I didn’t expect to do much coaching in 2022. Maybe some private 1-to-1s, perhaps some schools work, but not a lot more.
But I returned to regular coaching in the summer term, when so many of my former colleagues were (sensibly!) playing, and found that I enjoyed myself. And whilst I do not expect to get back to pre-lockdown levels (and no more 6am alarm calls!), I hope to coach maybe a day a week going forward.
(more…)As a follow-up to my attempt at a typology of coaching, I took a look at how CIMSPA — the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity — define the “Coach Practitioner”.
Coach Practitioners improve a participant’s experience of sport and physical activity by providing specialised support and guidance aligned to their individual needs.
CIMSPA
And that definition of a coach as someone who provides “specialised support and guidance aligned to their individual needs” pretty much nails it, for me.
Not explicitly technical, or tactical, or physical, or psychological — just “specialised support and guidance”, which could be “any of the above”, or something else, entirely.
(more…)I have just completed a fascinating online course from the Open University, hosted by Future Learn — Sports Performance: Different Approaches to Sports Coaching. Highly recommended for all coaches.
As part of the course, we were asked: What is the role of the coach?
I have seen the former proposition formulated as “Every time you give an instruction, you steal a decision.”
But sometimes there might only be one right answer, and instruction is the most efficient and effective route to that solution.
So I much prefer “a brave coach intervenes when he has to” — I don’t see it as a brave option to withhold knowledge in pursuit of a non-interventionist ideology.
(more…)
The Teesra 