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The vision
of the Green Mountain Aquatics Swim Team is: To achieve the USA Swimming National
Championship title. In so doing, GMA will encourage its
athletes to be champions in swimming and in life.
The mission of the Green
Mountain Aquatics Swim Team is: To provide every swimmer with the best
competitive program in New England for technique, training,
commitment, development and personal excellence.
Green
Mountain Aquatics offers a guided age-group youth swimming
program for children ages 5 and up. We meet the needs of all
swimmers from the beginning swimmer to the national level
competitor by encouraging excellence and commitment to the
team. When a young person becomes a member of the Green
Mountain Aquatics, he or she learns the values of sportsmanship and
teamwork. Swimming, through the Green Mountain Aquatics Swim
Team, provides physical, emotional and intellectual skills that
will last a lifetime.
WHY SWIM? The USA Swimming age
group swimming program is America’s largest program of guided
fitness activity for children. Age group swimming builds a
strong foundation for a lifetime of good health by teaching healthy
fitness habits.
Physical Development Many physicians and pediatricians consider
swimming the ideal activity for developing muscular and skeletal
growth by. Why do doctors like it so much?
·
Swimming develops high quality aerobic endurance, the most
important key to physical fitness. In other sports, an hour of
practice may yield as little as 10 minutes of meaningful
exercise. Age group swimming teams use every precious minute
of practice time developing fitness and teaching
skills.
·
Swimming does a better job in proportional muscular development by
using all of the body’s major muscle groups. No other
sport does as well.
·
Swimming enhances children’s natural flexibility (at a time
when they ordinarily begin to lose it) by exercising all of their
major joints through a full range of motion.
·
Swimming helps develop superior coordination because it requires
combinations of complex movements of all parts of the body,
enhancing harmonious muscle function, grace, and fluidity of
movement.
·
Swimming is the most injury-free of all children’s
sports.
·
Swimming is a sport that will bring kids fitness and enjoyment for
life. Participants in Masters Swimming programs are still
training and racing well into their 80’s.
Intellectual
Development In
addition to enhanced physical fitness, children can develop greater
intellectual ability by participating in a guided program of
physical activity. Learning and using swimming skills engages
the thinking process. As they learn new techniques, children
must develop and plan movement sequences. They improve by
exploring new ideas. They learn that greater progress results
from using their creative talents. Self-expression can be just
as much physical as intellectual. Finally, their
accomplishments in learning and using new skills contribute to a
stronger self-image.
The GMA Team
Philosophy is encompassed in the words COURAGE and
PERSEVERANCE.
COURAGE is the willingness to
accept risks and endure failures. Courage does not exist
without situations that present the opportunity for
success. We encourage our athletes to embrace these
opportunities and not fear the outcome.
PERSEVERANCE is the backbone of success in any
endeavor in life. One cannot succeed at the highest levels
without enduring some setbacks. These difficult times can
create a lack of faith, low self-esteem, and an obvious drop in
enthusiasm. Perseverance is the quality that transcends these
difficult times. It allows individuals to find the true
strength of their characters.
Green Mountain Aquatics believes that the COURAGE
and PERSEVERANCE developed by swimming will prepare our team
members for the challenges they will face in
life.
GMA Team Competition
Philosophy: Green Mountain Aquatics engages in a
multi-level competition program within USA Swimming that, like
our training program, provides challenging, yet success-oriented
competitive racing opportunities for swimmers of all ages and
abilities. The following policies outline our
philosophy:
1. We emphasize
competition with oneself. Winning medals, ribbons, or
trophies is not our main goal. Even if swimmers finish first,
but have not swum to their full potential, they are encouraged to
do better. Individual improvement is our primary
objective.
2. Sportsmanlike
behavior is of equal importance to improved performance. All
the coaches teach swimmers how to behave like champions when they
have both “good” and “bad” swims.
Respecting officials, offering congratulations to other
competitors, encouraging teammates, showing determined effort,
and acting with mature attitudes are examples of sportsmanlike
behaviors.
3. Swimmers are
praised for improving their stroke technique, racing strategy, or
overall times. It is the coach’s job to offer feedback
of swimmers’ performances. It is the parents’ job
to provide love and encouragement that bolsters swimmers’
confidence along the way.
Swimmers are taught to set
realistic, yet challenging, goals for meets and to relate those
goals to practice to direct their training efforts. Swimmers
are prepared and encouraged to compete in all swimming events,
distances, and strokes. GMA swimmers take
pride in racing in all of the I.M. Extreme events in their age
group. This practice promotes versatility and
encourages our athletes to explore their potential in the
wide range events offered in competitive swimming.
Often, swimmers’ “best” strokes changes
as they mature and their bodies goes through physical
changes. Versatility contributes to swimmers’ life-long
love and enjoyment of the sport.
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