How to be a good coaching student
There is a lot of advice to coaches about how to be better at coaching. One thing that is rarely talked about is how you can be a better student to your coach and how this can help your game.
If you are a young player with a coach at your club you are lucky if you find one who can develop you. It's not that these coaches are unwilling or unable. It's just most are part time volunteers with good intentions but incomplete knowledge.
For this and other reasons, players with talent who can scrape the cash together are choosing private one to one coaching sessions to get the edge. It's an expensive investment but worth it. The right person can pick out the technical errors and work with you to correct them. They can also help with the mental side of the game.
However you find a good coach, you need to be a good student if you want to hang onto them. Good coaches can pick and choose who they work with. Do whatever you can to keep them!
Many players attend coaching sessions with a sceptical mind. They want results but they don't want to listen to the answers the coach is giving. This makes the whole thing seem pointless to the coach. Why ask for help if you don't want it?
Asking questions and getting explanations is a normal part of the coaching process. However, questioning the entire method because you saw someone else do it differently is a shortcut to failing.
When you have a choice of coaches it may be tempting to try each one before hopping to the next. After all, the next one might have the hidden bit of knowledge this one doesn't.
Sadly it doesn't work like that. Jumping from coach to coach means you just need to restart the whole process every time.
This is destructive because a good coach needs time to build a relationship with a player. Shane Warne spent his whole career with Terry Jenner. I'm not suggesting you should do the same with the first coach you find, but do give them a chance to have an effect on your game. They may only need a handful of sessions to work magic but give them the chance to do so and block book in advance.
Go on coaching reputation, not playing reputation
Many coaches get private clients through their playing reputations. However, a good player does nto always make a good coach.
You do need to have some skill as a player to make it as a coach. That said, many of the better players are not good coaches because everything has come so easy to them. They have never had to struggle through problems like normal players do.
Really good coaches will be happy to refer you to players they have helped in the past to sing their praises. Take the time to find out their coaching reputations first. Don't use their first class playing record as proof they are a good coach.
If you are a coach or a player being coached I'm interested in your experiences. Leave a comment and let me know.
- Login to post comments
Comments
Great article, David! this is very realistic. many coaches are available only because they are eager and are willing to volunteer and give up their time. this is similar in my club. my coach plays for the 1st XI, and he coaches my team, the Under 15s.
By the way, I was only able to access this by looking at the recently visited articles navigation bar. how do I directly access articles?
brilliant david,if your a coach of young players then i suggest coaching their parents first as many younger players get the wrong advice from parents who mean well when they say "go score a hundred" or "go take 5",but that is focusing on results too much and may cause them to feel under pressure,better to have said "try your best" or "enjoy it".
Agreed. Parents want the best for their kids and you are 'just' their coach so it can be hard to manage that element of their game.
I have been a junior development coach for 4 years now in Australia. I only started playing cricket when i was 14 (I am 23 now) so i had to learn from scratch from an older age, but not having it all come easy to me I have found it much easier to teach the young players.
I agree with an earlier post that it is important to coach the parents as they do spend much time 'in the nets' with their kids. If we can give them just a few pointers it helps greatly.
Hi Alex... a tp on coaching. i am 14 righ now, so i admit I may not be the best person to advise you. However, in the best interests of the players you coach, and for their enjoyment, please do not 'teach' kids cricket. I know how frustrating it is when coaches get too technical. Greg Chappell says in one of his books: Never teach cricket - only create the right environment for them to learn. So basically instead of 'teaching' them the technique for the cover drive (or anything for that matter), give them a target to hit at, tell them to step to the ball and hit it, and throw down a ball suitable for a cover drive. they will be happy at their success and they will automatically learn to do stuff like follow through and keep it along the ground.
This way, both you and the player will be happy - he plays the shot better and he has a taste of success in the process.
Please, please do not 'teach' them cricket, it's not natural of fun.
I think there is room for both methods. You just have to know which tool is better at which point.
you guys are making very good points,it's not very often you get to coach 1 on 1 with the younger age groups,so you have to be a little general in your approach,but in that time you must look for the all round awareness of the game and if a kid has it you challenge him in a different way to one that hasn't grasped the game as well YET.in a nut shell all the digits on my hand are different although they belong to the same hand,a coaches greatiest quality would be knowing when and how to adapt for each players ability.