Before & After Progress of our Ambassadors
At the beginning of this year, Ivni & Wai Yee were still relatively not that confident and strong in their swimming ability despite having gone through Swim Expo Asia Open Water Race 2015. Their swimming techniques for their swim were still not fully and correctly mastered. In last year’s Swim Expo Asia, both of them participated in 1 individual swim event, which was 1.5km & 400m for Wai Yee and Ivni respectively.
However, Ivni and Wai Yee would be raising their ante this year and they are setting a bigger goal for themselves. These 2 champs will be participating in 2 swim events each! Ivni has set a challenge for himself and will be attempting the 1.5km and 400m event. Wai Yee will be raising the bar and will be participating in the 1.9km & 400m event. They have set the bar higher to show that they are capable of achieving better.
Being our ambassadors for Swim Expo Asia, they would also like to send the message to all that if they are able to do it so could all of us!
Progress In 2016
Ivni and Wai Yee have been training consistently and gradually increasing the number of laps in their training while improving their proficiency in the Total Immersion swimming techniques through the guidance of Master Coach Mr Tang Siew Kwan and their trainer, Ms Lynda during their weekly swim sessions at the pool. Ivni and Wai Yee also train occasionally at the swimming pool of Republic Polytechnic with the Final Year Project students who are also involved in the Swim Expo Asia Open Water Race event.
August 2016
Ivni and Wai Yee went on their first open water swim in the choppy waters of East Coast Park. They had progressed in not only on how they managed the oncoming current in the open waters but had also made marked improvements in using the Total Immersion techniques to improve both their energy efficiency while swimming and in their stroke counts.
It was truly amazing to see how Ivni and Wai Yee started off with their swim in the early part of the year and in a matter of months, both have made radical transformation and improvement in the way they swim. Their consistent training in the past months under coach Lynda and Master Coach Tang, has certainly paid off. As part of the Republic Polytechnic’s Final Year Project farewell swim, we also had 2 Republic Polytechnic students joining them in this open water swim.
Ivni’s strength lies on his backstroke as he is able to swim backstroke limitlessly. However, he had to make some adjustments to his freestyle techniques and Master Coach Tang set a target for Ivni to swim a stipulated distance using free style in 20-stroke counts. He struggled with this target initially but after several attempts, he managed to do so. He excelled gracefully and could not believe he was able to succeed. He quoted this on that day, ”It is all about the mindset and mentality to push ahead. Your mind is your strongest weapon to overcome any obstacle.”
On the other hand, Wai Yee is a better swimmer and she swam at a quicker pace on that day. We saw tremendous improvements in her swim as compared to the first time we swam with her. She was not very confident in her swimming ability when she first started her training early this year but after months of training, she realized that she has nothing much to worry about, after all.
Before we wrapped up for the day, we did a synchronized swim with the Swim Expo Asia ambassadors under the guidance of Master Coach Tang. It was indeed a testimony of how well they have mastered the Total Immersion techniques and how far they have achieved in terms of their progress and development.
This blog is written by Republic Polytechnic students, Amirul, Andi, Farhan, Irfan and Zul.
