I was coach as a child without even knowing it, when i look back, at the time karate was my main sport, but i was constantly outside playing soccer, basketball,running, racing with my friends etc…I was very competitive and wanted to beat everybody at everything, it was very important to me. My friends looked up to me from advice on soccer strategy,to doing proper push ups, to running form, i was 9 years old! A coach was born! I mostly learned everything by watching, my brother who was a national champion in sprinting and an excellent soccer player. I read every track and field magazine and soccer magazine he brought home, watched every world cup and olympics with him and my father, and the very next day i was practicing in the backyard, and emulating my sports heroes. All of this to say that coaching came naturally for me, because i put in the work the others didn’t, and they came to me for guidance and that’s when the interaction and communication skills started.
Relationships and communication:
The HPCTL program and the leadership modules i had when i was doing the advanced coaching diploma have brought me to reflect on my coaching and interacting methods. I used the Kouzes and Posner[1] literature suggested in the program as my reference, my coaching “bible”.
The relationship you build with your athlete and co-workers is key to any kind of success in my book. We are human beings first, and everything is build on relationships and interactions, i always try not to forget that fact in my daily practice as a coach. So building trusting relationships is very important to me and my success as a coach because everything else depends on it! I will always to try to create a positive culture and environment, by taking steps to building that trust with everyone i’m in contact with. I don’t force anything, i’m genuine . authentic and share my passion with enthusiasm and vision. I lead by exemple, by practicing what i preach. I will put in the work to find out what makes them “tic” by having them fill personality forms, observing them, sitting down with them just to talk. By just asking them how they are before every practice you can have so much information on what is going on with their lives.
By being always aware that every person i deal with is different, i will always try to adapt to get the most out of them. I have learned by experience that some athletes need to be challenged constantly to perform and others need to be calmed down all the time. This is what i love about coaching! It is all about knowing your athlete ( and staff). Before knowing your athlete you must know yourself first, and establishing my coaching philosophy in both the advanced coaching Diploma and the HPCTL has brought me to realize that i’m an athlete centered coach, “the servent ” leader ! “Only leaders who serve earn commitment” Kouzes and Posner[6]
The more you show you ability of solving problems and meeting their needs, the more credibility you are going to have with the athletes, but you have to make sure also that they don’t take you for granted, it’ a knife with two edges.
The athlete Centred Coaching philosophy is one a set of values and coaching attitudes, where the primary goal of the coach is to help their athletes take responsibility for their athletic behaviors that will eventually help create their results, as described by Rainer Martins 2012[2] . I also want to have that relationship and trust that will help me coach the athlete in a way that will appeal to him so that he or she will thrive!
Athlete Centered Coaching is a coaching philosophy underpinned by a set of values and coaching behaviors, where the primary goal of the coach is to help their athletes take responsibility of their sporting behaviors that create their results. It not only important for me to help them take greater responsibility and have ownership of their results but it is also important for me to help build better men and women that will thrive in society ! Having that martial art background also influenced me to be that way as illustrated in the following picture Dojo Kun [5] I seen theses principles on every dojo i have been to since the age of 9, they are profoundly rooted in me and influenced my coaching style today.
The importance of regular feedback :
“Learning requires feedback” Kouzes and Posner[6]
I used to be always scared of feedback from my athletes or colleagues, because i’m a very sencitive person. The leadership practices inventory 360 helped me deal with that fear, it helped me make sens of the feedback of my peers and athletesby enhancing certain areas and closing the gap on others like “challenging the system” never settling for the status quo. I came to theconclusion that the “cancer” of coaching is the status quo. It is by nature an always evolving field and the nature of our job is to push the boundaries.Stepping out of that comfort zone to grow. After this experience, i’m looking for feedback now: How m i doing? by asking that question i get more information on how i influence and affect the performances of others around me.On the other hand, giving feedback to the athlete is a very delicate operation, but necessary. There is no power to exercise in this relationship. Rather than giving feedback, the coach offers feedback to his coachee so that he can use it and self-regulate in adjusting his performances and that will condition the acceptance, assimilation and use of feedback by the coachee. The quality of the relationship is the most important in my point of view.
Without any confidence, without empathy, without respect and “unconditional acceptance” of what the coach wants to reveal from his message and vision, feedbacks become weapons against which defense mechanisms will be deployed so that nothing changes and does more Of the same or things could even go worst.
i came to understand in this program that the coach is the one who promotes the emergence of a personality, its intrinsic values and specific talent. He lays the grounds for the athlete to allow himself to be his true self. I used to have an athlete who was “uncoachable”, we used to butt heads all the time, i didn’t know how to approach him. I couldn’t give him any constructive feedback, until i realized that his former coach used to be rough on him, and the only feedback he was used to was negative. I told him that the athlete he used to be should give up his life, so he could go on to realize his full potentiel. And that opened the floodgates of bottle up emotions and our relationship grew from there for the better. His performances started to griadually improve also. He is totally different person today. I’ve learned since than to listen more, and i decided to pay more attention on my communications skills.
I’m also a strength and conditioning coach and i mostly have karate athletes as clients, some of them come to me on their own and the communications with their sport specific coaches is sometimes non existant. I figured that i coach the same sport, so i know exactly what to do! But after reflecting on my coaching practices in this program i realized that it is essential for me to communicate with the specific coaches to better help the athlete, because for instance if the specific coach is working one specific aspect, and i’m working blindly on something else it’s a recipe for disaster. I always question the athlete on what he is doing with his coach and i also ask them if they have a Yearly training plan wich most of the time they don’t. But that is not enough, so i started to build better relationships with the specific coaches, which was not an easy task in some situations because some karate coaches have huge egos and want to control everything even if there are not strength and conditioning experts. i try to make them understand that it is the interest of the athlete if our communication and trust is solid by giving them specific exemple what could happened if we both worked blindly, and it usually works.
Coaches looking in the same direction