Coaches Corner

As the great Lenny Kravitz once said, The Difference is WHY. As coaches learn and develop their knowledge increased. They learn about the mechanics of certain skills, of the mechanics of certain tactics. This provides a list of things to do. Then, coaches learn better and more effective ways to teach these things. Adding more and more things to their toolbox. This eventually becomes overwhelming as there are more things that can be taught than there are hours in the day. The difference from this point is WHY. When coaches understand why, their world opens up. When the answer stops being something learned in a seminar or from a blog post (!), and becomes an understanding of the outcome and the constraints, the course forward is clearer. From this point the coach understands not just how to do things, but why to do things and, just as importantly, why not to do things.

One of the best coach development activities I've ever attended was a seminar/talk with Bill Sweetenham . The session was very straight forward. He wasn't selling anything and he wasn't trying to convince anyone he was right. I'm pretty sure he was so confident he was right he simply didn't care if anyone believed him! But at the same time, he is a coach who was largely self educated, and coached multiple Olympic Champions and World Record holders. So he had every right to think that. One of the many many notes I took was his philosophy on competitions: Experience is nothing if it is not Winning Experience. BUT the winning HAS to come from 'equal' opponents. Therefore there should be a range of competitions: 3 'Equal' competitions, where you make corrections 2 'Below' competitions, where you make mistakes and take risks (and still win) 1 'Above' competitions', where you praise them regardless of the outcome Wh