Khyraen's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 6/13/02 -------------------- 6/6/02 5/7/02 5/5/02 5/1/02 11/17/01 8/19/01 6/2/01 4/26/01 3/26/01 3/3/01 2/17/01 2/9/01 1/31/01 1/28/01 -------------------- Khyraen's Introduction

August 19, 2001

8-19-04

Just a few weeks ago, Jonnie participated in a Basketball Summer Day Camp. It was for 2nd through 4th grades, and I figured that was a good start since he had never played before (except to shoot hoops outside someone’s house.)

The coach introduced himself as “Coach Bush—an easy name to remember.” No kidding. I have to say first and foremost, I really, really liked this coach. He was a little ‘harsh’ for what some parents want in a coach, but that is just the way I like them. He demanded respect, he made them hustle, and he made them try their best. His idea of helping a child’s ‘self-esteem’ was to help the child improve their skills. Like I said, I liked this coach.

Sitting in the gym, the drills were very familiar to me. I used to play basketball as a child and all the drills came flooding back as I watched. As a matter of fact, I wanted to get up and join the kids.

I have to confess that Coach Bush was my kind of coach. He was just enough fun and just experienced enough with kids to pull off his demands for hustling, respect, and immediate obedience of his requests. In other words, he was an old fashion coach who believed self esteem stemmed from learning to do things well and giving it your all and improving on your skills not false praise and permissiveness.

Jonnie couldn’t wait for his 2 hr of basketball every day. The week went by far too quickly and soon it was over. Jonnie now considers himself good enough to play for the Kings while, in truth, he still needs much work on his basic skills. That’s OK. What really matters is that he had a fun time and at the same time got introduced to the idea of working hard to learn new skills and improve.

The next week was Sky Hawks multi-sport camp. It was supposed to include up to four different sports but ended up being basketball and soccer. The coaches were of the new generation of coaches and, while nice enough people, just weren’t what I want in a coach. It was little surprise to me that since they had less control of the kids they were working w/, they seemed to enjoy coaching less than Coach Bush.

Ashley was in the multi-sport camp w/ Jonnie and the two of them had a good time. Jonnie got more practice w/ the skills he had learned the week before and got introduced to soccer. They each got a soccer ball and a T-shirt which they handed out on Thurs and told the kids to come back Fri. with it decorated.

Since Ashley spent the night at her friend’s house, Jonnie was the only one who got to decorate his shirt. I happened to have almost anything artistic you could possibly want, so we broke out the fabric markers and he went to town. There were lizards and snakes all over his T-shirt, along w/ his favorite radio stations (local Christian stations) and “I love Jesus.” I was surprised, impressed (at his art work—his diamond back rattle snake was awesome), and pleased with the final outcome.

During the sports camps, Jonnie was also in swim lessons. All told, he had 10 weeks of swim lessons this year. Before this summer started, he could keep his head above water by doggie paddling and get from point A to point B slowly if it wasn’t too far, but he didn’t swim a proper stroke or underwater and he didn’t put his face in the water.

I enrolled him in Minnows, which is a level two class, for one session. Then he was in 3 sessions of Goldfish, which is level three and requires that you learn basic front and back crawl pretty well. For the final session (each session was 2 wks.) I enrolled him in Manta Rays—or level four. Tomorrow is his last day of swim lessons and he is hoping to graduate to be a Sting Ray level five.

He had no trouble graduating his Minnow class and was at the head of his class the whole time. He also did very well in his first Goldfish class and almost passed, failing to do well enough on his back stroke. He took a second Goldfish class at the same pool and passed. I knew he was enrolled in another Goldfish class, this time at a different pool, and I decided not to try and switch around his classes. I had seen him swim and his arms on his front crawl really weren’t getting out of the water.

Strangely, when we switched pools and he took Goldfish a third time, he didn’t pass. Again, I decided not to switch his classes around. I was a little worried for him—they more the kids up or down depending on how well they do the first two days—but he did well enough to stay in the Manta Rays and we find out tomorrow if he graduated.

He now swims a good front crawl and can do it across the 25 m of the pool fairly easily. This isn’t alone, but after swimming for a half an hour. His back crawl can go the short way across the pool. He can tread water for 5 min. He also learned to dive, kneeling and standing. But, most important to him, he conquered his fear and jumped off the high dive 2 times so far this summer (and plans to try again tomorrow.)

Next time I will write about Joshua’s swimming lessons.

Best wishes,

Khy, loving Mommy to Jonnie and Joshua and their three siblings