Its about the journey not the destination

[PhotonGuy]

Why do the times matter to the swimmer. If your trying your best knowing the tines doesn't matter you do your best and your best us either fast enough or its not. If knowing the time males you swim harder then your not trying your best.

And if knowing the times is what you need to swim your best than that's what you need. If a swimmer performs better when they know the required times than they need to know the times. Knowing the times is an entirely psychological effect but a psychological effect can be a very strong one with performance.

 

[ballen0351]

And if knowing the times is what you need to swim your best than that's what you need. If a swimmer performs better when they know the required times than they need to know the times. Knowing the times is an entirely psychological effect but a psychological effect can be a very strong one with performance.

Then they are focused on the wrong thing kinda like your fixation on belt color

 

[PhotonGuy]

Then they are focused on the wrong thing kinda like your fixation on belt color

Well let me ask you this, do your children want to go to meets such as Nationals?

 

[Gnarlie]

There are two kinds of people: group a) people who just do enough, and group b) people who give everything they have got. Not revealing the exact requirement or required time encourages group A to move into group B. Group B behaviour is in keeping with martial spirit and develops mental fortitude because it forces the student to fight the internal enemy rather than the external one.

 

[drop bear]

Then they are focused on the wrong thing kinda like your fixation on belt color

Unless it helps them achieve better results. I mean it is great to say that nobody needs external motivation but I think you need the results to back that up.

So the next step here is look up people who train champions and see if they goal set.

 

[PhotonGuy]

There are two kinds of people: group a) people who just do enough, and group b) people who give everything they have got. Not revealing the exact requirement or required time encourages group A to move into group B. Group B behaviour is in keeping with martial spirit and develops mental fortitude because it forces the student to fight the internal enemy rather than the external one.

Not necessarily. If I want to do something whether its getting a belt or swimming in nationals or whatever I do want to know what the requirements are, it only makes sense to know what you've got to do to meet a goal, but I don't just want to squeak by and fulfill the requirements to the minimum, I want to blow them out of the water. Im not satisfied with just borderline passing.

 

[drop bear]

There are two kinds of people: group a) people who just do enough, and group b) people who give everything they have got. Not revealing the exact requirement or required time encourages group A to move into group B. Group B behaviour is in keeping with martial spirit and develops mental fortitude because it forces the student to fight the internal enemy rather than the external one.

You could make that argument for what could become soul destroying training.

You could be training people to give up early.

 

[Gnarlie]

Unless it helps them achieve better results. I mean it is great to say that nobody needs external motivation but I think you need the results to back that up.

So the next step here is look up people who train champions and see if they goal set.

Not focusing on belts is not the same as not goal setting at all.

Nothing wrong with having a goal in place, very positive and motivating.

Having a belt as a goal is an indirect and not necessarily good indicator of improvement in skill.

More sensible goals are direct and time bound, measurable and skill related. Increase in weight lifted, reps completed in a time, height jumped, angle stretched to, etc. A belt is unlikely to directly indicate skill based increases such as the above. There is likely to be a correlation due to time training, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation.

 

[Gnarlie]

Not necessarily. If I want to do something whether its getting a belt or swimming in nationals or whatever I do want to know what the requirements are, it only makes sense to know what you've got to do to meet a goal, but I don't just want to squeak by and fulfill the requirements to the minimum, I want to blow them out of the water. Im not satisfied with just borderline passing.

If you want to blow the test out of the water then stop worrying about requirements and start training to always give your best.

 

[Gnarlie]

You could make that argument for what could become soul destroying training.

You could be training people to give up early.

And yet we have fantastic attendance and retention rates.

It is a very strong motivating message to say 'at some point today you will fail. We will all fail. That is your aim today both in the physical and technical fitness senses. To reach a wall and then push yourself at least a little bit beyond it. Next time you will be able to do more before you reach the wall. Those moments, beyond the wall, right before you push yourself to fail, are where you are WINNING.'

That's the only requirement one needs to know, and the rest you learn by doing. The same approach applies to technical learning, we have to push themselves to proactively learn a little more each time.

It's not macho macho, I'm not suggesting we push people to vomiting point (not usually anyway), just that we instill and work with the idea of battling the self right from the start.

It works for us, I'm not saying it has to work for everyone.

 

[drop bear]

Not focusing on belts is not the same as not goal setting at all.

Nothing wrong with having a goal in place, very positive and motivating.

Having a belt as a goal is an indirect and not necessarily good indicator of improvement in skill.

More sensible goals are direct and time bound, measurable and skill related. Increase in weight lifted, reps completed in a time, height jumped, angle stretched to, etc. A belt is unlikely to directly indicate skill based increases such as the above. There is likely to be a correlation due to time training, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation.

The argument about four posts ago was against even setting goals like swim times.

Personally I would suggest both forms of external motivation beneficial.

 

[drop bear]

And yet we have fantastic attendance and retention rates.

It is a very strong motivating message to say 'at some point today you will fail. We will all fail. That is your aim today both in the physical and technical fitness senses. To reach a wall and then push yourself at least a little bit beyond it. Next time you will be able to do more before you reach the wall. Those moments, beyond the wall, right before you push yourself to fail, are where you are WINNING.'

That's the only requirement one needs to know, and the rest you learn by doing. The same approach applies to technical learning, we have to push themselves to proactively learn a little more each time.

It's not macho macho, I'm not suggesting we push people to vomiting point, just that we instill and work with the idea of battling the self right from the start.

It works for us, I'm not saying it has to work for everyone.

And that is not goal setting?

 

[Gnarlie]

The argument about four posts ago was against even setting goals like swim times.

Personally I would suggest both forms of external motivation beneficial.

A swim time is different and does not relate well to traditional martial arts IMO. A swim time is an external and arbitrary goal. It's someone else's time. More motivating goals are individual and personally set.

Aiming to beat a qualifying time as a goal is a bad idea given that what follows is a competition for people who swim faster than that time. One of those guys might be someone who doesn't use other people's times as a goal and thus has continuously improved himself to swim record times unheard of in swimming. Think natural talent too.

Having a qualifying time as a goal is setting yourself up to fail. Just like having a belt as a goal might set you up to fail if your ultimate goal is actually to be a skilled martial artist or fighter.

 

[Gnarlie]

And that is not goal setting?

Yes, it absolutely is. That is my point.

Goal setting, especially effective goal setting, and having a belt as a goal are not necessarily the same thing.

 

[Gnarlie]

There are also going to different approaches here depending on if you want to be competitive, or if you want to live the way.

 

[ballen0351]

Unless it helps them achieve better results. I mean it is great to say that nobody needs external motivation but I think you need the results to back that up.

So the next step here is look up people who train champions and see if they goal set.

It may help some but since we talking about kids what happens more often is "oh I only need to swim that fast cool" so they settle for the minimum standard.

And since you mentioned champions Michael Phelps is a local guy and has done seminars with our swim team and his advice was don't worry about the numbers push yourself as hard as you can and the numbers will reflect that in the end"

 

[Gnarlie]

Generally kids don't respond to goal setting and achievements in the same way as adults, so learning through play tends to be more effective in fostering improvement up to a certain age, at least in my experience.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Not focusing on belts is not the same as not goal setting at all.
Nothing wrong with having a goal in place, very positive and motivating.

Well you have made it clear that you do believe in goals, you just don't think that belts should be a goal. There are others that think that too. Many of my posts and threads however are about if belts are your goal how you should pursue it. Whether or not belts should be a goal is a different matter altogether.

Having a belt as a goal is an indirect and not necessarily good indicator of improvement in skill.

I've said this in some other posts but unless you go to a place that has cheap requirements for belts, and I mean cheap in skill requirements not financial requirements, than you're not going to get a high belt without high skill.

More sensible goals are direct and time bound, measurable and skill related. Increase in weight lifted, reps completed in a time, height jumped, angle stretched to, etc. A belt is unlikely to directly indicate skill based increases such as the above. There is likely to be a correlation due to time training, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation.

Again, whether or not a belt is a good indicator of skill based increases depends on the standards and requirements at the place where you got it.

 

[PhotonGuy]

If you want to blow the test out of the water then stop worrying about requirements and start training to always give your best.

In order to train hard and always give it my best, I don't want to train blindly. I want to know what Im training for and that involves knowing the requirements. Knowing a swimming time I have to beat helps me focus more. Lets say I have to swim a 50 freestyle in 30 seconds to go to a special meet which was the qualifying time for my age group. Once I get my time down to 30 seconds I know Im going to the meet, but now I want to be prepared to do my very best at the meet so I want to see how much I can beat the 30 second requirement by. The same thing with belt requirements.

Its much like what my Baseball coach in Jr. High said, in a game against another team whether we're ahead by 100 points or behind by 100 points in either case he wanted us to do our best and play just as hard as if the scores were tied.

 

[PhotonGuy]

It may help some but since we talking about kids what happens more often is "oh I only need to swim that fast cool" so they settle for the minimum standard.

That's not how we took it. Once we knew we had beaten the qualifying time to go to a meet, we still wanted to get our times as low as possible. After all, once we knew we were going to a meet we then wanted to be able to do our very best at the meet.

In school there was this boy in my class who wasn't satisfied even with a 97 on his test. A 97 is an A+, the highest letter grade possible, but he wanted to do better. He wanted a 100 even though it would've been the same letter grade.

At this swim camp I went to the coach said our goal, our ultimate goal, was to get a time of 00:00:00 on the stop watch. Once we reached that goal we could all retire and we would have it made. At that point, once I made 00:00:00 as my time I would then say "I only need to swim that fast cool," but until then I would be working towards getting my time down to that and doing my best to get it.

And since you mentioned champions Michael Phelps is a local guy and has done seminars with our swim team and his advice was don't worry about the numbers push yourself as hard as you can and the numbers will reflect that in the end"

Well Im not one to argue with a legend and I do think that people can sometimes get too worked up by numbers not just with swimming times but with all sorts of other stuff such as grades as I mentioned above, but I don't think Phelps would object to knowing your own time, which you will know anyway, or knowing the time you have to beat to go to a certain meet you want to go to.