Synchronized+Swimmers+Point+of+View

It is 2010 and I have just finished my first season in synchronized swimming with Hopkins highschool. I have learned alot about the sport including, it is not as easy as most people may think. Synchronized swimming takes alot of patiance and endurance. Suport sculling (the thing that keeps your legs above water when you are upside down) can take six or more years to get perfect. Another thing I have learned about synchronized swimming is don't give up. In many sports athleats lift wieghts, in synchronized swimming, we lift athleats. In each team rutine you have a lift or lifts where your goal is to get the atleate on top compleatly out of the water. My team has had many faliures with our lift, we have landed on each other and even made our teamates knees swell, but in the end we whould usally come through and feel even more confident then we were before.

Christina Jones a swimmer on the olympic team said, "Synchronized swimming is actually a alot harder then most people know. When I tell some one 'I'm a synchronized swimmer,' usally they haven't seen it, and the second they see it their amazed. We have to hold our breath while we do alot of it, so it's like running or danceing and you can't breathe, and then when you come up you have to make it look like it's easy. So, if people think our sport is easy, that means that were doing our job, because the whole point is to make it look efortless."

For an interview I talked to my coach Britta Kalgren. This is what she said about the sport...

1. What got you interested in synchronized swimming? A friend of mine asked me to join with her when I was in 7th grade because I did speed swimming. I didn't want to at all because I thought synchronized swimming wasn't cool, but I did it anyway. I ended up loving it and stayed on the team, while my friend ended up quitting after the first year.

2. How long did you swim for hopkins synchro? I swam for 6 years - 7th-12th grade.

3. What is the best experience you had in synchro? The first time ever standing on the podium at state for placing in a routine. I was in 8th grade and my duet got 4th place, and my team got 5th. It was an incredible feeling. That, and when support sculling finally made sense to me!

4. What did you take away or learn from this sport? I learned how to handle constructive criticism very well! Sometimes it got hard to constantly hear what you were doing wrong and rarely hear what you were doing right or well. I also learned how to be a team player - looking out for my teammates, trusting them, using them for help, etc.

5. What is the difference between free routines and technical routines? Free routines are like what we do - we make up everything that goes into our routines. You can write whatever you want and have absolute freedom with it. Technical routines require specific figures in the routines - so you can still write whatever you want, but it must include certain figures. So for Hopkins, if we had to write a technical routine using the figures we compete with throughout the season, then the routine would have to include a ballet leg, a tower, a walkover, and a barracuda bent knee.

6. Any other comments? Synchro's a great sport. It's hard, it's challenging, it takes a lot of patience and commitment, but if you're dedicated enough, you can go very far.

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