What would your dream coaching community look like? | Welcome and General

Dream big and let's see what we can do.

my definition of a community - a group of people, shaped by their environment but not defined by it.

So - my dream coaching community (which just might be hosted here on Connected Coaches...) might look a bit like this.

Practitioners, not (only) theorists

We need academic studies to identify best (and worst) practice - but I want to know what happened when the coach was stood in front of a group of 9 & 10 year olds on a wet evening in November.

Professionals and volunteers

Just because someone does something for a living, doesn't mean they will always be right; just because someone else coaches for "love", doesn't mean they will always be right, either.

Innovators and traditionalists

The old ways do (sometimes) still work, or they would not have survived to become "old"; but we need to keep finding new ways, to meet new challenges - technical, tactical, social.

People with opinions, but open-minded enough to change them

Or there will be no conversation, just rants...

Thanks Andrew. I love this - a community of open-minded people from all aspects of coaching, sharing and learning together.

Our dream, right from the outset, has been that members determine what the community becomes, shaping it through supporting and learning from each other. Our role is merely to facilitate and perhaps help stimulate interactions and networking between members, especially in the early days.

There is still a long way to go. But so far we have been amazed at how progressive and honest members are. 

We are very much looking forward to the next 6 months.

I believe the most efficient coaching community involves more partnerships.

I think as natural with coaches, especially considering the thought that a lot of athletes of a past competitive nature are now coaches, we build a closed-off, tight knit community comprised of ourselves and the athletes under our responsibility.

Modern coaches would most definitely benefit from adopting humility into their practice and accepting we do not always know what is best for our athletes.

Using my sport, sprinting, for example. I may spend all my years coaching and researching with full-flight sprinting as my sole focus. I should then be prepared to concede that when it comes time for my athlete(s) to learn block starts I am likely not to be the ideal teacher. The ideal coach may indeed be half the age, experience and reputation in comparison to me, but that does not lessen their value the same way it wouldn't lessen my value.

Sports are growing competitive environments and to achieve, our athletes need to benefit from a pool of professionals who are willing to share their knowledge and admit to limitations in what they know.

If we are too afraid to sacrifice 'ownership' of sessions or our athletes then we are likely to be failing them.

"The more you know the more you know you don't know."

Jonathan Benjamin

Birchfield Harriers Athletics Coach

Newman University Sports Student

On 15/04/16 3:05 PM, Jonathan Benjamin said:

coaches, we build a closed-off, tight knit community comprised of ourselves and the athletes under our responsibility.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Jonathan. 

I think I get it. The more insular we become as a community of coaches, the more we don't know. 

Something we should all bear in mind, when problem solving together, as a community of coaches.  

I'd like to see a community where on the one hand coaches can access/share best practice principles, innovative ideas and the latest research/thinking across coaching in general and on the other hand I'd love to be able to share ideas and to pick the brains of coaches working specifically in my area of coaching cycling. For the latter I'd need to be able to identify and connect with cycling coaches on the site. 

It would also be great if there was some easy way of identifying and sharing CPD opportunities, courses and materials.

Thanks for your post @IanTunnicliffe  Hopefully, you'll find lots of learning in this community. 

If you search the site for 'cycling' you should find a number of cycling coaches you can connect with. Many of our members tell us though that they are surprised at how much they are learning from interacting with coaches from other sports who have similar challenges.