This is my first blog entry since continuing with the UBC Masters in High-Performance Coaching and Technical Leadership.
It is October, I am in Regina with the warm days of summer behind me. Already my mind is occupied with spring training for March and the logistics of a month in Florida.
Escaping the ice and cold of Canada, paddlers from clubs, provincial and national teams make the southward migration each spring. Looking forward, I imagine hot sun, warm waters and dolphins who share the Florida canals. It is more than the escape from the cold and the chance to get the paddlers back on the water, it is a time for me to interact with my peers. More than just a weekend conference or a competition, I get the chance to partner with coaches and engage in a month-long collaborative environment. For most of the season, coaches travel parallel paths, and they develop their own teams but rarely interact in meaningful ways. A few teams have the size, and the budget for a large coaching staff and these enjoy the benefit from each other on a day to day basis. However, most of us are a one-man/women-driven show that can leave a coach feeling isolated.
I have found the Florida camp is a rare opportunity to gather together and function as a coaching group. The opportunity is there to share best practices and methods, share problems and solutions, and feel you are part of something larger than your own team. Not all coaches and teams work with others in this way, some prefer to train in isolation and only meet at a competition. However, I have always enjoyed pulling people together and creating something we don’t experience the rest of the season.
Initially, it developed from an exchange with a coaching friend, “Where are you holding your camp this year? Cool, we did _____ last year, but that sounds interesting”. So it goes, two coaching friends partner. Over time, others hear about the mixed group and like the sound of it. When word gets out, you are operating a camp that is open to others, more coaches ask to take part.
In some cases, they are part of small groups that could not do a project like this on their own. Soon 2 coaches grow to 3,4 and 5 etc. Some coaches have years of experience and others are relatively new, all learn how other coaches work. In this way, all of us share and grow as professionals. It is not always easy and working as a group with athletes from competing teams mixed together can be tricky. If you are a hard-line ‘my way is the best way’ kind of coach, then it is not the place for you. However, if you can loosen the reigns on the program details and are open to collaboration, it can be exciting. Each coach brings their own style and process to the team, and we generally put two coaches in one coach boat that goes with each group of paddlers. Over the 4 week camp, coaches change partners and move between groups, so the athletes, too, get the chance to experience different coaching.
One coach explained to his paddler when they complained about the weird instructions of another coach. “Good, I wanted you to be confused, each time a coach challenges how you think about things you come to me. The result is that we have a conversation about it, figure it out, and in the process, both understand things better. If you hear the same thing over and over and nothing new, you will, we will not grow. We are here to grow”.
This season I have organized my training camp and again look and am looking forward to coaches and paddlers attending from different teams. I do most of the camp organization and try to make it easy for others to join in without a lot of logistics. This may involve booking accommodations, budgeting, transporting equipment and general communication. I call it ‘my camp,’ but in the end, I hope everyone feels it is ‘our camp.’
I like the practice of developing my own leadership and interaction skills to facilitate the group. I want all the coaches to feel they are part of the plan and have the freedom to be themselves. In this kind of camp, ‘robot-coaches’ who simply implement the workout on paper with a stopwatch and start/stop commands are not who we want.
Each coach must feel free, to be creative and make use of opportunities in the moment. The expert is the coach who is with the athlete in the moment, not the print on a paper program created days or weeks before. Each coach adds their flavour and sees something a little different from their ‘coaching-eye.’ This leads to some pretty fantastic follow-up conversations between athlete and coach, coach and coach, and even athlete to athlete.
Interacting with others is something that can be organized and something that can be practiced. Finding opportunities and making the most of this significant growth, skill is a performance accelerator.