Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Friday, October 22, 2004 Some coaching notesThe U.S. Team talked about coaching at the team meeting last weekend. The discussion was brief, but it spurred me to think a bit about coaching. I thought back over my own experiences working with coaches over the years.A coach gives you feedback. That's part of coaching. It isn't all there is, but it is a big part. I spent some time thinking about feedback. The coach I worked most with in Sweden was a guy named Anders. He gave feedback to a bunch of the orienteers in the club. It worked like this. You kept a training log and gave it to Anders every week or two. He'd review your training, put it in a bar graph, and return it to you with a copy of the graph and a few written comments. Soon after I started working with Anders I realized the comments followed a pattern. In general, Anders noted: 1. Something you'd done well recently. 2. A question for you to think about. 3. Something looking forward. I reached my best as an orienteer when I was working with Anders. It seems like the coaching feedback worked. Let me try to explain what I think was going on by going through some examples. These examples aren't actual comments, but they are consistent with the type of thing Anders told me. Good race at the race in Soderhamn, that's the first time you beat Johan this season What is that comment doing? First, it gives you a positive feeling. It is a reward. It also lets you know that Anders is paying attention. The positive comments were always correct -- if he said "good race" it really was a good race it wasn't just a lucky result. Those positive comments felt good and felt motivating. You've been doing lots of short intervals the last month, what is the thinking behind that? Anders is giving some technical advice. He's suggesting that you might be doing too many short intervals. But he's doing it in a positive way. He's asking you to think about it yourself. He's also making it clear that how you train is up to you. You are accountable for what you're doing. The question also gives you a clue. He'd like to talk about it. At the season start camp you talked about a goal of running a night leg at Tio Mila, make sure you sign up for next week's Stockholm Night Cup. Anders is reminding you of a goal and making sure you haven't lost sight of that goal. Anders' comments are giving you some technical advice, some positive feelings/motivation, forcing some accountability and keeping you focused on performance goals. All in just a few sentences. Simple. Obviously there is more to coaching and feedback. Anders was very knowledgeable and experienced. He knew the technical parts (both navigating and physical training) very well. He did a lot more as a coach than just provide feedback. But the simple pattern that Anders used was a big part of what he did. I think it was also a big part of why I improved my orienteering when I worked with him. posted by Michael | 6:07 PM 
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