Synchronized swimming is a sport that combines elements from swimming, dance, and gymnastics consisting of swimmers performing a coordinated routine of sophisticated moves in the water, accompanied by music. It involves flexibility, strength, concentration, determination and last be not least holding your breath.
Generally routines last about three minutes, but this all depends on which catego- ry the swimmers competing in. To begin the season, the team first determines what theme of music they are going to swim to. The coaches will start choreographing the routine, which is broken down into counts of 8 in order to synchronize the swimmers. But before the swimmers can begin prac- ticing their routine in the pool, they must be able to perform it on land. This is referred to a land-drilling. Once the team knows the routine, and the counts to the music, it is time to try it in the pool.
Now for the performance aspect of synchronized swimming: each team strives to have unique costumes and makeup to follow the theme of the music. In order to keep their hair in place while swimming, the swimmers gel their hair down with gelatin, and for their makeup they use stage performance make up, so the water does not wash it off.
Now that you know a little bit about what synchronized swimming is, did you know that Trent has a synchronized swimming team? Did you also know that two of its members competed at the McGill Invitational Meet and took second and third place? First-year team member Kara Steel placed second in the competition, while Mell McGrath took third place.
Most of the team is made up of Novice members, which means for a lot of them, this is their first year on the team, but there are some more experienced swimmers that have been on the Trent team, and other teams before coming to Trent. They are a competitive team that travels far distances just to compete against other universities across Canada. Last year our team travelled to Calgary for our National competition where we placed 6th in the novice division. This year the Trent teams will be travelling to Provincials, held at Queen’s University, for the Eastern division and Nationals, which are held at Western, to compete. They are entering in a lot of different categories and have a very good chance of doing well.
When I asked the girls was the team chemistry was like this year and why they joined the team, each and every one of them answered with the same response: “We joined the team in order to meet new people and we did. We are a giant family and we all thoroughly enjoy being together.” And others went on to add “We all strive to support each other and help each other through the difficult parts of the routine because we all care. We always stop to talk to each other whenever we run into each other around town or campus; it is not just a friendship in the water it is also one outside.”
But the team couldn’t do it all on their own, they have to have coaches there to help them out when they need it. When asked about the coaches this is what team member Chelsea Course had to say: “Our coaches are absolutely amazing; they have the right kind of attitude and want nothing more than to see us do well. They are all extremely nice people but know when to get tougher on us when they see that we need to buckle down and focus on the nit- ty-gritty aspects of our routine, this tends to be around Christmas time and right before competitions. Before competitions they will give us a pep talk before we compete and cheer us on the whole time. No matter how good or bad we do they always give us positive feedback and constructive criticism so we know where we need to improve for next time.”
Not a lot of people know anything about synchronized swimming, or even that Trent has a team, but theirs is a team who tries their best no matter who they are up against.
Synchronized swimming is a fun and rewarding sport, that teaches you great skills and you can meet new people. So help support our Trent Excalibur synchro team as they head to Queen’s University on Sunday January 13, 2013 to compete.