I posted a couple of weeks ago about my experience of Coaching in the Knowledge Era, an online coach education course from Deakin University delivered by Paddy Upton, on FutureLearn.com.
I have just completed the follow-up course, Player-Centred Coaching – just as thought-provoking, and I have been left with a lot of ideas to think about.
For me, there were perhaps two main takeaways from the course.
- The importance of “individual-invisible” attributes – attitudes, emotions & thoughts — in player development.
- That explicit inclusion of players with some existing knowledge of their own games in review and planning phases of the learning cycle [play-review-plan-practice- and repeat] delivers more accurate review, more relevant planning, and better player buy-in to the whole process.
But perhaps, for the young players I mostly work with, direct involvement with the planning and review phases might be asking too much, just yet.
That still left me with a challenge for my own coaching practice – what strategies can I use to help the players I work with to begin to understand and develop the positive attributes in that individual-invisible sector?
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The Teesra 