LESSONS FROM THE WATER READ PREVIOUS ARTICLES WEBSITE SCHEDULE SUBSTACK Hi there, Earlier this week I sat down with a small group of swimmers and asked a question I’ve been sitting with myself: what feels sustainable right now? “I used to wear a watch to track my times and distance in practice — but I realized I had to take it off. Not because the data was wrong, but because I was stuck in comparing today to yesterday.” The watch wasn’t measuring progress anymore. It was measuring…

Learn to Listen to the Water I worked with new swimmers this week—and others I’ve been guiding for years—ranging in age from 4 to 64 (give or take). Some were just learning to hear themselves hum underwater for the first time. Others were exploring how to release tension and let the water hold them. Different ages, different goals. But a common thread runs through them all. The thing that unlocks real progress isn’t found with a kickboard or pull buoy. It runs deeper than watching the clock…

What changes if you stay with resistance? Lately I’ve been thinking about that moment of pause—when resistance creeps in right before something meaningful. What happens next is where it gets interesting. When you stay—not by pushing through, but by noticing what’s underneath—you start to uncover what’s really driving the resistance. And often, it’s not fear of failure. It’s fear of change. Of doing things differently. Of not being able to go back. But when you stay with it—when you meet that…

Got a support system? Or just swimming solo? This week in the water, one of my little swimmers pushed off from one side of the pool, picked up a sinky, stood up, and proudly yelled out, “Mom, look!” Mom looked up from her phone, smiled, and gave him the thumbs up he was hoping for. With that simple recognition, courage bloomed—and he did it again. And again. At one point, he came up surprised, choking on water, and looked straight at me. I gently reminded him, “We’re not fish—we can’t breathe…

I want to quit. A few years ago, a coach pointed out my tendency to give up when things got hard. It stung to hear her say it—because it’s true. Now I see it everywhere. After dinner, at the sink with three filthy skillets—the kind with cooked-on food—my feet ache, my back aches, and I just want to leave them and sink into the couch. In a moment of disagreement with my husband, I want to walk out of the room. Two tasks left at the end of a long day—I think, Do they really have to be done…

There’s more than meets the eye At our weekly Q&A on Tuesday, we explored a powerful truth: looks can be deceiving, especially in swimming. It’s easy to assume a long, graceful stroke means efficiency or that choppy movements signal struggle. But the water tells a different story. A swimmer who looks smooth might be leaking power in invisible ways, while someone with an unconventional stroke might be moving through the water with surprising ease. The real difference isn’t in how a stroke, a…