Day Two: Backstroke

Backstroke is my least favorite and weakest stroke. Not that I didn’t improve at camp. One of the most useful drills for me was the cup drill. It was when I had to balance a cup on my forehead so it would make me try to keep my head straight and still. It was actually quite difficult. Not really when I was just kicking on my back, but for some people their head was too far back or too far forward which stopped them from gliding. But when we started rotating which we did for backstroke, it was more difficult. My head would tilt with my body, which would slow me. So using the cup helped me keep my head still and in the right position. I also got a lot of help from the coach when I got videotaped and reviewed on how my backstroke was. I turned out better!

Lunch was luckily in the shade. I picked a shady spot to sit under a tree. Sadly, we didn’t play Drip, Drip, Drop. We still got to sit in the shade though. It was nice to jump back in the freezing water, even though it felt way too freezing and I thought I was going to get hypothermia. For snack time, we had a gym teacher come in and give a little pep talk. What we did though was not fun. We exercised. He said that the Manchester United team was in his workout room working out. So we did push-ups, sit ups, and other exercises. Two of the only things I got out of it were, exercise all parts of your body, and…Manchester United was here in the US!!!!!!!! All right, that was a bit exciting, I have to admit.

It was nice to jump back in the freezing water, even though it felt way too freezing and I thought I was going to get hypothermia. We did an underwater dolphin contest, to see who could streamline the farthest. So the first person to go was Kuba. We were waiting for him to set an example to how far we should go. He thought he would go the farthest, so he had wanted to go first. So when he pushed off, we all waited. We waited for a while actually. Actually, no, a long long long while. We started getting scared. Finally he surfaced. But where? It took us a minute to find him, he was so far away. He was at the other end of the pool! Well, no one could beat that! I’m not sure if I could even hold my breath that long! So Olivia promised to beat him for us, so we left her last. When I went, we all ended up two thirds of the way. Not bad actually, that was where the average was. And when Olivia went, we were all screaming for her to go! And guess what? She ended up right next to Kuba! I was proud that Kuba couldn’t brag (he liked to brag)! It was fun, and when we videotaped, I waved to the camera! When I got reviewed, the problem was that underwater my arm wasn't bent enough, so I wasn't exactly catching water to push myself forward. Beth said that after that, I would be much faster.

Backstroke turned out fine, actually. But breaststroke was my favorite!

Backstroke was alright, I guess, but tomorrow was breaststroke, my favorite!