Hi WAVE community and members!
Closed swimming pools are of course a big hurdle when it comes to aquatics. But the WAVE vision is to “enrich the lives in the communities we serve”, and as such the staff have found many creative ways to continue realizing our vision, engage on a regular basis, keep everyone active and provide a sense of community and a team. We are humbled and truly blessed by the support our members have been showing during these challenging times!
We are hard at work preparing to re-open as soon as we get the green light from Gov. Inslee, most likely in Phase 3. We will of course be implementing changes to ensure social distancing and taking other measures to keep everyone safe. We will communicate as soon as any public decisions are made.
In the meanwhile, here’s an update on what’s going on around the organization:
Masters
Masters swimmers have been branching out in their activities. One member has been riding online Swift workouts every day of the lockdown. Some have bought bicycles, one has been roller blading with ski poles, and many others have been doing lots of walking and indoor body weight workouts.
Team members also have been getting together on regular Zoom meetings just to share coronavirus stories and how work has been going which is a nice change from seeing the same people at home every day.
Lately some of us have been getting in the open water, either at smaller lakes in the suburbs, or in Lake Washington at Waverly Beach. The lake temperature is about 62 degrees, so too cold unless you have a wetsuit, but getting warmer every day.
Coach Wade is leading an informal swim every (sunny) day at Waverly at 9am. We'll go earlier as the air temperature starts warming up.
Water Polo
WAVE Aquatics water polo team has been hard at work staying in shape during COVID-19 break from the pool. With three 60 minute Zoom sessions every week our athletes are focusing on dryland exercises to develop water polo skills. All of the exercises they do focus on the essential muscle groups that will help them once they are back in the water. All players are staying active and healthy, although we all miss the water. We have been working hard to adapt to everyone’s schedules so that each athlete is able to enjoy the online dryland experience. We will continue these sessions until we are back in the pool. Even some parents are enjoying participating in the workouts.
Swim Team
WAVE Aquatics swimmers have been hard at work during the COVID-19 break from the pool. We have upped our dryland for our younger kids and made sure that everyone on WAVE has a way to stay active Monday-Saturday of each week with some at home dryland. We have seen some pretty cool and creative dryland workouts that really help to get our athletes (and their families) really working hard.
We have also learned to embrace some new technology for our coaching staff. We have worked to keep in touch with all of our swimmers in weekly Zoom Meetings and even added in some fun game nights to give the kids something fun to do through the week. WAVE has also embraced Social Media both in posting more pictures of our athletes at home, and with our Instagram Live videos we have been giving our athletes and parents a chance to get to know our coaches and their stories.
We also wrapped up our first ever WAVE Spirit Week recently. It was a BLAST!!! We had tons of kids participate through the week and it was great seeing all the kids and families join in the themes.
We also host a talk with an Olympian on Saturday mornings, where they share their career path, what motivates them, how they prepare to races and much more.
We are anxious to get back in the water as soon as we can, but will keep looking at fun and engaging ways to keep our athletes active and having fun.
Swim School and Operations
While aquatics facilities are closed, the Wave Swim School and pool operations team is participating in virtual meetings with Parks & Recreation associations from around the region, and with the American Red Cross, to stay up-to-date with best practices for public aquatics programs in Washington State and around the country. We are working to adapt our swim lessons curriculum and staff training to incorporate distancing requirements, personal protective equipment and mandatory cleaning breaks. The safety of our staff, patrons and swim lessons families remains our top priority, and we look forward to resuming activities at the pool as soon as we can safely do so!
If you have further questions, you can contact me at Kfir.Ami-ad@waveaquaticsboard.org
Kfir Ami-ad
President, Wave Aquatics Governing Board