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Scott in Sport: Swimming & Waterpolo
After the Christmas holidays I am feeling the effect of too much chocolate! This paired with a much more important desire to visit as many clubs as possible, I am planning on doing much more of these 'Scott in Sport' blogs and am beginning to plan how to go along to a training session of plenty of clubs over the next two terms. This will help give me a better understanding of the different sports and undoubtedly give me even more respect for the sportsmen and women who are accomplished in these sports!
First up this term was Swimming & Waterpolo. Last term I started going along to waterpolo after having played a bit a school, but I found my swimming fitness was rather lacking and so, as part of my New Year's Resolution to work on my fitness, I decided I should go along to both Swimming & Waterpolo. After a day in the office I began to get a bit apprehensive about swimming. Even though I used to swim lots at school, I couldn't think of a time since 2005 when I'd swam more than 30 lengths in one session!
Walking to Archbishop Holgate School (on Hull Road, past the Black Bull pub), it was a pretty cold evening and the thought of donning my swimsuit and hopping into the pool wasn't the most appealing! However, when I got there I was pleasantly surprised at how warm the pool was and was relieved to realise I could still swim! There are 6 different lanes for varying abilities and speeds of swimmers, allowing people to do a bit of recreational swimming or to train more competitively, following the programme set by the coach.
I was in one of the middle lanes and worked my way through the tasks written up on the board, finding myself much more knackered than I used to get and rather berating my low level of fitness! At the end of the hour however, I was really glad I had gone and felt that, although it wasn't easy, it would definitely benefit me!
What I found really nice was that if you want to train competitively, you can, or if you just want to swim a few lengths gently, you can. UYSWC is also planning on putting on a course next term for beginners/non-swimmers. If you don't really swim, but would love to learn, this may be the thing for you - look out for publicity about it later in the term!
Once swimming training was over, plenty of people left to be replaced with a different crowd for waterpolo. I was pretty tired by the start of the session and found the warm-up quite tough after the previous hour in the pool! To warm-up we swim a few lengths of the pool using variations of freestyle and backstroke (which involve having your head further out of the water, allowing you to see the ball) and have to lift yourself out of the water as much as possible using strong leg kicks (to practice gaining height to catch the ball). We also did a sort of wheelbarrow race across the pool with one person holding onto their partner's ankles and being towed through the water!
We then moved into throwing and catching drills, passing balls around a circle, throwing in pairs for a limited time to see how many consecutive passes you could make (starting with your strong arm and then moving on to trying again, but with your weaker arm) and then practiced swimming with the ball and shooting on goal. After the drills we moved into a game scenario and played a match for the last 20 minutes of the session.
The actual game of waterpolo involves throwing a ball a bit smaller than a netball around a pool between two teams of 7 players aiming to score in the goals at either end of the pool. It is played in quarters, each lasting 7 minutes. Sounds easy? Well you're only allowed to touch the ball with one hand and there is absolutely no standing on the ground! You also can't wear goggles (because of the risk posed by getting hit with a ball in the face), but you do wear little hats with plastic ear protectors. It's a physical game, which makes it rather knackering, but it's great fun!
After 2 hours in the pool, I went home and slept so well! I'm definitely going to try to keep going to both Swimming & Waterpolo and am hoping that after a few double sessions, my fitness will improve loads!
If you're tempted by either swimming or waterpolo, why not contact UYSWC on swimming@yusu.org and come along to a session on Monday (Swimming: 7.45-8.45pm, Waterpolo: 8.45-9.45pm), Wednesday (Swimming: 8-9pm, Waterpolo: 9-10pm) or Saturday (Swimming: 4-6pm)? Maybe see you there!
Emily xo
