During the tail end of practice on Tuesday evening, coach Cyndi Gallagher explained a drill step-by-step to the UCLA swim team, fleshing out all the minute details of how the exercise should run.
Now that the Bruins are almost halfway through their season, it stands to reason that the athletes are already familiar with whatever exercise Gallagher throws at them without needing to be reminded. But regardless of any swimmer’s experience or the team’s progress throughout the season, Gallagher never fails to focus on the basics at every practice.
“You have to teach every single day,” Gallagher said. “You can’t just say here’s a workout and go.”
Even as the Bruins approach the A3 Performance Invitational, which starts this Thursday, Gallagher doesn’t stray from her style of coaching, continuing to follow her philosophy of daily teaching. She said she knows that success lies in the details and has hammered that meticulousness into her swimmers.
“Cyndi’s really big on details and she’s changed a lot of aspects of my stroke that I’d never thought about before,” said freshman Katie Grover.
Gallagher also said she expects teammates to watch each other for breaks in form and help each other grow.
“If they see something wrong – because they’re underwater, they see you – then they say something to them as well, to help them,” Gallagher said. “That’s what I’m looking for at the meet, too.”
The team said it regards the upcoming three-day-long meet in Monterey Park as a practice of sorts for the NCAA championships in March.
“This is our first big trials and finals meet so we have prelims and finals at night,” said junior Arlyn Upshaw. “We’ve just had dual meets, so (the invitational) is a bigger meet than we’ve had this year. It’s a better gauge of where we are.”
The first-year swimmers are still getting used to collegiate meets and preparing for invitationals.
“It’s been kind of hard adjusting to the way college meets work, where you always have to be at your best. In high school you only have to do your best when you’re at big meets, so I’m hoping to keep continuing to get to my best level for every meet,” Grover said.
The A3 Performance Invitational will provide the Bruins with a way of knowing just how far they’ve come since the start of the season, as well as showing them what they need to improve on for the NCAAs.