Coaching basics (2)

Sitting at the airport on the way to coaching at Nationals, I'm reflecting on the old saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. A saying that guides a lot of my coaching. I'm a detail coach. I believe that paying attention to the right details makes a significant difference to individual and team performance. BTW, I coach teams. Apparently it's fashionable to call your team or team members the 'playing group'. I put that affectation in the same category as 'awesome'!😈😈. I do coach a weightlifting group though. Now that's off my chest, back to the detail.

Introducing or teaching new skills is often an opening for coaches to describe the action in some detail and then, piece by piece walk the player through the skill - some more talk and so on. I tend to use a couple of techniques that speed up early learning with novice, intermediate or elite players. First, have you got anyone on the team or in the gym who can actually demonstrate? I used to do some myself, but time has not been kind to the body!

My instruction to watching a demonstration is to 'watch the whole movement', 'look at it in a total way and imagine yourself doing it'. after the first set of demonstrations, I repeat the instruction with the additional '....and imagine how the kills feels'. Then a second demonstration. 'Now holding all that imagination in your head, make your first attempts'.

I have always been struck by the number of athletes who succeed almost immediately. these athletes may never need correction on some aspects of the skill and their needs will be different to those who don't. I've had this work in closed skill settings (such as the Olympic lifts) and in open skill basketball plays.

But we shouldn't really be surprised. Sport participants are generally more adept and motivated than the 'non-sporty'. The athlete is often more willing to try new things and may be already granted good kinaesthetic awareness courtesy of well-selected parents!

Coaching this way means you can pay attention to fewer things and tailor training sessions to the needs of individuals. And there's a opportunity to use established protocols for the early learners to help those who haven't quite got it.

In the absence of a good demonstrator, a second strategy. I have an online library of video clips that we play through mobile phones, again using the same approach 'watch and imagine yourself doing it'. As a basketball coach I was always conscious of the old saying that it's the most over coached and under taught game in the world. I want my coaching to have immediate impact on performance. Intensive coaching input risks crowding out the critical element for athletes, the need to feel the action, to have that 'aha moment' when the instruction leads to 'I heard what you said, but now I know what you meant'

This is first application of the 'don't fix it' principle by trusting motivated athletes to get right first. Then, I can start on the detail and it's different for each. This can become 'the way we do things round here'.

 (Photo source: the Psychological game)