Sync or Swim?

When some people see synchronized swimming they don’t think much about it. They may think, “Oh that looks so easy, they’re just floating there.” That is where they are wrong. Synchronized swimming may look flashy thanks to all of the makeup, sparkles, and sequins, but it is a lot harder than it looks. You just see what’s happening above water, not all of the hard work underneath. One basic thing you learn is called sculling. Sculling is an arm movement that helps keep you, and especially your legs, above the water. Something that people incorrectly assume, is that we can touch the bottom. We are not allowed to touch the bottom, and if we do, we get a penalty which makes our score lower. At big competitions, there are underwater cameras to see if we touch the bottom. Synchro is a extremely small sport, and there’s barely any swimmers, making it hard to fund competitions. For competitions we have fancy suits we call routine suits. Those are the sparkly, bejeweled, colorful suits you may know. Along with the routine suits, we must wear makeup so that the judges, the people scoring us, can see our faces. The worst part, in my opinion, is something called knox gelatin. Knox is basically unflavored jello that we have to put in our hair, and it can only come out by a really hot shower. We use knox so that our hair can be slicked back without getting in our face during our swim. If you want to learn more about what we wear for competition click here . All of that stuff is just for show, but the hardest part is happening underwater. Synchro is basically running a marathon, while upside down for half the time, and holding your breath. Still easy? Synchronized swimmers train incredibly hard and let’s not forget that it’s in the olympics. Synchro takes incredible strength, speed, flexibility, time, and endurance that takes many years to master. Synchro is also dangerous , many people get concussions including myself. Not only that but two of my teammates have broken their toes by kicking someone else’s leg or back. We have to swim very close to each other, and so getting kicked is a daily thing. No one notices if someone gets kicked because we have to put on our brave faces and keep going like nothing happened. Now that you know more about synchro, I hope you appreciate it a little bit more. It’s not all about what’s on the surface, but what you can’t see.

Images: http://i.pinimg.com/originals/96/26/50/962650962ec30aec2cf9e579d8095d56.jpg , https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d6/6d/86/d66d86d95012ed7ffc24bbe9456f69fa--synchronized-swimming-water-aerobics.jpg

Knox: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/olympics-2012/gelatin-olympic-hair-product-synchronized-swimming-article-1.1134057

Concussions: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/sports/synchronized-swimming-concussions.html?_r=0