Swimming in Your Thoughts

Meredith just started swimming with a new swim team. She has always loved swimming, but it really has to be the right environment. For instance, the last team we joined practiced in an enormous indoor swim complex that was exceptionally loud and chaotic, which meant the coaches also yelled a lot. Not good. Then Meredith swam with a summer league where she enjoyed practice at the outdoor pool, but detested the meets which were loud, long, chaotic, unbearably hot...you get the picture.

So, she is so enjoying her new arrangement. There are maybe 10 kids at the most at her practices, swim meets are optional, it is at an outdoor, heated pool, and the coach is a very sweet mannered young woman. I'm shocked that she is actually wanting to practice three times per week because she complained so much in the past about going. Obviously the difference is the sensory environment. The...sensory...environment. Nine times out of ten the sensory environment is what stresses Meredith.

And that brings me to the point of swimming as an attractive sport for people like Meredith--highly visual thinkers who have weaker auditory systems (i.e., Mavericks). Swimming quiets down all the noise so the auditory system isn't working in overdrive. It eliminates visual distractions so the visual system isn't engaged in it's perpetual scanning mode. The elimination of the auditory and visual distractions allows you to enter that state-of-mind where you can freely wander through your thoughts (without being accussed of daydreaming). The physical aspect probably helps in engaging the right brain as well.  You don't usually get too cold or too hot.  Really, it is quite ideal for this breed.

I once was talking to my massage therapist during a massage (why do I always do that?!) and she clearly was a Maverick. She told me that her work place environment is perfect because it is dark, there is soft music, and she is doing something physical--all of which really allowed her mind to wander into places she enjoyed going to. She appeared to be so fullfilled with her work.


So, as always is the case, Merebith is following along with Meredith and has also started back with swimming, but she has her own Olympic sized pool. Guess who her coach is? Michael Phelps! Apparently he struts into practice wearing all eight of his gold medals around his neck.  Merebith loves swimming.

Dogot, meanwhile, has his own smaller pool filled with oil. His favorite thing to do is to lie on his back and spit mouthfuls of the oil up into the air. Can't you just picture it? Of course when he gets out, he is covered in oil. No problem!  He just rolls over to this huge blow-dryer looking machine and when he turns it on, it blows all the oil right off. How convenient!