Whole Coaching Practice.

Let’s discuss the real importance of Whole Coaching and investigate some of the ways that you can incorporate the concept of Whole Coaching into your program.

This is part two of my special short series on Whole Coaching.

In part one, I talked about what Whole Coaching is, why Whole Coaching is important now, about the background and the history of coach development and how we got to the place that we’re in now.

And I finished out by talking about the Pathway model, and why we desperately now need to look at alternate ways of building relationships with, connecting with and helping athletes realize their potential to whatever that limit of their potential may be.

In Part Two, Whole Coaching Practice, I’m going to go on a little bit more about the real importance of Whole Coaching, why it needs to be now and some of the ways that you can incorporate the concept of Whole Coaching into your program as a coach and into your coach education system if you’re a coach developer.

It doesn’t matter what sport it is, I often try to identify a sport which is only physical in nature.

Maybe lawn bowls?  Even in lawn bowls, there  is technique and skill and tactics and teamwork and mental element like relaxation and focus.

I think of something like darts as a sport that’s only physical

Well, no, even in darts there’s relaxation, focusing, concentration and skill. There’s tactics, there’s timing, there’s mathematics, there’s a whole range of skills.

I can’t think of anything, even a power lift bench press, which is ostensibly 99% physical in nature on first appearance, but there is technique and a skill and there’s emotion, and there’s relaxation, and breathing control and his core stability.

There is nothing that athletes do that is only physical. Everything physical as a mental, technical, technical, emotional component, to greater or lesser degree.

And yet, as coaches and as coach educators, we have been predominantly focused on the physical and the technical elements. Why?

Because – they seem “real” – I can see them, I can feel them, I can download them, like and watch them on video, I can count them, I can measure them.

Those things I can do and see as a coach – those interventions I can put in place, e.g. do more laps, lift my arm higher kick my leg to that position, all those things that I can easily see count by measure, all those things that I can simply manipulate.

This obsession with the “real” has led to the inevitability that so much of coach education and so much of coaching has been based around those physical elements, yet even within that, that the benefit that an athlete can get from a physical activity is enhanced by their breathing control, by the way they think and engage about what they’re doing, by them being present through a skill like mindfulness, through the way they concentrate, how they relax etc.

Everything physical has a mental and emotional component yet, we still teach and to the most part, we still think of coaching as a purely physically oriented activity.

The most common way coaches seek to improve athletes is to do more work. To play with volume, intensity frequency variables, because “I can see them I can measure them, I can count them and therefore they are “real”.

All these other things are a bit nebulous, e.g. the so-called Soft Skills…. how do I coach commitment, how to improve confidence, all those things, I can’t readily see them it’s difficult to coach them.

Therefore, the priority will be on the things that I can see that are “real” to me – i.e. physical training.

Now when we look at the broader perspective of sport and the issue of kids dropping out of sport – we need to ask why.

Many athletes will report it’s because they are dissatisfied with their coaching experiences. Kids are dropping out and saying I had no relationship with the sport, I wasn’t enjoying it, I didn’t feel listened to, I didn’t feel respected, I had no relationship with the coach and thinking there must be more to it than just doing more laps, more training, more work.

If you accept the coaches in many situations are the sport, i.e. they are delivering the experience of sport, they are the ones who have the relationship between the sport and the people you want involved in the sport.

So much of what we’re hoping to achieve in this industry, so much of what we’re trying to create in the future, is growing participation.

So much of what we’re trying to do is make sport a wonderful experience, where people come to learn and enjoy and grow as human beings.

We need to to stop focusing on just the physical elements of what we do and become better at coaching.

The non physical elements, the game sense elements, the ability to read and see a game, to be aware of family and cultural issues, to be aware of individual differences in the way people see the world, to be aware of the fact that people have different ideas and motivations, and reasons for coming .

Can I suggest that coaches even to be aware of the spiritual elements of why people do what they do, whatever that may mean to any individual.

Spirituality in a non religious sense has become so important in the world, considering the challenges and the changes forced on all of us through COVID-19, and the other issues that have arisen from it.

So Whole Coaching is something that says, “let’s look at this person in front of us”.

Let’s not think about their performance, let’s not think about their training load, let’s not think about where their elbow is when they hit the ball.

Let’s not worry whether or not they can pass a ball in a straight line.

Let’s first and foremost coach the human being – the whole person that’s standing in front of us, the person who is so much more than blood, muscle, eyes and hearts and lungs.

Let’s coach that human being standing in front of us.

Let’s begin by asking questions:

How do we get to know them?

How do we get to understand them?

How do we build a relationship with them?

How do we teach them?

How do we help to understand that sport is so much more than the physical elements?

How do we help them become all they can be whether they stay in sport or not?

How do we make it so that when those athletes leave our sport at 16, or 17, or 18 or 35, that they’re better people because of what they’ve learned from us as coaches.

The issue is too – what have those coaches learned from Coach education and coach educators.

One of the most common sporting philosophies around the world that I see is called “coach driven” environments, i.e. that it is coaches who drive the environment.

My belief is we have to move away from that.

That’s not in any way to diminish coaches or coaching.

If you believe that then you obviously didn’t listen to the previous 30 minutes of this podcast.

But by saying that the development athletes each coach driven, we’re giving the coaches the responsibility for the broad development of athletes, which most don’t have time for because most coaches are part time casual gauges. Most don’t have the skills to be able to deliver every element of successful athlete development program.

And they shouldn’t have to – I don’t believe it’s their responsibility alone.

The Whole Coaching model says we’re about coaches, athletes and parents working in partnership.

Each of us have a responsibility. We have a shared responsibility to help the athlete be all they can be – to help them learn to love the sport.

If they to love their sport – they’ll do what they love and they’ll love what they do.

Parents need to be more actively involved in creating positive, safe learning environments at home, teaching things like values and virtues, helping to build character time management habits around sleep and nutrition and so on.

Coaches should focus on leading, empowering, building quality relationships, creating the environment and giving the opportunity for the athlete to develop as a whole human being.

This is not going to be an easy jump for the global sports industry to make.

The easiest way to coach the simplest way to coach is by numbers, by measurements, by counting, by “real” factors, which is why physiology is at the cornerstone of so much coach education and coaching.

But times have changed and times necessitate that we change now.

And we can change quickly.

Whole coaching in practice is about coaches as leaders, coaches who empower athletes – by not just telling them what to do and then yelling at them when they don’t get it right but by explaining things to them things in ways that allow the athlete to choose the correct way of doing things based on their own motivation.

Now is the time for athletes to look at coaches as someone who will work with them, who will help them guide them, inspire them, mentor them – i.e. work WITH them – and not AT them.

We’re shifting from coaching athletes, to coaching with athletes.

And even further than that, we’re working more proactively and positively with parents at every step of the way.

One of the things I’ve spoken about a lot recently is the rise of player welfare and play a well being staff managers officers in sports around the world.

The question is why is this happening?

Why has there become significant growth in organizations, sporting organizations, employing people with a specific responsibility for player welfare and well being?

Ask yourself why so many professional football leagues now have transition programs where athletes retiring from professional sport, i.e. a dedicated program with a one year or two year window, where they learn to transition from being a footballer to being a member of society who used to play football?

Ask yourself why we’re hearing so many athletes talk about the frustrations and disappointments that they experienced during their sporting careers?

Clearly, we’re very, very good at training because athletic performance continues to improve.

Time standards continue to improve, games are getting faster, more explosive, more dynamic: the realization of athletic potential seems to be getting better and better all the time.

But so to our revelations of athletes stress of athlete mental health issues of athletes struggling with identity when they retire from sport.

In so many similar reasons, we are no longer in a coach driven environment.

We’re in a Whole Coaching situation, where coaches, athletes and parents work together to provide a safe, nurturing positive environment where the athletes can then choose their path – their journey – based on what excites them, what they’re motivated by, why they’re there – to do things in a way that is consistent with them achieving their objectives.

Whole Coaching says that we’re no longer about laps, we’re about learning.

We’re no longer about counting and compliance, we’re about choosing.

We’re no longer just about physiology.

A friend of mine puts it really well.

He said we’ve spent most of the last 50 years thinking that sport is neck down about oxygen transport, strength and agility and power and very, very little time on thinking about what’s happening from the neck up.

But now we have to be committed to connecting head and body together so that everything we do has a more holistic whole of athlete.

We need to focus on the overall development of the athletes potential as a human being.

And more than that, we need to shift from thinking about performance, to thinking about the person – to thinking about concepts like joy and happiness and excitement and friendships as all integral parts of their sport experience because at some stage that athlete, whether they stay in sport until they turn 14 or 40, that athlete at some stage may be a sporting parent.

We want for the long term sustainability of the industry, i.e. for that person say “You know what. Sport was always great, I always loved sport, my coach was wonderful, Mum and Dad supported me, I learned a lot of good lessons, I picked up some wonderful skills, it was such a positive experience for me that I’m gonna take my kids back down there”.

When people look at sport and their career in sport, their life at sport, it should be not as just something that they achieved, but as something that contributed to the positive elements of their entire life.

So what do we need to change?

First of all, if you’re involved in coach education, training and development, I have a challenge for you.

At your next workshop at your next training course, at your next level 12345 – whatever it might be… Do the physiology last!

Put the skill and technique stuff in the course last and spend the early stages of your work with coaches in an education setting – on coaching coaches how to coach.

Start your coach education program with a clear focus on coaching the whole athlete, on building relationships with athletes, on learning how to understand athletes, on building a broad, holistic approach to connecting effectively with athletes and on how to understand that athletes are people who play sport, not sports people.

Secondly, in terms of coaching itself, it’s easy to think about the content of your training programs, e.g. volume, intensity frequency.

It’s easy to think about what drills you’ll do, when you’ll do them, how often you’ll do them, and what speed those drills should be done at – things are right in front of you.

But what about at the start of every training session and at the conclusion of every training session, you stopped and you thought about the human beings in front of you?

And thought about what is the experience that you’re about to provide or have provided to them?

Did it excite them?

Did it engage them?

Did it make them happy?

Did they learn?

Did they feel challenged?

Did they feel energized?

Did they feel something that says I love what I’m doing and I’m gonna come back next week, this is wonderful. A

And finally, we have to revisit our concepts around talent, talent, ID, and talent development.

Only in this last week, a nation approached me about putting in place a targeted talent identification system.

What they actually wanted, when I dug into a little bit deeper, was a physical talent measurement and training system.

Even now, in this year, in spite of all the things we’ve faced, in spite of all the information that we’re seeing about athlete welfare and well being and mental health, nations, sporting organizations, coaches, sports scientists, national sporting bodies, are still stuck in this purely physical model of athlete development.

And then we wonder why we just haven’t got it right on why athletes walk away, feeling like they’ve been pushed, then poked and prodded and looked at as a series of measurements and times and performances.

Rather than feeling supported and enriched and nourished through the experience of sport.

Colleagues, it is time to change the way we do what we do.

And I believe this concept, Whole Coaching – I believe that the time of Whole Coaching has come.

 

Wayne Goldsmith