about pool training with Bud's Phase 2 dive instructor, Mark James. Let's get started. Well, thank you for coming in to speak with us. You have a tremendous amount of experience in and out of the water, whether it's competition or education. So I think you have a lot to bring to the podcast in terms of knowledge and experience. We spoke with Dan Kish at NSW Prep in Great Lakes, specifically about water comfort and the combat side stroke. And I'd encourage anyone who's interested in any of that to tune into that episode if they're just getting started in the water looking for more info about the combat side stroke specifically. But I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about pool training outside of the combat side stroke and the run up to entering the pipeline. A lot of people have been exposed to running programming. They're a lot more familiar with the distances and times and intervals of training on the ground, on the pavement than they are being in the pool. So I'd like to maybe speak to the person who hasn't really done any formal swimming in terms of competition, people that have never swam in a pool with fins on or a mask or the stuff that would probably be wise for them to do before they come into the pipeline. So maybe if you could talk a little bit about some of the things you see people doing that aren't good and maybe just some of the intro level guidance stuff that you would say to somebody who's just kind of starting out with getting themselves into the pool. Sure. So before I start I'll say I was always amazed at the guys who joined the Navy and couldn't swim to begin with. I went to training in 1985 and we had a couple guys in my bud's class, one of 41, that had never been in the ocean and they had hardly been in the pool and actually those guys somehow made it and it was always incredible to see these guys attack a 12 foot wave after never seeing a wave or an ocean before and going out there and somehow overcoming their fears and getting through it. That being said, in this day and age most individuals that come through get to buds have gone through boot camp, have gone through buds prep. As you've mentioned Dan teaches a great deal of combat side stroke in a pool. A pool in the ocean are two different things. I encourage anyone who's not comfortable in the water to join a master swim team or hire a swim coach or become familiar with how to be proficient, streamline, how to be comfortable in the water because buds is not just about swimming side stroke, it's about diving, putting gear on, being in the ocean during all kinds of conditions and being able to swim not just vertically in the water but horizontally. We have a tread which consists of a five minute test where you have tanks on your back, 14 pounds of a weight belt, you have fins on, your hands out of the water and you're stationary for five minutes and it's amazing how many guys have a trouble with that evolution. You don't pass that, you don't move on through buds. Yeah and that's not like swimming in a traditional sense that you wouldn't be exposed to even if potentially you were like on the high school swim team even, right? A lot of individuals that can swim, we've just had an Olympian come through. He was a fantastic swimmer but when he put fins on he was just like the rest of the pack. Pushing fins is a skill. It requires strong hip flexors, ankle flexibility, muscles that you don't utilize when you swim. Now there's combat side stroke without fins that requires a scissor kick and a kind of a side stroke gliding motion and then there's the combat side stroke with fins which are completely different. I've done over 200 swims with buds classes. I've been instructor now a civilian for the last 10 years and I try and join every class for all five of their swims. I do the two, the three and a half and the five and a half mile swim. Sometimes I have to actually work. I have to actually be on one of the jet skis and monitor the swim as a lifeguard and you can always see the top swimmers off the front how efficient they are. They're gliding, they're effortless. They can hold a full conversation if need be and then you go to the middle of the pack and there's guys kind of struggling, some good, some bad and you go to the back of the pack. It's almost like a bell curve. Two guys out the front, a bunch of people in the middle and then people off the back and you look at the guys off the back and they are so inefficient with their arms. Their arms are flailing about. They're kicking with their knees. They're not pushing fins and they're almost going backwards. You try and talk to them and they are out of breath and panting. It's really comes down to efficiency being streamlined and also knowing how to guide. There's no lane lines in the ocean. You have to swim from point A to point B which is usually a half mile or a mile and if you don't know how to guide, you're going to go an extra distance two or three or four or five hundred extra yards which just adds to your time. There's time standards. Each phase has a certain time standard. You don't make that mark. You're not going to move on. So, you spoke just a second ago about being with the candidates at Buds and kind of being with them through their training, not just as an educator and I think that's one of the unique things about Buds is that the people that are teaching you and coaching you and judging you or instructing you are able to really do what they're asking and I think that's something that we shouldn't skip over so maybe we rewind a little bit and talk a little bit about your experience personally that's kind of led you up to this point. I think if people did even a brief amount of the research I did just looking at your history and your background they'd be blown away by some of the things you've accomplished in your life. Talk a little bit about your physical fitness, kind of life experience from a fifty thousand foot view. You've done a lot of competitive races, education. I'll let you kind of take it from there. Yeah, I was very fortunate. I lived in Cyprus when I was about eight months to two years old and so I was introduced to the ocean very, very early in my life. My dad was in the embassy. We traveled around a lot and swimming is something I could always do. If it was football, basketball or baseball, I was picked last. I mean literally came down to a little Timmy with one leg who was blind in one eye or me and they picked a little Timmy but when it came to swimming I could always swim. I could free dive, I could hold my breath and that just progressed into eighth grade, high school, post high school. I almost had a swimming scholarship and right before I accepted it, I joined the Navy. Pool evolutions and ocean evolutions were easy. They really are. People say, how do you swim so fast? And I think I'm just, I have some kind of, I don't want to say a gift, but it's a gift. The time standard for the swims are still relatively the same, 75 minutes and my swim buddy and I were going 53 minutes. So while I could swim, I struggled on things like the obstacle course. I hated pull-ups. I keep on thinking I can't do pull-ups because my arms are the longest in the world. But swimming became relatively easy. I was only in the Navy for five years and I had an illusion that I could get out, make millions of dollars being a professional triathlete. I swam and ran in school. I used to ride my bike to swim and practice. I did my first triathlon, won a pair of shoes and was hooked. I loved the sport of triathlon. When was this? So this is 1985. When I joined the Navy, I got out in 91. I raced the, I did the Hawaii Ironman. I did that 10 years in a row. My life was, we revolved around swimming, biking, running. I also went to school, went to graduate school in Arizona, primarily to train in altitude. I lived in Flagstaff. I usually came out fairly well on the swim and then the bikers would catch me and then the runners would catch me. I could never really put together a full professional package. So I was usually living in the back of my truck and I started coaching to make money and then also doing some other odds and ends. What type of coaching did you swim? So I was a swim coach for eight years at a little high school up in Forestville, Northern California and then I also coached cross-country running and then I got a job as a cross-country coach at Sonoma State University. In the meantime, I continued to race triathlons and then 10 years ago I got the opportunity to come on board as a civilian instructor. I was in second phase, which is the dive phase. They looked at my resume and they said, oh, you have the swimming experience. I did a substantial amount of diving when I was in the teams as a lead combat diving instructor and I had classroom experience and also coaching and mentoring experience. So I'm very fortunate. I've been an instructor for 10 years. I put 55 classes through. It's over 2,000 guys and part of my job, in addition to teaching new instructors, teaching the students, is also coaching, mentoring, not just diving, but swimming. And I enjoy. I like getting in the water with the students. I like, it's a little testosterone match to see who can take me out, do all the swims with them and also the obstacle course. I don't do triathlons anymore. I got turned on to these Tough Mudder 12-hour to 24-hour races that ironically they don't involve any swimming whatsoever. I don't know why I'm doing them. I'm obsessed with winning the series and the next year I'll be doing swim-run races, hopefully overseas and around the states. So those are 12-hour long races? They're 12- to 24-hour endurance races where it's a 5-mile obstacle course and you just continue to do them over and over again for the 12-hour duration. There's five of them and then the championship is in November and that's a 24-hour race called the World's Toughest Mudder and I've done it the last four years. You acquire points. Two years ago you get a point and two years ago I was second overall in the point series. Last year I was fourth overall and this year I'm leading and I'm hoping to win the thing. But it involves travel. It involves expenses. Time. So how many of those have you competed in? So I've done 76 Tough Mudder races and I've done 14 of the 8- to 12-hour races and four of the 24-hour races. So you're a natural? I wouldn't say a natural. I was extremely... I was leading on to it earlier. I was very uncoordinated as a kid. I could not dribble, pass, catch or throw. I just was... my synopsis were off but in the water I felt very comfortable and it's not a natural gift. I mean there's some natural athletes out there. I see them coming through buds all the time. I'm not a natural athlete. I struggle. When I ran my legs flayed out. I was afraid to run until I was like 12 years old because people would make fun of my running. My swimming is just something that I could do. In high school and in college. So the combat side stroke is a required swim stroke for the physical readiness test and they do combat side stroke in buds the first few weeks and then you get fins and then you really don't do much side stroke after that. It's a great stroke if you're a lifeguard and for a low profile there are some similarities between the diving position and the side stroke but as a breaststroker my legs go a certain direction and they don't go the side stroke scissor kick direction so anybody could probably swim faster than me side stroke but with fins I'm fairly decent. So let's expand on that a little bit because fins are not seen in competitive swimming at least in the traditional sense I mean obviously there's some dive competitions that use fins and stuff like that but talk a little bit about how you recommend people start to incorporate fins into their swimming I think there's a potential there for overtraining or injury it's a piece of rubber and it's a deceptively powerful device and you know what I mean a lot of people just think I'll just throw these fins on Sure, there's a variety of fins out there and I have probably 14 sets of fins at home that I use for different things I use a Churchill fin which is kind of an angle fin when you put them together they look like the fluke of a dolphin's tail and I use that for boogie boarding I have long fins that are three feet long that are made out of carbon fiber that I use for freediving or spear fishing I use a scuba pro fin if I'm swimming with the students because that's what they wear I want to be on even keel with them when I'm doing my pull exercises I'll use a short fin either a zoomer or a little longer that I can just turn over really fast there are different fins for different uses and what's important is that someone just doesn't go out there by a pair of fins and get in the pool or get in the ocean and just wail away you've got to build up stamina muscle strength, some people have experienced calf cramps I'll do a swim set with guys and they haven't done fin swims before and within the fourth or fifth hundred yard interval, their calves are cramping up it's a different muscle group it's so different, you're not plying pressure on your muscles when you're not utilizing a fin it's completely different so you think people should start gradually maybe on off or what's kind of your approach for that an on off approach kind of like when I tell runners they've never run before that to start a running program it starts kind of like a crawl, walk, run you do three days a week of walking and then running and then build up maybe not that low but at least a gradual thing if you just get in the pool and try doing fin sets for half an hour a day you might experience kind of a burnout or an injury so you build up swim sets, I always encourage if you're in a pool, warm up 500-1000 yards then have a set written out a little piece of paper or a little pad with a grease pencil, maybe 10-100s on the whatever interval a lot of pools will have a pace clock and I'll look at the clock or I'll look at my watch and I'll do a pace and then I'll do the same set utilizing fins and I do fins work on my side and on my back and on my front freestyle, side stroke, back stroke I do not encourage swimming breaststroke with fins, it's kind of ridiculous your legs just don't work that way but you can utilize a kickboard, which is a foam board and just go back and forth with your heads out of the water or modified swim strokes stroke drills, I'm really big on one arm freestyle, close fist freestyle doing sets and then also underwater work I played a sport called underwater hockey that a lot of people haven't heard about and it's basically you have a mass fins snorkel you have a padded glove and you have a stick, it's about 12 inches long slightly curved and it's basically just like hockey, it's six on six but you're underwater and you have a puck and the puck stays in the bottom of the pool and one team has white sticks, the team has black sticks and your goal is to push that puck into a goal and it was excellent training because you're holding your breath you're moving this thing back and forth it's a team work, you had that puck you flick it and then another team gets it or you get it to your buddy and then you make a goal and excellent breath hold work I always am a little worried about telling people to do underwater work like I was in free diving for quite a bit and shooting fish and it's a dangerous sport I mean guys get shallow water black out they pass out underwater, we've had several frogmen actually die breath holding, swimming shooting fish and so you gotta always make sure you have a solution, you have if not a lifeguard then a buddy who's watching you, not underwater with you but on the surface monitoring you and making sure it's safe we've had individuals getting trouble and so it's just safety is important there's no reason why you can't have a buddy watching you so in regards to safety I guess we'll just kind of finish up the thin piece is it easy enough for people to monitor let's say it's the first time they've had fins on in the pool and they're going to do some laps like when to take them off to swim without them will they start to feel certain parts of their body will start to get tight or anything for them to look out for it's time to say okay this is enough for today get back on this my next training session or anything like that. Sure it really depends on the individual whether they put fins on before whether it's brand new I encourage them just to go a simple set get a feel for their fins a lot of times if I'm using a new fin kind of like a running shoe it will start rubbing on the top of my foot so there's a very thin neoprene booty that I use with a lot of the fins I use and then there's open heel fins and there's closed heel fins and the open heel fins actually has a strap on the back of the fin that you can actually adjust and cinch tight the fins we use in buds are scuba pros jet fins and you have to wear a booty with that or else you'll wear a hole in the top of your foot because it's just the movement your foot moves inside the fin. There are a variety of sizes in the scuba pro fin there's small all the way up to triple extra large and it's important to get the right size fin. I've seen guys put on fins and they can't move them especially for the tread or the distant swim they kick for the first five minutes and then they're just essentially just barely moving their legs now they're dragging that heavy fin so use the appropriate fin. Yeah do some research it seems like that's kind of a deceptively simple thing it's like a pair of goggles or something just go pick them up or jump online and order a pair but send you a mask. One size does not fit all. Yeah do your research. I encourage 13 foot and I used to be able to push an extra large scuba pro fin when I was younger now I have to go with a large and I have a very fast turnover so a smaller fin faster turnover if you can push fins then go bigger. Yeah I think it's deceptively simple people might think it's just like a piece of any other sporting apparatus would be like you know something that's pretty simple you just pick out whatever everyone else is using and just go to it but it's going to have to fit your body it's going to have to be a specific length you don't just want to like get some commercial disposable vacation fins you know that you would get at Walmart it's not the same kind of thing. No and a lot of times fins fall apart not necessarily because of the user but it's important after you're in the swimming pool or the ocean you rinse those things off salt water and even chlorine will eat true fins very quick so take care of your gear get a pair of fins that work for you you can go to a big five sports or you can order them online I suggest getting the fins out of the package putting them on seeing if they work getting a small booty so you don't wreck your feet and then getting in a pool and then doing the sets that I suggested even if it's just down and back look at your time how do you feel it's really important you're using your hip flexors and the front parts your ankles to push those fins a lot of guys just start kicking and they're kicking literally with their knees when you use a fin you should feel the pressure on the front part of your fin on the one foot and the back part of your fin on the other and just it's a constant back and forth and I do kind of either a flutter kick which is just a back and forth think of freestyle flutter kick and I'm on my side or a dolphin kick where my knees and my legs are basically together and I'm doing a dolphin kick back and forth and what's important is you're efficient I'm out of breath you have time you're breathing a lot of times when I do the swims with the students I just have one arm in front of me and one arm at my side and I'm just on my side and I'm just kicking a relatively fast turnover whereas sometimes in the side stroke guys are using arms but if they don't do it right it's almost like they're throwing out an anchor and they're slowing themselves down flailing around flailing around so efficiency is something I've heard you speak about just numerous times today and other swim professionals talk about it as well is that what you have found yourself in your experience calling out to students whether it's at buds or in civilian life the most as far as things you see them doing wrong and telling them to correct constantly I'm on the obstacle course which we have at buds one of the toughest obstacle courses in the world and I see people go on that for the first time and they take 15 to 20 minutes because they don't know how to climb a rope they don't know how to get over a wall they're completely inefficient they use so much energy on the first five obstacles they can't get through the last 10 obstacles so it's not about strength it's about knowing how to do the obstacle efficiently not burning out their arms knowing how to climb a rope by utilizing their feet not their arms with fin swimming if you're kicking with your knees or you're flailing your arms around and you're out of breath especially on a two or three mile swim you're not going to get anywhere you're going to go backwards and you're going to suffer a lot of times I'm thinking about how is my body position how streamline am I I'm constantly swimming people think oh you just space out when you swim and run with both sports I'm constantly thinking about body dynamics how can I go faster how can I save energy what do I look like am I a starfish in the water or am I a swordfish and envision that swordfish just being sleek and swimming straight and getting there and back efficiently being I think in tune with your body and in the moment of exercise is something I've heard echoed through a lot of the professionals I've spoken with I think it's a really big important part that people can easily overlook because it's not a specific exercise that you do it's not a specific food or training program that kind of hones that in it's really your own self-awareness to developing efficiency or just seeing and analyzing your own movement patterns how are you doing this how are you doing that could I take that out should I not be pushing so hard here whatever just having that sensitivity earlier you talked about hiring a swim coach or being part of a league or a swimming club or something like that for people who maybe don't have somebody like that do you think that there's resources online or would you just encourage people to do their own research or how would you recommend people approach that if they're middle America and don't have access to a swimming club or maybe don't have the financial means to do that or whatever sure it's hard to find a swimming pool and a swimming pool that's open and a schedule and some pools the local pool here costs $7 just to go use the pool what I have at my disposal I'm very fortunate I live in Coronado so I have a bay on one side of where I live and also there's lifeguards to monitor I swim around a buoy I'm out there quite often there are so many videos on how to swim online and that's good to a point to look and see someone else's swimming technique they slow down their video you can see how they are you can kind of visualize but I encourage someone who wants to come into special forces especially the Navy or the Navy SEAL program they have to get in the water they have to get to a pool or a river or some kind of venue they can't expect to come through this training there's so much water activity in butts and if you don't feel comfortable in the water I mean water comfortability and swimming and efficiency and streamline it's just every phase of training if you can't swim you're not going to make it through you're going to have to go through another division in terms of training volume obviously the types of competitions that you embark on or compete in require way more volume than what's probably needed for people entering the pipeline to come into buds and I know it's difficult to pin or it's probably not appropriate to pin an exact number on the mileage or yards that someone should be covering on a week but can you maybe unpack that a little bit and get people at least a rough idea the type of volume that you think would be appropriate for the average person that sets them up for success to come in here to at least be able to put their best foot forward sure a person coming through buds does not have to do the collegiate mileage that I did which is sometimes 10 to 15,000 yards a day that's over 6 miles a day of swimming but that's because I swam long distance freestyle and I swam breaststroke a buds candidate should be swimming at least 4 days a week in my opinion running 4 or 5 days a week doing weights doing other things to prep them for the buds program everyone should be familiar with what the PST is, the physical standard test and that consists of a 500 yard swim a mile and a half run, 2 minutes of push ups 2 minutes of sit ups, max pull ups they should do that proficiently and if they do it well enough they can get an auto-qual that's what they used to have, an auto-qual vacation contract and that's what they should be trying to achieve I encourage guys and females that are eligible as well to do a PST to record their times take about 10 minutes grab some nutrition, grab a Gatorade and then go do that PST again and then record their times and they're really gung-ho in shape to do it again initially the students have to be able to well become students, they have to pass the PST and then in buds themselves the longest swim that they'll do is 5 and a half miles of nautical swimming that's not until their fifth month of buds the average swim is 2 miles it's in the ocean, you do relatively little side stroke without fins after the first couple weeks of buds but there's like one step at a time pass the PST, get a good score be proficient in swimming regarding mileage I don't think a student or a potential student needs to swim more than 3,000 yards every time they swim they should be able to sprint they should be able to swim underwater they should be able to swim a set amount of time wearing fins without being exhausted that makes a lot of sense, I think people maybe want to hear the prescription for the perfect program to be able to, I do these things and I'll make it through, but it sounds like it's a lot more about being comfortable and capable in the water and getting to that point just takes exposure not necessarily a specific program like you're talking about doing dynamic play underwater with the hockey or just in general being comfortable in that space enough that you can perform and then it becomes you pushing yourself at buds in that space where you're comfortable as opposed to something that's so new to you that you're stumbling through it it's kind of what I'm hearing from you do you think that's pretty accurate? it is, when I coach swimmers I train them like I coach runners I say hey, on one day swim or run by yourself with a lifeguard present on another day swim or run with someone who's a little faster than you that's competitive that you do a set with them and you're trying to race them to be a little slower than you that you can kind of back off and push them there's a kind of symbiotic relationship when I did triathlons I would run with professional runners and they would just kill me on the track or on the hills I would bike with category one professional cyclist and they would destroy me on the hills and then I would also swim with Olympic type swimmers and they would kill me too well those three individuals if I was to do a triathlon against them I would beat them and so it's a humbling experience taking that abuse and just taking that discipline and getting after it and keep on striving and then learning from the best what the seals do and other special forces do is we learn we're not necessarily the best parachuters or divers or skiers but we find the best skiers in the world and we say hey what can we learn from them how do we become more proficient how do we become the best because we have so many skill sets that we have to be proficient at it's hard to be a master of all sports yeah kind of getting your exposure from as many sources as you can I think that's something that's a continuous thread through training for buds or active seals their quest to find out the truth or find out the right way or the best way and it often times just requires doing a lot of research exposure asking the questions and finding out for yourself because there's a lot of noise out there in terms of physical fitness and even smaller portions of that specifically swimming everyone would like to think that there's a master plan or the right way to do something but a lot more of it is about the attitude of being humble like you're saying exposing yourself to professionals and being in that environment learning continuous education that way you're kind of developing yourself and then you have your own knowledge as opposed to just trying to echo somebody else's opinion or life experience ultimately putting in the time I do these endurance races and I'm always amazed at how many people sign up on a whim and then they come to the race and they're completely out of shape and the same thing happens sometimes at the PST or buds training I am really amazed at how many people come into buds especially after being at their prep and they're really not in the kind of shape in my opinion they should be and there's limitations at Great Lakes and I don't think they have soft sand or run in they don't have a rough ocean to swim in I don't know much fin use they're doing but there's so much more that individuals can do and it's really a self-discipline thing you have to want it you have to make yourself uncomfortable every day that's almost become a cliche saying but you really have to do that whether it's getting up early and going for a run or taking a cold shower eating Brussels sprouts or something you don't want to do and do it because that's what buds is buds is extremely difficult and I hate to see kids come through this program and they're shell shocked like oh my gosh I'm getting yelled at or I'm having to run when I'm wet and sandy and my body is chafed or I'm tired I've been up for like three days and now they want me to swim two miles in the ocean that's what it's about it's all a training for the real world I often tell people I was scared or tired or and colder after buds then I was in buds and people was wow yeah and I didn't really do anything I mean I got out after after five years I didn't do a lot I was the winner were for platoons where we froze of course I dove in ice water I climbed mountains and those type of things but people got to understand what they are signing up for this is not a movie it's not a book it's a serious thing you know training tough it out you have to make a war and if you have to go out the ocean and swim for five or six miles now holding a buddy or holding a piece of equipment I could think of a jump I did where I jumped out of an airplane and I hit the water and we had to hold on to our parachutes because it was a training operation and I was in the middle of the training sea and it's two thousand feet deep and I'm holding on to that parachute being heavier and heavier and heavier and the whole time I'm thinking if I lose this parachute I'm going to get in so much trouble and I was the last guy out of a stick of 24 that jumped out of the airplane to get picked up and that thing felt like it weighed four hundred pounds but by God I held on to that parachute and when the boat came over they pulled it up and I was exhausted I didn't have fins on either I was kind of treading water and boots holding on to this parachute Bud's is hard and seal training is hard and being a seal is very hard So just to touch back on a little bit of equipment I think a lot of people might have some questions about that other than fins what types of gear you think people should expose themselves to whether it's snorkels mask goggles or the type of swimwear what do you kind of recommend for people just starting out so they maybe don't feel like completely lost in what they should try to expose themselves with I encourage everyone to know how to use a mask and clear it underwater because masks get kind of dislodged underwater know how to clear it you simply blow air out of your nose and clear the water out of the mask I also encourage the use of a snorkel a snorkel allows you to be on the surface and look down through your mask and actually breathe through a snorkel it's a little tube for people to know what a snorkel is and when you go underwater that snorkel fills up with water and then what you do is when you come back to the surface when the top of the snorkel clears the surface you use the last breath of air to exhale and you forcefully blow that air out of the snorkel and if you do it right you don't have to take the snorkel out of your mouth you can take the next breath of air usually there's a little trickle of water in there but learn how to use a mask and a snorkel learn how to use fins go somewhere tropical the underwater sea life is my favorite place to be I love being underwater I like the simplicity of fins, mask, snorkel and swimsuit I think if I was to go through buds again in my own experience I was a great swimmer but I was weak upper body, I was weak on the obstacle course I prayed to God I wouldn't fail the obstacle course because I didn't want to get rolled and I think someone who's balanced and they're running they're upper body fitness, they're swimming has an easier time coming through training I often tell the students I teach that we all have strengths and weaknesses and I kind of joke that's why I work on my strengths I work on my swimming all the time I should, ironically I do these obstacle course races which is all upper body strength work as I said earlier, find a coach if you can or someone who's really good at whatever it is you're weak at kind of pick their mind and who knows maybe they can't run or they can't balance their checkbook or they don't know how to work a computer there's always like this give and take it's great when that works out but swimming is something that if you didn't grow up swimming it's going to be work your uncle throw you in the pool you know you hear those stories I did not swim my uncle threw me in the water it's more than that it's learning how to be proficient in the water and comfortable I see guys that do these tests and I know in the first minute that they're going to have a hard time their eyes get big and they move really fast under water jittery and it's okay to be nervous but it's better to be calm cool and collected and then just follow the procedures people have this illusion that pool competency which I teach is basically a 20-minute test where the student wears tanks and as an instructor we go down there we turn their air off we put them in uncomfortable positions and they think that's all about holding their breath for five minutes or long periods of time or untying god-awful knots it's not it's following procedures the students are never under water on a breath hold for more than a minute everything is very safety oriented and they've been taught along the way in a series of pre-tests of what to expect on that final test and if they can just remain calm so water comfortability involves knowing how to move under water but also having self-talk mechanisms in place where you can just have a mantra you're constantly telling yourself it's okay I love you grandma I can do this just do it and that's a repeated theme and I do that still to this day in the races I suffer I'm like okay I can do this I can do this it can be a simple slow down your mind sometimes slower is faster it's smooth as fast but I caught myself saying that slow as fast what does that mean? slow it down and also staying in a present moment I see so many people come through the training and they keep on thinking oh what's going to happen tomorrow especially five days of staying up and the first day they start thinking what's going to happen tomorrow it's going to happen no stay right locked in in the present moment and you're going to do better thank you so much for your time I appreciate it people want to find out more they can visit the Sealswick website there's a lot of good information there in terms of swimming and the specific strokes but I think you've provided a lot of good knowledge and kind of foundation for people thank you for your time great thank you for having me I hope to see some of these listeners in Bud's I'll be there another 20 years hopefully