Working with other Coaches

It is our hope that we can engage with like-minded coaches to share experiences with others from a variety of sports and levels.

There are so many great coaches out there who will have experienced so much in their time coaching, and by sharing this you will help to improve your own performance and that of those who are at the beginning of there coaching careers. Working with the coaches that I have had chance to work with has benefited myself to be able to become more confident and assertive but not aggressive whilst coaching. It has enabled me to see the difference between two very different coaches and how they work. Working with both coaches has enlightened me to better myself and see that not all coaches are the same, moreover, everybody makes mistakes. NOT JUST BEGINNERS!

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All good coaches know that whether you have been coaching for 30 minutes or 30 years, there is always room for improvement.

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“It is hoped that through a variety of methods, we will be able to learn from each other to improve both your performance as coaches and ultimately the performances of those that you coach.” (Coaching Logic. 2015)

A Philosophical Chain

What are my values & beliefs?

 Yourself, as a coach, may or may not agree with what I believe is right or wrong as a coach  but I feel that it is necessary to every coach that they have their own philosophy and stick tot hat philosophy regardless of what might be happening inside or outside of your comfort zone. This pressure can sway you to make drastic changes to your philosophy within a tight game or competition which can alter how parents and athletes see you. They could start to believe that you are easily influenced and take that on board themselves, which in turn could alter how they behave around and towards you during training sessions or games/competitions.

my philosophical chain mainly includes building rapport and development as I feel that they are the most important to my coaching and how I approach coaching. Building rapport is vital to coaching, as you need to be a friend as well as coaching with the age group that I love coaching. Being a friend gives the children confidence to be able to come and approach the coach and then gives them more confidence to enjoy the training and thus bringing in my other main value which is development, if the children are having fun they are more than likely to develop their skills without knowing they are learning.

Some sports are only interested in how well they play (whether they win or not) which can keep up their own reputation and not develop their players. This to me is totally wrong on all levels, athletes should be able to enjoy the sport that they play without being criticised if they are not winning games, to me performance is key, if they perform well (even without winning) that to me is winning, it enables them to create more opportunities for themselves whilst they are enjoying their sport.

My coaching philosophy has come through my past experiences and how I was treated whilst I was being coached myself. I was mistreated and left out of a few experiences because I was discriminated by my height, when I was able to trial for higher teams I was not able to make the teams through being short. Sterkowicz & Zak (2014) gives us the information that players with long competitive experience with adequate weight or height ratios are usually selected for national teams. Again because I was short and not exactly thin, I feel as though I was not chosen and overlooked as soon as I walked into the sports hall. This is not what I want potential future athletes to go through as it can put you off for life.

Dukinfield Tigers FC – Goalkeeper training

In this sessions I worked alone with the goal keeper within the group I have taken, throughout this session, there were multiple tasks that taken place including, throwing the football to different corners of the net to enhance diving and reaction of the goal keeper. This drill then lead onto my throwing or kicking the ball in random areas as quickly as I could to get him to get used to getting down to the floor to save and then back up to save another shot if it was deflected or saved by him. After we had practised each drill for a certain period of time, I then involved more players to set up a game situation, this happened in between each drill to practice the drills in a game situation, game situations will help to improve goal keepers performance more so than other activities as the goal keeper is the only player that could be stood still for a long period of time and then all of a sudden an outburst of multiple attacks could come at them. Villemain, A & Hauw, D (2014) state that the relations among experience and action, are related to situations within a game situation, this theory made me think more about what I was going to do with the goalkeeper rather than having them stood still for most of the training session. In my opinion, I feel as though the goalkeeper would get tedium easier by standing still, so changing some of the training session to something fun would keep the brain occupied and active whilst still focussing on the task at hand. A goalkeeper needs to learn to keep focused throughout a game as they are not always needed but always need to be aware, in our goalkeepers situation, he could be needed for a pass back if the team are struggling to pass the ball forward, and with them being the age that they are, they could also lose the ball at any time and the other team could come back to attack at the goalkeeper and if they are not aware of this or not focused it could easily lead to a goal for the opposition.