• Everybody counts or nobody counts.

• Swimmers swim races.  Coaches watch races.  Every aspect of the performance process should be oriented with this reality in mind.

• Coaches don't have any of the answers.  They'd better have all of the questions.

• Effective coaching is enabling one to learn to believe in themselves.

​

• Skilled swimming starts and ends with rhythm, as no technical element exists in isolation.

• Reducing drag is at least as important as increasing propulsion, and much more difficult to achieve.

• Technical excellence cannot exist without physical readiness; physical readiness can not be developed without technical excellence.

• Individual application of biomechanical principles supersedes the application of technical models.

​​

• Optimal learning contexts require the least instruction.

• Performing is not synonymous with learning.

• Errors are the most important part of learning.

​

• Coaching is about facilitating learning, not teaching.

• It's not what you see, it's what you don't see.

• You cannot un-instruct.  Think twice, speak once.

• Present problems, not solutions.

​

• Training is about the relationships between elements, not the elements themselves.

• Training is to add, not to replace.

• The primary objective of training is to enhance race specific endurance.  ALL training must support this objective, directly or indirectly.

​

• Problems develop when swimmers consistently abdicate control, eventually.

• Expectations determine outcomes, eventually.

• Motivation and engagement emerge, or not, through appropriately designed cultures and environments.

​

• Establishing belief in one's abilities is the fundamental consequence of an effective training process.

• The ability to retain contextually appropriate focus is the critical psychological skill; all training tasks should reinforce the development of this ability.  

​

• Context is as important as content.

• Nothing happens without engagement.

• There are no rules, just results.

​

• At a fundamental level, all swimmers participate for one reason only- to feel good about themselves.

 

Everyone is listening to what you say, and how you say it.  More importantly, everyone is watching what you do, and how you do it.  Always.