Encouraging Leaders to “Go for it!”
My love for the four seasons playground of my hometown, shines through my coaching philosophy. I encourage the athletes and families to explore the valley. I want people to love where they live and recognize the value in nature. This love, brought me to my position as the cross training coordinator. Working in the multi-sport atmosphere is refreshing and fun. Gymnastics holds its value in the sport world by maintaining its position as a foundation sport. This makes for a vibrant culture of cross development.
Currently, it is the pre-season for most winter sports. The gym is busy with teams preparing for the snow to fly. There is a massive community of skiers and snowboarders in the Okanagan. It is amazing how exciting a new season can truly be. Several of the developmental teams are training at OGC preparing for the 2017 season. The coaches are fun and the style of coaching is a bit different. Nonetheless, the athletes in this program work hard. I love being involved with the progression of athletes in multiple sports and witnessing, or encouraging, them to overlap. The change is motivating and inspirational. I find myself attaining great ideas from the different groups I work with. My involvement with this program allows for me to have a more colourful leadership footprint in the community.
Recently, it has become a personal challenge of mine to see if I can engage new coaches for the freestyle teams. I really wanted to give the newer coaches an opportunity to progress. I trust that they will be able to lead as well.
The Leadership Challenge provides a leadership framework that I am trying to implement. Enabling others to act is an intention of mine. I create an atmosphere for young coaches that is safe to collaborate and learn. There are a lot of talented young coaches who may just need to trust their hearts and jump in. I want to be a part of helping them make that decision. It is so fulfilling trusting a new and engaged coach with a great opportunity. Throughout my coaching development I have been pioneering to other young coaches to encourage coaching as a career choice. Every year, I encourage my older artistic athletes to participate in coaching and judging opportunities. It is a wonderful stepping stone for the young people to move from athlete, to coach, or official. I like to see the athletes mature and start to take ownership for the sport community. There is a need for coaches in all sports. I understand the challenges associated with this profession, but I also see the opportunities. One of the biggest challenges may just be getting that young coach to jump in and try it.
So this season, I have added several coaches to the roster who have a background in skiing, snowboarding and gymnastics. This will hopefully help the two sports keep coaches progressing through the pathway. I am so proud of these young coaches. This group of freestylers has demonstrated maturity, dedication, and respect for sport. They fully understand the value of gymnastics foundations and respect it. They are willing to teach it and they do it well. This philosophy will produce stronger athletes in the Okanagan.
This post is about leading, but more importantly, it is about love for exploration and development. The seasons of the Okanagan make for a delectable backdrop of sporting opportunity. I hope that young people consider coaching as a career option in this beautiful land.
****This is the Big White Freestyle Crew and the coaches involved with their pre-season training.
I love the ski and snowboard season! So it is easy for me to get stoked with the freestyle kids. I am doing my snow dance, so that hopefully the Valley gets some great pow for the kids on the mountain.
david hill
November 27, 2016 — 9:15 am
Jesse, your post just oozes with enthusiasm. I makes we want to drive out the the Okanagan to go skiing and to watch what you are doing in the cross training program. It would be interesting to see your LPI scores for encouraging the heart!
It was great to hear a bit more about the cross training initiatives with the various sports. Certainly there is a good link to Freestyle skiing and I know that their coaches need to get NCCP trampoline certification in order to coach inverted tricks off of jumps. It would be great to see some of the things that you are working on across the different sports and how this transfers to the sport. It is one thing to be able to do the movements in the gym, but another to see if it transfers into sport performance. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that gymnastic skills create an excellence motor foundation for a lot of sports. I am not sure the extent to which this has actually been researched. For that matter, it would be very difficult, if not impossible to set up a research design that you show direct relationships between gymnastics and other sport skills. This said, there could be some research that could show relationships between individual gymnastic skills and cross sport performance. Have a look at this article on the UBC library:
Collard, L., L Collard, A Oboeuf, & S Ahmaidi. (08/01/2007). Perceptual and motor skills: MOTOR SKILLS TRANSFER FROM GYMNASTICS TO SWIMMING Perceptual and motor skills
I suspect that many research articles may find the same conclusion, and as indicated above it is hard to prove the longitudinal effects of sport skill development. One way would be to look at retrospective histories of elite athletes to determine the extent to which gymnastics skills featured in their early development.
From my perspective, there is a motor benefit learning how to move in different ways and how this can assist other sport. However, as perfect 10 in a gymnastic skill does not necessarily mean that the athlete will become an elite ski racer, rugby player, rower, or judo athlete. So one thing you can start doing is to track these athletes to see how they develop over time. The other element is working with the coaches in the different sports. I think that any coach would benefit from taking a foundational Gymnastics course and maybe BC gymnastic should offer foundational NCCP training to other sports. It would be great to hear Jeff’s perspective on this.
Great work Jesse.
michael robinson
December 1, 2016 — 10:46 am
Hi Jesse,
I am between flight on my way to NSO meetings and just reviewed your post. It is just so clear that what you do and your role is deeper then just a job. It shows the wealth of your life. Building not only athletes but building coaches shows you are a true leader. Leaders build leaders!
Mike Robinson
https://blogs.ubc.ca/coachmike/
kraig devlin
February 8, 2017 — 4:24 pm
Hey Jess,
Love the idea of cross-training coaches. How do you find that works out for them? Are they able to easily transfer their skills from pre-season to in-season activities? Do they reflect back to you any perceived value that they are gaining from the dual experience?
I know that the foundational movements of gymnastics would certainly benefit my athletes!