Strength. Courage. Beauty.
These three words — all in Chinese — are emblazoned on Ruby Stevens’s blue swimsuit.
Stevens, a 15 year old Canadian swimmer with autism, will wear the self-designed swimsuit when she shows off her synchronized swimming skills this weekend in Taichung.
photo courtesy of Julia Startchenko
“It’s really intense,” Stevens said of her nearly three-minute-long performance, which will feature anime music. Stevens, along with some 50 other swimmers from seven countries, will take part in a synchronized swimming competition on Saturday, and an exhibition on Sunday.
The weekend’s events, held at the North District Civil Sports Center, will include both swimmers with disabilities and those without. Also featured, will be Victoria Shtaf, a synchronized swimmer from the Russian junior national artistic swim team.
One of the hardest underwater moves, Stevens said, is the eggbeater, in which you rotate your legs in opposite directions. Another difficulty, she added, is just remembering to smile.
photo courtesy of Sara Stevens
Stevens, who took to the water at age 2, is also a speed swimmer and an avid painter. These pursuits, she said, are less of a hobby and more of a passion.
“I wake up and I want to go swimming,” Stevens said.
Her mother, though, sees the virtues of swimming beyond just time spent in the pool.
Sara Stevens recalled how her daughter’s autism once lead to struggles with friendships and absences from school. Synchronized swimming, she said, helped her daughter through these difficult times.
“She learned how to overcome challenges,” Sara Stevens said. “It really saved her.”
Ruby Stevens, along with other family members, visited locals schools to talk with students about common themes borrowed from the swimsuit: strength, courage, beauty.
Breaking down social stigmas is a goal for Lai Tzu-ju (賴姿如), president of a local support group for parents with children who are blind.
“They deserve to be seen on the stage overcoming challenges,” said Lai, who will be swimming this weekend with her 12-year-old daughter, Tina Tong (童鈺婷).
Lai admitted that once in the pool in front of others she’ll be more nervous than her daughter, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at an early age and also has a degenerative eye condition that will lead to blindness.
Choreographed to the song Hallelujah, the performance will feature the pair moving their arms up and down as if they were flying. The louder the crowd claps, Lai said, the bigger the arm movements.
“She is like a ray of light,” Lai said of her daughter, who excels in math and has a knack for remembering birthday dates.
Aside from the boost in confidence Lai has seen, she has also noticed her daughter getting physically stronger within the year she began synchronized swimming. Coach Julia Startchenko has seen her swimmers’ growth firsthand. This may come in the form of teammates making lasting friendships to increased motivation in and out of the pool.
For example, she said that even on chilly winter days her students are eager to get into the water to start practice. “This is the moment when they grow,” Startchenko said.
This weekend’s events will help foster that growth, with swimmers with disabilities sharing the spotlight with elite swimmers.
While Saturday’s competition, from 10am to 1pm, is open to the public, Startchenko especially encourages the public to attend Sunday’s exhibition, in which the performances are more diverse and lively.
“Something amazing happens with people from different nations coming together,” she said. “It’s very emotional.”
Like ballet in water, synchronized swimming is all about making difficult moves look easy. For swimmers with disabilities, Startchenko said, this can be even more of a challenge.
“We all have unique abilities,” she said. “Beauty can be present in many different ways. It can take the form of a child who is blind getting into the water.”
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