Taking the Lead
The name of this blog is “Jaya Gymnastics.” It was created out of my initials and a combination of my names, but it also has deep meaning in Sanskrit (language of the yogis). Jaya means victory and stands for the Goddess Durga who is a warrior goddess that fights for peace, prosperity, liberation and strives to empower creation. It is the perfect fit for a name describing my leadership prowess.
It has been eleven years since I was competing for Team British Columbia at Canadian National Championships. At that time, I was fifteen years old. It seems like only yesterday, but it has been long enough for me to develop my own athlete to represent Team BC at the Championships.
I am proud to announce that I have successfully qualified my first athlete to Nationals. This past weekend our team competed at Provincial Championships. This was the second trial to nationals. Jenna Mick placed 8th overall, but the combined scores from the two trial events was enough to get her 6th on the team rank. She will compete for Team BC as an independent athlete in Montreal, Quebec at Canadian National Championships in late May 2017.
This season will be one to remember. I am honored to be in the HPC and TL program alongside such incredible coaching professionals. It is very inspiring. The HPC and TL program has helped me to strive for growth as a leader in sport and dedicate myself to coaching.
In gymnastics, it is common for athletes to be very young at the high performance stage. It is also a very challenging sport to keep athletes involved with after puberty. The demands are great and it takes a serious amount of dedication. Currently, my team has several athletes between the age of 15-18. As a leader, my goal is to always keep the kids in the gym. I wanted to create a training atmosphere that matured with the athletes. It is pretty amazing to reflect on the hard work it has taken to keep these young athletes involved with the sport. Trust me, it has not been easy.
The purpose of this blog is to reflect on the NCCP core competency, “Leadership.” I love to lead, but my favorite part of leadership is encouraging others to lead. I am able to measure my success as a leader by witnessing the incredible leadership skills of my athletes. I feel the greatest amount of accomplishment as a leader when I see leadership confidence in someone else.
As a leader in a world of mostly teenaged athletes, I value my position. I strive to be a good example of leadership and I hold all my athletes accountable. The best thing for me would be that the athletes recognize the value in their dedication to this sport and that they are able to say, “Gymnastics made me a better a person.”
This week I am taking a moment to relish in the feeling of happiness after hard work and success. I owe my team for their never ending energy and love. I am very proud. It is so cool to have several mature athletes to coach. I hope one day they will also be my friends.
As a leader, I am always trying to ensure that the athletes I work with have positive memories of the sport. This past week two of my retired athletes came back for a visit, this is how I know that the NCCP Core competency of leadership is shining through my coaching philosophy. I hope to turn them into coaches as soon as possible.
Here is a few photos of me and my team plus the two older girls who came back to say hi. They will be graduating this year, and I am officially getting older! lol
As an athlete I trained with a team of powerful women, and I am still close to them now. As a coach all I can hope is that my athletes end up with valuable friendships and self confidence.
Keeping it real, one blog post at a time!
david hill
April 21, 2017 — 7:02 am
Jesse, thanks for the blog reflection and congratulation on you successes with your athletes. I went back to your original post on the leadership competency where you discussed your impact on other sport athletes. The two blogs resonate similar aspects of your leadership.
1. Leadership is about people. In both blog posts you put up a picture of the athletes. While it is obvious that you lead others, the pictures of the athletes show their connection to each other and to you as a coach.
2. Leadership requires passion. In both blogs you exude passion for what you are doing and the value of gymnastics.
3. Leadership overcomes challenge. Again both blogs demonstrate that by leading the athletes you have helped them to overcome challenges or to realize goals.
What do you think?
I would encourage you to go back to your previous blog posts to see what your perceptions were several months ago. This is perhaps one of the values of writing the blog, by going back in time and having evidence of what you were thinking. What I like is that the three core elements that I have written above seem to be core attributes to your leadership competency.