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Why is private swim coaching in HK so expensive?

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  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Tsang:
    Why do you think HK have no facilities for it? There are a lot of 50 m public Olympic-standard pools in HK which are far more than a lot of cities elsewhere in the world! Moreover, I believe that HK has a great environment to produce good swimmers than most places in the world given the magnificent coastline accessible by the whole of the population, and the climate making the swimming season much longer than Europe (the only thing related to swimming which can't be trained in HK is ice swimming for obvious reason)!

    Our population is about 1.5 times of New Zealand but we have produced 0 Channel swimmers by now. There are a few dozens from New Zealand despite having a smaller population and located directly opposite to Dover Strait on the globe. This clearly demonstrates that swimming is underdeveloped here. I know 2 Channel swimmers living in Hong Kong but they are expats and they did it before moving to Hong Kong.
    Have you lived overseas?

    The facilities here are pathetic compared to countries with good sporting records. Just having a tiny number of 50m pools scattered throughout the urban jungle doesn't somehow 'fix' everything.

    There are not enough facilities for swimming- in Australia people have pools in their back yards. And every suburb will have multiple public pools with year round, cheap swimming classes aimed at young children. Swim instruction for kids is a miserable search in HK- you either try to find instructors to come if you have an estate pool (most people don't) or you fight your way to one of the small number of public pools where it is so noisy that they kids can't hear anything.

    More broadly speaking the entire bureaucracy surrounding government facilities here also discourages usage. The ridiculous and sometimes months-long focus on 'certs' for facilities access are a huge barrier to building any sort of broad base for future sporting prowess. Which thb is fine for most people, as sporting ability is simply not valued here by most families.
    pin likes this.

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Tsang:
    Why do you think HK have no facilities for it? There are a lot of 50 m public Olympic-standard pools in HK which are far more than a lot of cities elsewhere in the world! Moreover, I believe that HK has a great environment to produce good swimmers than most places in the world given the magnificent coastline accessible by the whole of the population, and the climate making the swimming season much longer than Europe (the only thing related to swimming which can't be trained in HK is ice swimming for obvious reason)!

    Our population is about 1.5 times of New Zealand but we have produced 0 Channel swimmers by now. There are a few dozens from New Zealand despite having a smaller population and located directly opposite to Dover Strait on the globe. This clearly demonstrates that swimming is underdeveloped here. I know 2 Channel swimmers living in Hong Kong but they are expats and they did it before moving to Hong Kong.
    Have you lived overseas?

    The facilities here are pathetic compared to countries with good sporting records. Just having a tiny number of 50m pools scattered throughout the urban jungle doesn't somehow 'fix' everything.

    There are not enough facilities for swimming- in Australia people have pools in their back yards. And every suburb will have multiple public pools with year round, cheap swimming classes aimed at young children. Swim instruction for kids is a miserable search in HK- you either try to find instructors to come if you have an estate pool (most people don't) or you fight your way to one of the small number of public pools where it is so noisy that they kids can't hear anything.

    More broadly speaking the entire bureaucracy surrounding government facilities here also discourages usage. The ridiculous and sometimes months-long focus on 'certs' for facilities access are a huge barrier to building any sort of broad base for future sporting prowess. Which thb is fine for most people, as sporting ability is simply not valued here by most families.

    You bring up scouts as another example. My son is a scout here. I was a scout overseas. IMO, Scouts here has almost ZERO to do with outdoor competence... it's all about indoor group activities and learning how to follow organisational rules here. It's... better than nothing, but as someone with a lot of outdoors experience, it's pretty sad to watch. Overseas, scouts was older kids teaching younger kids how to work fairly independently out in the bush- as a young kid, I learnt a lot from other kids, and more importantly I learnt how to be independent in the outdoors, that I should be responsible for planning and driving my own trips, that I was responsible for my own safety and those around me. Here, there is a 'sir' who is responsible for everything which in my mind is the antithesis of what Scouting should be about.
    Skyhook likes this.

  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    Have you lived overseas?

    The facilities here are pathetic compared to countries with good sporting records. Just having a tiny number of 50m pools scattered throughout the urban jungle doesn't somehow 'fix' everything.

    There are not enough facilities for swimming- in Australia people have pools in their back yards. And every suburb will have multiple public pools with year round, cheap swimming classes aimed at young children. Swim instruction for kids is a miserable search in HK- you either try to find instructors to come if you have an estate pool (most people don't) or you fight your way to one of the small number of public pools where it is so noisy that they kids can't hear anything.
    You know that it is impossible for HK to have backyard pools given the population density. This is not the U.S.

    Traditionally UK, US and Australia are the 3 supernations in swimming. How is Hong Kong compared to other developed countries apart from these 3?


    More broadly speaking the entire bureaucracy surrounding government facilities here also discourages usage. The ridiculous and sometimes months-long focus on 'certs' for facilities access are a huge barrier to building any sort of broad base for future sporting prowess. Which thb is fine for most people, as sporting ability is simply not valued here by most families.
    Do you think if there is no bureaucracy, Hong Kong will be mainlandized because the person in charge can do whatever he want?

    You bring up scouts as another example. My son is a scout here. I was a scout overseas. IMO, Scouts here has almost ZERO to do with outdoor competence... it's all about indoor group activities and learning how to follow organisational rules here. It's... better than nothing, but as someone with a lot of outdoors experience, it's pretty sad to watch. Overseas, scouts was older kids teaching younger kids how to work fairly independently out in the bush- as a young kid, I learnt a lot from other kids, and more importantly I learnt how to be independent in the outdoors, that I should be responsible for planning and driving my own trips, that I was responsible for my own safety and those around me. Here, there is a 'sir' who is responsible for everything which in my mind is the antithesis of what Scouting should be about.
    Sorry this is not what I experienced. Did you join a school group or a public group. I've heard that school groups are mostly like that because the teachers are told to run it as part of the curriculum and they mostly have no experience in scouting in their youth. In contrast, public groups are run by volunteers whose survival depends on the activities they provide.

    My experience of scouting was that, the "sir" there was for guidance and we actually planned most of the trips we did.

    For example, my group had an overseas trip in 2010 to a jamborette held by a friend group in Canada. The trip included a deep sea expedition in the end where we could actually control the boat under the guidance of the skipper.

    Before the trip we learnt the rules of the road on the sea, chart reading and compass usage, etc indoors so we could know what would be expected on the boat. Our group was split onto 3 boats, mixed with the other groups to form complete crews.

    A funny thing happened was that, when I was in charge of the boat, I saw something that I felt it was unsafe to me to pass so I tried to avoid it, then the skipper took over and passed very close to the obstruction. Afterwards my boat was complained making an "unsafe" manoeuvre.

    I have learnt a LOT of lifelong skills which still benefit me now afters years, including map reading, trip planning, seamanship, etc. and those are helping me to work towards my dream. Although I didn't learn swimming as part of scouting programme, it really helped me to plan my swimming adventures now using the skills learnt in hiking and boating.

  4. #24

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    I don't think its just swimming. It's the same for all sports. Hong Kong people don't view sports as being the success to life, mostly because it doesn't pay the bills despite requiring quite a big sacrifice. With a small population already, this whittles it down to those who are willing to make that sacrifice.