Same Lane Warm-Up

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ITEM:

INFORMANT DATA:

Summer Martin is a swimmer on the Dartmouth Women’s Swim and Dive Team at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. She is a junior, part of the Class of 2021. From Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, she was born on February 10, 1999. She began swimming at eight years old, and has been swimming ever since. Her favorite stroke in swimming is freestyle.

CONTEXTUAL DATA:

Cultural Context: This specific folklore ritual is part of the large range of rituals that many swimmers on the Swim team perform before their competitions and meets. These superstitious rituals are helped to calm the swimmers down before competing, as meets can become very intense. For this particular ritual, swimming and warming up in the same swim lane that they will then compete in refers back to the notion of magic superstition, since it is something that Summer believes will help her perform better during the actual race.
Social Context: This folklore data was collected on the first floor of the Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. This data was also collected after Summer had completed her daily swim practice. This particular ritual is reflective of the rite of incorporation, since she is preparing to perform well in the same lane as a premonition to the actual race/competition. Summer performs this ritual before every single meet, and she has performed this ritual ever since her coach gave her this tip in high school.

ITEM:

Before the beginning of every swim meet, during warm-ups, Summer will swim and warm up in the same lane that she is set to compete in.

TRANSCRIPT:

INFORMANT’S COMMENTS:

“It makes me feel more confident, and I feel more comfortable warming up in the same lane where I’m swimming”

COLLECTOR’S COMMENTS:

This particular ritual is not an uncommon ritual to perform, pre-meets. However, warm up superstitions and rituals vary and differ, from person to person, highlighting the fact that Dartmouth Swim is predominantly an individual sport, though part of a larger team. Swimmers all have their separate rituals to ensure their confidence during their meets, and this particular ritual is important for Summer to perform, since she has done so for years. Her coach gave her this tip while swimming in high school, as a way to calm nerves and build up confidence. As part of magic superstition, Summer feels more confident having performed this specific superstition.

COLLECTOR’S NAME: Sarah Sim

Dartmouth Folklore Archive