Niagara senior Brad Ash found a way to incorporate his swimming into a class project, creating a short documentary about the sport, called Swimming: An Underrated Sport.
You can check out the video above, courtesy of Brad Ash on YouTube. There are some great visuals, and the members of the Niagara University Swim & Dive team get to describe the sport they know and love.
Though SwimSwam readers probably know full well the demands of the sport, Ash’s documentary aims to educate other fans about the unique demands of our aquatic discipline. The 10-minute video delves into such topics as the mental strain of swimming, the team aspect of an individual sport, and the grind of staying motivated during a truly year-round sport.
For anyone hoping to introduce friends or family to the sport, Ash’s documentary is a nice look at the originality of swimming. And as always, it’s interesting to hear swimmers and coaches describe their lifestyles in their own words.
And for those who know all-too-well the unique demands swimming brings, Swimming: An Underrated Sport is a great pep-talk to keep you working and to remind you just how proud we can be of our sport.
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Swimming is not a sport that needs sympathy. It is a tasking sport that requires rigorous training and an acute ability to be mentally tough. The world knows this. Most non-swimmers that initially find out that I compete in the sport are actually extremely impressed because they have a predisposed belief that all swimmers must have an enormous amount of strength! At the end of the day, there is no need to emphasize its difficulty in comparison to other sports. It is a sport that requires the grace of a runner and the mindset of a sports combatant (I.e. MMA or boxing)
I feel this documentary highlighted what’s wrong with the a large portion of the swim community who… Read more »
Great video! Always appreciate a good quality swimming video like this one.
Just couldn’t help but think that a USRPT or USRPT-Hybrid could relieve some of the pressure and ‘grind’. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves because we are so hopeful that all the training will be justified and produce the results we want. I mean what a colossal waste of time and energy if all that “staring at the black line” doesn’t make us better. If we want more people coming into the sport we may need to not hold so tightly to our “badge of yardage”. The real courage may not be our willingness to go 10K a day but may be in thinking… Read more »
Amen to that, Josh!
*** I meant Amen to your last paragraph. Well said.
I would like to see kids starting out in the sport (or even newcomers to Masters) watch this documentary. It sums everything up in a nutshell. Excellent work! Bravo!