The first time you ever experience an event is special. A first concert, a first love, a first car. For Bella, a few weeks ago, she experienced the feeling of being "first". Her swim team runs practice swim meets every month or so to get the kids ready for true swim meets where the times count. Everything is pretty official. There are timers, the starts are just like competitive meets with the three whistles to signify, "Get ready, get set, go!" Unlike a true swim meet, there are no DQ's or officials looking to make sure each stroke is legal. It's more about getting the kids to understand what the environment of a real swim meet is like before they go to one and get all freaked out and they can't perform. Ultimately, there are a lot less swimmers than a traditional swim meet and the distance is shortened to 25 yards instead of 50, except for a 50 freestyle at the end. Okay, enough back story. So there was Bella, ready on the blocks to swim her breaststroke. She is working hard to be legal on this stroke. Due to muscle tightness in her right calf muscle, she has difficulty keeping her foot flexed during the entire frog kick. That is a requirement for being legal. Right now we are trying kinesio tape to see if that helps to help her get the feeling. Anyway, usually Bella is slow off the blocks (somewhat to do with her hearing loss), but on this day she was very good! Into the water she went and she went into a very solid breaststroke. As she neared the end of the pool, it was evident that she was going to get first place. Everyone started to cheer, including the three coaches. It was something to behold. When Bella got to the end, she didn't realize that she had won. Becca was timing in her lane and even she was excited. Bella's eyes were about the size of dinner plates when one of the timers handed her the blue ribbon. So maybe it doesn't count officially...but it sure counted to Bella!
Below is a clip of her 25 fly. She also did really well in that race and got 2nd place!
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