Hawaiian Holiday

Thank you Debbie D. for hostessing our April book club meeting in a festive Hawaiian theme.  Luau anybody?  Our book was set in Hawaii, so Debbie provided a delicious Hawaiian Chicken and Rice entree and everyone brought other tropical dishes to share.  It was a lovely evening despite the rain.

"The Three-Year Swim Club" proved to be a subject none of us knew about.  The time-frame of the story was 1930's & 1940's and focused on the children of Maui sugar plantation workers and their teacher who, although he did not swim, taught them how to swim using the irrigation ditches on the plantation as they had no pool facilities.  The coach, Soichi  Sakamoto, was a very progressive thinker and did technical analysis of each student's body type, realizing that this greatly affected their individual swimming techniques.  "Every body needed its own particular stroke, a signature movement."  The goal was the the 1936 Olympics, but these games were cancelled due to WWII, as were the 1940 Olympics.  Several of the swimmers stuck with the coach and their training and went on to win many national and international swim competitions, as well as future Olympics.

This non-fiction story was a bit detailed and dry at times, but the over-all story of the coach and the kids was very interesting.  Their focus and dedication changed all their lives.  "The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well."  "Commitment was an exercise of will, and that will was the constant application of one's choice."  "Every moment of your life, come storms, come twists of fate, come waves that threatened to overcome you, if you wanted to become a champion, then every minute of your life you had to be one."

I'll close with one other noted quotation:  "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." -Gautama Siddhartha