HOW THEY TRAIN CHARLOTTE

STEVE HAUFLER

Thanks to his videos and ASCA World Clinic presentations, Steve Haufler is one of the country’s most visible and successful stroke technicians. Overlooked are his skills at developing young staff members and his enormous success in securing 19 consecutive Orinda Moraga Pool Association team championships in one of the nation’s most competitive (17 Olympians) summer swimming leagues.

BY MICHAEL J. STOTT

Q.SWIMMING WORLD: How did you get your start in aquatics? A. COACH STEVE HAUFLER: As a swim instructor at age 14 at Canyon Pool Swim School in El Sobrante, Calif.

SW: Between your teaching, coaching and videos, you have helped thousands learn to swim. How did you learn? SH: With a private instructor in my grandparents’ backyard pool at age 4. After that, I took lessons at various city programs until I started more advanced instruction when I was 10.

SW: Who were some of your seminal influences? SH: Fred and Bill Brown were my summer league and AAU age group coaches. Fred continued as my high school coach. Later on, it was Jack Flanagan at Diablo Valley College and Rick Rowland at University of California, Santa Barbara. As a graduate coaching assistant with the women’s team at UCSB in 1974-76, I shared the pool deck with men’s coach Gregg Wilson. Gregg brought Nort Thornton’s teaching and training philosophy to UCSB. I had a front-row seat!

SW: You coached the Montclair Swim Team prior to taking over Orinda Country Club. Do you miss the (USA Swimming) club environment? SH: Each fall, after my summer season has ended, about 40 of my more dedicated swimmers continue to train with me at Orinda Country Club (OCC). We register these athletes with Orinda Aquatics, and they can compete in fall USA Swimming meets and Junior Olympics if they qualify. So, I coach and train swimmers for USA Swimming events for three months out of the year. That feels about right.

SW: What differences do you see in coaching summer league vs. yearround swimmers? SH: Summer league is teaching and sprinting. Year-round swimming is teaching and training for a variety of distances. However, even though our summer league events are 25s and 100 IMs for 8-and-unders, and 50s and 100 IMs for older kids, I find myself designing practices—at least for 9-10s and up—that prepare swimmers for the 200 IM.

SW: What differences in age group swimming do you see between now vs. the 1970s and 1980s? SH: Coaches have come a long way in the understanding of optimal stroke technique and how bodies move in the water. Now preparation for competition is not just about maximizing hours, volume and doing the hardest sets. It’s become a more interesting sport for coaches and swimmers who want to pay attention to HOW they are swimming.

SW: Your stroke progression methodology is both inspirational and foundational. How did you become fascinated with teaching technique? SH: In 1964 when I was 12, I first Coach Steve Haufler

Director of Aquatics/Head Swim Coach Orinda Country Club Assistant Fall Coach Orinda Aquatics Orinda, California

• University of California Santa Barbara, B.A., physical education, 1974; Colorado State University (Fort Collins), M.Ed., 1978 • Masters thesis, “Survey of the Family Sports Environment and Attitudes toward Recreational and AAU Age Group Swimming” • Director of Aquatics/Head Swimming Coach, Orinda Country Club, 1999-present • Assistant Fall Coach, Orinda Aquatics, 1999-present • Head Coach, Montclair Swim Team (Oakland, Calif.), 1981-96 • Age Group Coordinator, Concord Pleasant Hill Swim Team (now Terrapins), 1980-81 • Head Coach, Loveland (Colo.) Swim Club, 1978-80 • Graduate Coaching Assistant, UCSB women’s team, 1974-76 • Head Coach, Canyon Swim & Racquet Club (El Sobrante, Calif.), summers, 1972-76 • Owner, Haufler Aquatics Swim School (Oakland, Calif.), 1981-2010 • Featured speaker, American Swimming Coaches Association World Clinic, 2007-present • GoSwim Productions, featured speaker on nine videos, 2008-16 • Group and team clinician in Dubai, Ireland, Iceland, Sweden, Peru, South Africa • Senior team captain at UCSB

Coach Haufler’s OCC teams have won the last 19 Orinda Moraga Pool Association summer league championships. As a swimmer himself, Haufler has recorded 85 individual Masters Top 10 finishes (19882020) and 21 relay Top 10 performances (1997-2005).

subscribed to Swimming World and then later to Swimming Technique. I read both cover-to-cover. I read James Counsilman’s “The Science of Swimming” in 1968 as a way to improve my high school swimming. In college, I read “Howard Firby on Swimming.”

Shortly thereafter, I started coaching a summer league swim team where I could use my knowledge to really make a difference in another swimmer’s competitive technique. I was fascinated by what teaching methods worked and what did not. Then I started giving a lot of private competitive lessons and discovered new teaching strategies in the process. I began to develop a system. When it produced good results, I became more motivated.

SW: Do you have different teaching methodologies for teaching younger vs. older swimmers? SH: It depends on skill level. When working with a beginning adult, I use pretty much the same progressions as I would for an 8-and-under. The vocabulary is different, but the approach in teaching the strokes follows the same priorities: 1) air exchange, 2) body position and balance, 3) kicking, 4) pulling, 5) timing of kick and pull and 6) timing of the breath.

SW: Can one really effectively teach young swimmers from the deck? SH: It’s almost always better when the instructor is in the water, unless the group is too large to control and teach effectively. It is easier to instruct a large class (six or more) from the deck. With a smaller group, in-water instruction provides opportunities for teacher demonstration, physical teaching and correction and underwater evaluation. I always want my instructors to have their goggles ready so they can see exactly what is happening with the swimmer’s air exchange, body position and pulling technique.

SW: How often do you teach? SH: I either teach or fine-tune some swimming skill every day at every level of practice group, from warm-up to warmdown to exiting the water properly.

SW: You spend A LOT of teaching time in the water. Wet suit or dry, and why? SH: It is a basic full-body wet suit. It keeps me warm and protected from the sun. All my assistants wear wet suits, too. the size of your average kids’ bedroom. There I keep every type of teaching and visual aid I use. I have mannequin heads, well-articulated dolls, a gymnastic Smart Spotter (for back starts), boogie boards (for butterfly pull), a ski (for demonstration of freestyle arm extension), underwater mirrors, a kayak paddle (to demonstrate a firm pulling forearm), a bin of noodles, 7-inch rubber bands (to narrow the breaststroke kick), 1-pound hand weights (to teach butterfly recovery out of the water and vertically), plastic cups (for backstroke head position), tennis balls (for under-the-chin breaststroke breathing), and water polo balls for the bump-and-trap butterfly drill. The regular FINIS equipment like kickboards, fins, paddles and snorkels are either stored in Dock Boxes, or swimmers bring their own (especially in COVID).

SW: Do you always look at objects—i.e, retail supplies (heads, mannequins, etc.)—and cogitate on how to use them to teach? SH: All the time. I spend a lot of time looking when I go into a hardware store, an art supply store or a Home Depot.

SW: Are you still coming up with new drills? SH: Yes, at least once a week. However, some of them only have a shelf life of a few days. Sometimes they are very specific drills or instructions (made up on the deck) to fix a certain problem. I often use simple props for demonstration. The other day when I was teaching the importance of an effective breaststroke glide, I demonstrated how a straight and firm stick goes through the water much better than a noodle. I came up with a new rhyming mantra: pull, kick and stick.

SW: Are you still learning from other coaches? SH: Yes. In addition to my long-time association with Don and Ron Heidary at Orinda Aquatics, there are four coaches each day that I either talk to, reference their books or watch their videos. One is Bill Aden, coach of the Montclair Swim Team in Oakland and the 2015 Pacific Swimming Age Group Coach of the Year. Bill was my assistant when I coached at Montclair in the ’80s and early ’90s, and succeeded me when I left. We talk weekly. I get a new idea every time I talk to him. Second is 1980 Olympian Glenn Mills of GoSwim.tv. I watch a GoSwim video every day, which often provides me with a theme to take to practice.

Three-time Olympian Sheila Taormina has given two clinics at OCC to my Masters swimmers. Her books are required reading for all my staff. Another is Michael Brooks, whose great reference book, “Developing Swimmers,” is also staff required reading. Also, I am always getting new ideas at ASCA clinics.

SW: Your instructional videos done with Olympian Glenn Mills are must-haves for any swim coach library. SH: In 2007, I gave a presentation at ASCA on teaching progressions. Glenn (Mills) saw it and asked if I wanted to do a video on them. This first video is very popular because it shows the basic teaching progressions for the competitive strokes. Recently, the breaststroke and butterfly videos have been getting a lot of views, probably because they are the most difficult strokes to teach.

SW: You have starred in nine GoSwim videos. What’s the creative process like? SH: It starts with an outline of the topic and organization into chapters. I will write a complete description of the techniques, progressions, what the swimmer is doing and how I am teaching. This can take as many as 10,000 words. I send these chapters to Barbara Hummel at GoSwim, and she edits and creates a numbered shot list. Each numbered shot describes what the swimmer is doing and/or what I am teaching. To create a one-hour video takes about 10 hours at the pool, divided over two-to-three days.

The athletes come in on a schedule to perform their skill. Glenn has a waterproof copy of the shot list, makes a verbal note of the shot list number, then shoots. After we finish, I go to a quiet room and record the voice-over, which is the text from the shot list. Back at the home office, Glenn puts it all together.

SW: In making the video series, how many takes does it take to get a shot of which you approve? SH: I usually select my best athletes who already know how to do the required skill. But sometimes, especially with the 5-7-year-olds, it takes some reminding beforehand. Glenn waits patiently while I give a quick lesson.

SW: People who know you well praise your creativity. How has your use of the Turnmaster altered your practices? SH: We use the Turnmaster at the end of