The Swimming Coach's Eye.

By Wayne Goldsmith

Three Key Learning Points:

* Coach’s Eye is a learnable skill, not a talent some coaches were born with.

* Look, scan fingers to feet and feet to fingers, then stand back and look again.

* Swimming is a technique-driven sport - yet technique is the thing coaches talk about least.

Coach’s Eye.

And no, not coach’s eye strain from twenty years of squinting at sunlight bouncing off water. (Although that’s real too and it’s a hazard of the job nobody warns you about.)

I mean Coach’s Eye.. What you see as a coach when you’re coaching.

Here’s the scene. You’re standing on deck next to an experienced coach. They glance at a swimmer and go “yeah, the butterfly’s not quite right”.

“It’s a timing thing.”

“Their feet are too high.”

“Their arms are too low.”