Silver Group Update

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Andy Scherer

Wow! I am utterly impressed with the number of swimmers that we have already on our Silver practice group! To give you an idea of why I am in awe, we started this venture that has become Typhoon Swimming a little over 3 years ago with 24 swimmers. Today, we currently have 22 swimmers enrolled just for the Silver Group!

With that said, I cannot thank you all enough for participating in our program, and it’s our goal to have as much fun with the swimmers as possible (with a little coaching along the way as well, right?)!

I have been asked, “What happens if we get over 30 swimmers on the Silver Group? How will you be able to maintain adequate attention for each individual swimmer?”

First and foremost, this is an outstanding question and one that I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. The coaches and I have worked out a plan that will break down the Silver group into 4 squads (for lack of a better term). The first 10 who registered for the Silver Group will be in “Squad 1″, from 11 to 20 will be “Squad 2″, from 21 to 30 will be “Squad 3″, and from 31 to 40 will be “Squad 4″. We will also add another practice day (Thursday at 4:30pm).

So, here’s where we get a little creative and fix the issue of “too many swimmers”. Squad 1 will practice Monday, Tuesday, and Friday (during their assigned times). Squad 2 will practice Monday, Thursday, and Friday (during their times), Squad 3 will practice Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (during their times), and Squad 4 will practice Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (during their times).

And, finally, if we do (in fact) have that many swimmers on the team, we will also be looking into adding an assistant age group coach to help Coach Lauren and, hopefully, save some of her sanity!

With all of that said, nothing is going into play just yet, but please make sure that you register for the season as soon as possible so that we can make the needed alterations and move forward! Again, thank you so much, and we are all looking forward to an outstanding season!

p.s. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me at 203 248 6361 or AScherer@cccymca.org.

Spring/Summer Swim Team Starts Monday!

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Andy Scherer

With our pre-season swim clinic almost over, the Hamden North Haven YMCA Typhoons look to start their Spring/Summer season this upcoming Monday (April 26, 2010). However, before we move forward, let’s take a look at what we have done so far this past week and a half in our clinic:

Flip Turns

Increased the speed that they get around on the flip
Improved the efficiency of their last pull before the flip
Adjusted their hand positions prior to the push-off from the wall
Fine-tuned the smaller details of the turn to make it as efficient as possible

Freestyle

Worked on individual hand entry
Focused on improving the high catch and early vertical forearm
Improved body position and kick technique
Altered the follow through of the pull to increase torque

Backstroke

Worked the efficiency of the kick
Introduced utilizing the core during the stroke to increase velocity
Practiced proper body position and swimming downhill
Implemented a new flip turn technique to minimize time between the last stroke and the flip turn

Breaststroke

Focused on kick timing to increase stroke efficiency
Worked on when to let go of the water during the stroke
Introduced “pressing”
Practiced the proper way to pull and shoot the hands for maximum torque and minimum drag

Butterfly

Improved the efficiency and the timing of the kick
Worked two different ways to catch and pull the water, and each swimmer decided which way was better for them
Practiced the timing of the stroke
Introduced a new butterfly turn in order to minimize arm drag during the breakout

Even though we have already had a great clinic with the swimmers, we still have an IM day, and a day to review with everyone! All in all, this has been a very successful clinic, and the coaches can only look forward to what is going to be an outstanding (and fun) Spring/Summer with the Hamden North Haven Swim Team!

If you’re interested in finding out more information about the Spring and Summer season, please either visit our Registration Page or contact Coach Andy.

Happy Swimming!

Short Course Season Accomplishments – 2009/2010

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Andy Scherer

As we go into the New England Regional Championships, I want to recap our 2009/2010 Short Course season with the Hamden North Haven YMCA Typhoon swim team. So, without further ado, here is how our season played out:

We started our season with our swim clinic about 3 weeks prior to any other swim team in our Yankee Cluster, and it proved to be very successful! The swimmers learned a plethora of drills and skills that they would be then used throughout the regular season to improve their stroke and racing technique. Following the clinic, we had our first meet in early October.

The 2009 National YMCA Virtual Invitational had 220 swim teams (in total 11,605 athletes throughout the U.S.) swam locally to compete nationally against each other which was the first time that an event like this has been run by the YMCA. The Typhoon swimmers did extremely well with the following as highlight swims:

W. Munstermann placed 12th in the 50 free, and 15th in the 50 back
G. Livsey placed 19th in the 50 free, and 11th in the 100 breast
10 and under boys placed 15th overall
Typhoons finished 2nd out of all our Cluster teams (69th overall out of 220 teams – not bad for being a young swim team)

The Autumn Classic was the next stop for the Typhoon swim team, and we did excellent! Some of the highlight swims were:

A. Allen took off 9.23 seconds from her 100 free
G. Desroches dropped nearly 4 seconds on her 50 freestyle
E. Hodes dropped over 5 seconds in his 50 breaststroke, and over 3 seconds from his 50 free
N. Kern dropped 10.98 seconds in his 200 free
G. Livsey cut 5 seconds from his 200 free
M. Munstermann took down her 200 IM by 8.30, and her 100 free by 3.80

Our meet against Farmington Valley YMCA, though long, was a very fast meet for the athletes. In total, there were 18 Typhoon swimmers that dropped time for a cumulative of over 3 minutes dropped by those 18 swimmers. That equals out to an average of 17 seconds dropped per swimmer!

And the times just kept getting faster and faster throughout the year! Typically swimmers will usually flatten out (or plateau) with their times as the season progresses until it is time to taper. However, the Typhoon swimmers truly didn’t experience this – at least not at looking through everyone’s times! That not only shows that we still have room to grow, but that the swimmers have tremendous heart and dedication to get better no matter the circumstances!

So, the short course season went on and into Yankee Cluster Championships. Last year, we (as an almost brand new team) finished 11th out of 13 teams. This year, we were able to overtake significantly larger teams and place 9th overall out of 13 teams – as an aside, we were the second smallest team in attendance! Not only were we able to accomplish that, but take a look at our other achievements:

13 and 14 year old girls placed 8th overall
13 and 14 year old boys placed 5th overall (and this includes 15 – 18 as well)
9 and 10 year old boys placed 3rd overall

The Yankee Clusters wrapped up our regular season which produced 8 individual qualifiers for New England Regionals, but our swimmers wanted more! So, we ventured off to the Last Ditch meet where we entered 8 individual events. Four of those events ended up as qualifying times where we added 2 more individually qualified swimmers to our total!

Our year-end stats are still in limbo depending on how the swimmers do at the Regional meet, but here is a quick look at how we stand so far:

43 of 66 team records broken (some broken several times)
over 50% of swims were personal best times
Out of 60 swimmers, 10 individually qualified for New England’s, and a 19 swimmers competing in relays which is almost 50% of our team that will attend Regionals this year – the highest number in our team’s history!
And, most importantly, a total of 60 smiles on 60 swimmers’ faces every week throughout the year as they learned and had fun with their friends!

So, congratulations to the swimmers, the coaching staff, the parents, and the Hamden North Haven YMCA community! I will try to update all of you on our happenings in Boston as we travel this weekend so stay tuned for more Typhoon News!

Go Typhoons!!

Last Week’s Swim Meet with the Waterbury Swim Team

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Andy Scherer

Last Friday’s swim meet with the Waterbury YMCA Swim Team went extremely well for the Hamden North Haven Typhoons! Our swimmers posted 70% of their swims as personal best times and several team records were broken; keep in mind this was the first meet of the 2009 Summer Season as well!

With all of that said, I thought the swimmers did an outstanding job and I hope they all had fun out there! I definitely look forward to seeing everyone this upcoming Friday at the Mystic YMCA as their swim team plays host to our second meet of the season!

Happy Swimming, and Go Typhoons!

Hamden North Haven YMCA Swim Team – Year End Summary

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Andy Scherer

As the Hamden North Haven YMCA Swim Team has officially ended our Regular Season for 2008/2009 Short Course, I would like to look back on this year’s happenings. However, before that I would just like to thank all of the swim team parents, swimmers, and everybody else that has been involved with this past season! Without your support, involvement, and commitment the we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a majority of these achievements this year! So, thank you, and I truly hope to see you at the Hamden North Haven YMCA Swim Team banquet on April 5^th, and April 27^th for the Spring Swim Clinic!

And now on to the Hamden North Haven YMCA Typhoon Happenings of the 2008/2009 Short Course Season in no particular order (and please feel free to let me know if I have forgotten something):

Addition of an up and coming coach for the Silver and Gold groups – Alisse DeAngelis
Renovated swim team website with blog and networking forum for parents and swimmers
25 New Typhoon Swimmers!
Home meets hosted at Albertus Magnus College
Hosted 4 (smoothly run) home meets
Tabitha Vincent, Naomi Sakamoto and Jen Fox joined the Parents’ Board
The Typhoons swam at 10 dual/tri YMCA swim meets
Over 59% of the events we swam in 2008/2009 were Personal Best times!
Record-setting year: 51 of 66 records broken!!
Out of 13 teams, overall Boys’ ranking of 6^th in the Yankee Cluster Championship
Out of 13 teams, overall Team ranking of 9^th in the Yankee Cluster Championship
4 swimmers qualified during the regular season for New England Regional Championships
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, Every Single One Of Us Involved In This Growing Program Had FUN!!!

I, honestly, cannot thank everyone enough for a great regular season; I am absolutely looking forward to the pre-season clinic in April, and the Summer Season!!! Let’s all wish the New England Qualifiers and their Relay Teams the best for their competition at the New England Championship swim meet in March! Go Typhoons!!