We are committed to developing swimmers of all ages by challenging and motivating them to compete like champions in swimming while demonstrating excellent sportsmanship.  Our qualified coaches focus on each swimmer’s strengths and areas for development in a supportive environment that includes core body strengthening and conditioning, progressive endurance, and technical skills training including racing starts, strokes and turns.  Our swimmers are empowered to attain their fullest potential in a way never thought possible.

Team Philosophy: The Tornadoes Swim Team competes year-round while fostering the development of swimmer skills, abilities, confidence and competitive drive.  We encourage valuable life long skills by modeling and rewarding honesty, integrity, hard work, self-discipline, self-esteem, organizational skills, teamwork and excellent sportsmanship. The Tornadoes provide a positive environment in which swimmers of all levels may develop to their fullest potential.

Swimming age and skill requirements

Your child or adolescent needs to be able to swim on his or her own.  Our program is designed for swimmers 6-18 years of age.  We have, however, had swimmers as young as 5 years of age (typically younger siblings of older swimmers).  Our professional coaches work with swimmers to develop the four main swim strokes (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke), starts, and turns.  

Swimmers joining the team should be ready to participate in swim meets (the best part of swimming!) and register with both the YMCA & USA Swimming.  We encourage 8&U swimmers to complete the YMCA's Level 6 Lesson program while swimmers 9 and older should do the Aquatic Conditioning class before joining.  Please fill out an interest form here to be evaluated if your swimmer has not been evaluated by a swim coach OR if you have previous swim team experience.  Below are the recommended skills that swimmers should have before joining.

*Dive Certification steps follow USA Swimming's dive certification process to safely teach athletes to dive.  
These steps would be done with a coach at a tryout and are not required knowledge before the tryout.

Tornadoes Swim Team Costs & Practice Schedule

F1 Group
$101.00 Monthly
Monday through Friday 5:15pm - 6:15pm
3 practices maximum per week

F2 Group
$133.00 Monthly
Monday through Friday 5:15pm - 6:30pm
3 - 4 practices per week

F3 Group
$153.00 Monthly
Monday through Friday 6:15pm - 7:45pm, Saturday 8:00am - 10:30am
4 practices per week

F4 Group
$165.00 Monthly
Monday through Friday 6:00pm - 7:45pm, Saturday 8:00am - 10:30am
5 practices per week

F5 Group
$185.00 Monthly
Monday through Friday 4:00pm - 6:00pm, Saturday 8:00am - 10:30am
6 practices per week

Masters Group
$50.00/$72.50 Monthly (YMCA Member/Non-Member)
Monday/Wedneday/Friday 12:00 - 1:00pm, Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday 7:45 - 8:45pm, Saturday 8:00 - 9:00am

YMCA Membership: 

A member of a YMCA swim team must have a full-privilege YMCA membership that entitles him or her to the same activities and services as other full-privilege YMCA members, not special limited-access memberships available only to swim team members. This membership requirement promotes the development of supportive relationships and a sense of belonging within a local YMCA community where critical learning and development occurs. A swimmer must be a member in good standing of his/her YMCA for 30 days prior to the first day of a YMCA meet in which he/she competes. The swimmer must be a member in good standing of his/her YMCA for 90 days prior to the first day of a district, regional, state or national championship meet in which he/she competes. The membership status must be valid through the end of the competition.

Current YMCA Membership costs can be found on ymcacw.org/membership

Membership Costs:

Monthly swimmer dues are billed and payable at the beginning of each month through the YMCA. 

Additional Costs:

• USA Swimming Registration Fee paid directly to USA Swimming.
• Meet fees will be billed only for meets swimmers are signed up for.  These fees are determined by the hosting team.  Tornadoes bill an additional fee per day per swimmer to cover the costs associated with coaching staff.  All championship, state, regional, sectional, and zone meets may incure an additional fee per swimmer in addition.
• Equipment such as fins and a kickboard are available through our team store on SwimOutlet.com (link on homepage).  Items recommended for each group can be found there.

Checks are made payable to:

Clark County YMCA
11324 NE 51st Circle
Vancouver, WA 98682
 

Additional Practice Notes:

Practice times vary depending on the season and swimmer’s ability level. Changes to the practice schedule will be emailed to members with at least 24 hours notice whenever possible.

Water practice involves swim conditioning and training with starts, strokes and turns, in the pool. Dryland conditioning involves core strengthening, conditioning, technical training, goal setting, and team meetings.

All practices take place at Clark County Family YMCA- 11324 NE 51st Circle, Vancouver, WA 98682