Alliance ASC

Many congratulations to Gold Squad swimmers Clara C and Mollie O'H who have achieved Gold award levels in the Swim Ulster skills assessments!! Coaches have been using these tests - which focus on efficiency of all four swimming strokes and of underwater dolphin kicking, on starts and turns, and on kicking - during these first weeks of the swimming season to help identify where each swimmer can focus attention to improve their technique and skills. Ultimately, aggregate scores on the set of assessments feeds in to progression through the squads.

Best of luck to the 13 Alliance swimmers who are taking part in the first round of the new Swim Ulster points-based, Future Challengers team competition tomorrow morning in Craigavon. They'll be swimming freestyle, breaststroke, IM and relay events against clubs such as Bangor, Ards, Larne and Lisburn among others, as well as the other Belfast-based clubs, Swim Belfast, Leander and Olympia. Swim fast everyone - and enjoy yourselves!!

https://www.samaritans.org///world-suicide-prevention-day/

What a lovely evening in Grove Park to mark the end of one Covid-disrupted season and the advent of what we hope will be a much more social year! So good to see swimmers, parents and friends of the club out in force. Special thanks to Corinna and her band of helpers for the enormous efforts in coordinating and delivering the event, to Claire and Jim of Works Coffee Roasters for the excellent coffee (you’ll find them at St Enda’s GAA off the Hightown Road in Glengormley), and to the sun which decided to split the trees! Here’s in anticipation of a great new season!!

Hope you've enjoyed the extended weekend! We will shortly be opening all spaces on the Wavebreakers programme (*** new term starting Sunday September 5th ***) t...hat have not yet been taken up to new learners. If you are interested in your child(ren) continuing with us and/or have been in touch over the summer regarding the forthcoming term but have not received any reply, please check your junk/spam mail folders. Very excited for the restart at the BRA pool!!

If anyone is still looking for new schoolbags or small kit-bags for the fast-approaching academic year, maybe consider picking up a great backpack from Madlug. Madlug are a N.Ireland-based social purpose company who aim to support children in care see: https://www.madlug.com/pages/our-story). There are loads of great options: in our house, we're loving the roll-top backpack to fit in all the oversized files. Now all they need is a mad sherpa to mad-lug all their ton-weight books etc down to school... Swim Ulster Swim Ireland Leander ASC Swim Belfast Olympia Swimming Club Diamonds Waterpolo Cú Chulainn Water Polo Club Cathal Brugha Larne Swimming Club Official Clonard Waterpolo

'Waterproof your kids!!' with Wavebreakers

Swim England has just published research that indicates that only 4% of kids aged 7-11 are able to swim to a level of competence that would keep them safe in di...fficult circumstances. The research also found that 81% of parents want their kids to gain the level of proficiency needed to keep them safe. Why the disparity?! Well maybe - as Swim England suggest - there is a need for more parents to understand the commitment involved in having their kids learn to swim. We think, though, that there is a need for significant, well-directed public investment in learn-to-swim programmes. At Wavebreakers, Alliance ASC and Diamonds Waterpolo are doing what we can to keep fees for all parents as low as we can while providing lessons of high quality to have kids learn well. We are also finding ways to deliver these lessons free of charge to (some) North Belfast and Newtownabbey kids who would otherwise not be able to access them. On a macro-level though, the Department of Education NI and the Northern Ireland Executive need to rethink their policy on swimming lessons for primary-school kids. Ten weeks of lessons in one block, once a year, for a few years (at best), does next to nothing in terms of embedding the competence to swim in a way that is ever going to keep our kids safe. And the governing bodies of swimming (Swim Ulster and Swim Ireland) need to start thinking about promoting participation in swimming on this island as being less about supporting open water swimming for hardy souls (as awesome as that is!!), and more about lobbying government to insist on 100% participation for 5-11 year olds. What is good for kids is what's good for our sport of swimming: let's make finding the next Danielle Hill, Bethany Firth or Daniel Wiffin child's play!! https://www.swimming.org//millions-failing-meet-swimming-/#

Many congratulations to Gold Squad swimmer Aoife M who has achieved a Silver award level in the Swim Ulster skills assessments!! Coaches have been using these tests - which focus on efficiency of all four swimming strokes and of underwater dolphin kicking, on starts and turns, and on kicking - during these first weeks of the swimming season to help identify where each swimmer can focus attention to improve their technique and skills. Ultimately, aggregate scores on the set of assessments feeds in to progression through the squads. Aoife has the opportunity now to improve her assessment outcomes, while others can complete their assessments, before we submit their results to Swim Ulster for validation.

Very pleased to take delivery today of a new set of Polar heart monitors that the club has invested in for the use - mainly - of the Development and National squads. While very familiar in the context of running and cycling, such tools have been unavailable until recently in aquatic sports. The devices will assist in ensuring that our swimmers are working hard enough in threshold sets and - perhaps more importantly - not so hard as to interfere with recovery when the focus is... on aerobic base and skills development. Awesome!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abOalVHU5dU