Coaching is like gardening — What is coaching? (1)

Really interesting post from @davidhinchliffe on how he uses the constraints-led approach in his own coaching practice.

I was particularly taken with the line “instead of a fault-fixer, think of yourself as a problem-setter…” Or, from an ecological dynamics/constraints-led approach viewpoint, coach as “environmental designer”, perhaps?

Or, maybe, gardener?

Are coaches gardeners?

As coaches, we

  • prepare the ground (see Preparing the Ground),
  • sow the seeds (put the young player into the growing (or learning) medium),
    • or select the best looking young plants from the nursery (talent ID),
  • nurture them (provide appropriate “nutrition” and curate an environment where growth is possible),
  • train them with lines and canes (set out guidelines and guidance for “best practice”),
  • plant them out (when the player is ready, move them on to new and more challenging spaces)…

…but, ultimately, it’s the plant that does the growing.

Comments

5 responses to “Coaching is like gardening — What is coaching? (1)”

  1. […] if the CLA coach is an “environmental engineer”, setting challenges for the athletes, perhaps we should then see the coach as learning […]

  2. […] the Sport Coach Practitioner becomes a Sport Ecology Designer, what of the online educator? Online learning ecology designer? Not so far fetched, perhaps, if we […]

  3. […] Coaching is like gardening — What is coaching? (1) […]

  4. […] a couple of pieces last week about the process of coaching — how coaching is, perhaps, a bit like gardening. But I didn’t consider the “product” of sports coaching — for all of the tilling and […]

  5. […] Looking at coaching from an ecological dynamics/constraints-led approach viewpoint (which I do tend to do, nowadays), the role of the coach might be likened to that of a gardener. […]

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