reincarnating the practices that hurt us

a thread about the impact of unintentional coaching

For one minute every night, as the sun begins to set, it hits a building with large glass windows across the road from my apartment. If you don't know to look for it, you'd think it's any other sunset moment. But the reflections redirects perfectly into my open window, and turns my short entryway this gorgeous, warm orange. I remember reading/watching The Hunger Games, and Peeta Mellark says orange is his favourite colour - not just any shade of orange, this orange. I ran into the other room to put a nicer shirt on and take a cute photo, but by the time I got back, it was gone.

Photo by joe ting on Unsplash

It made me wonder how many times I've missed 1-minute moments of beauty like that, just because I didn't stop to notice. I'd like to think it's not many, as I often find myself captivated by the world I am exploring. I am slowly getting to the point where I can navigate Perth without relying on directions, I can ride through familiar streets and orient myself, I can take wrong turns and know that if I keep following the path, I'll link back up to my intended path eventually. When I moved to Perth, I kept asking people at what point it felt like home, and I think it's moments like these that win you over.

My point here is that it's so easy to move through the world and not notice these moments nowadays. To always have your attention elsewhere, to think about the plethora of things you "should" be doing right now, or the endless places you "could" be. And I can see how those thoughts can interrupt our ability to enjoy the present moment, but this busyness that we pretend is busi-ness doesn't have to be all-consuming if we don't want to let it be.

This tangent led me towards a thread I've been calling the "six step session plan", a phrase my brilliant boss used in passing conversation this month - the session plan you make in the six steps it takes from your car to the field. Whenever I pose grand ideas about what coach education could look like, and my intentions to crowdsource that inspiration as much as possible from the people who really want/need it, I am reminded that our workforce is built on the blood, sweat and tears of volunteers. I know where my inspiration comes from (this epic paper), but I don't really get to hear what our volunteer coaches are inspired by, or if they have the capacity to be inspired at all.

It's easy to interpret the empty classroom at my recent workshop as an indication that people are uninspired, or busy, or apathetic, or burnt out, or 'bad coaches' from my office chair in a different shaped ivory tower to the one academia afforded me, but I've been trying my best not to. Because I really don't know why. I haven't built the trust, the relationship, the open lines of communication that allow people to really tell me whether or not they wanted that workshop in the first place.

I can see the inherent value of exploring coaching principles instead of the cricket-specific content we often present, because the content we did adapt is incredible to start with. But this goes against how I believe meaningful learning occurs, because it's not situated or just in time or individualised until I can get those people in the room - or create a room they actually want to be in. My biggest worry is that these empty rooms are a symptom of something much deeper: unintentional coaching.

Photo by Nguyen Thu Hoai on Unsplash

We all know the stories. A team gets together but nobody wants to coach. The team might not even get to play this season if nobody steps up to play the role. A parent is then 'voluntold' to take the team, for the children. Think of the children. How terrible it would be if they didn't have a coach this season! Well, I actually don't think it would be that terrible to be honest. Yes, you need someone to do the logistics and help organise the admin and game day duties, but what would be so bad about not actually taking over the training environment?

The common answer is that they would "play games" or "muck around" or "not focus on the skills they need". I find it hard not to laugh when I hear these retorts, because ironically, it's the adult-designed sessions that are the furthest away from a real, live, enjoyable learning environment. I've spoken about what needs to be real before, but when we are learning to play a game, especially at the earliest levels of participation, how can familiarity with said game be such a terrible thing?

What (else) needs to be real?

The reason unintentional coaching grinds my gears so much is that it often manifests in drill sergeants and Avatars (reincarnations of the same activities). For anyone who has seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (both versions are amazing), I read recently that the music designed to accompany the 'Avatar State' was not designed to be powerful, awesome, or strong but instead, feel like horror. This all-powerful state was largely a defence mechanism, often depicted as destructive rather than helpful. An epic reflection of winning the battle, but at what cost. My fear here with the Avatars is that they reincarnate what was done to them, almost identical to how they were raised and trained.

This doesn't sound like an issue inherently, until you ask them to tell you about their favourite moment being coached... and they say nothing. Not a single positive memory comes to mind. I remember asking Sam Kerr at a meet and greet, and her response was my worst nightmare: her ACL rehab as a young professional athlete. One of the most devastating injuries you can sustain in sport was a BETTER experience than memories of being coached. I was shellshocked, and not just because someone just said receiving physio was better than the profession I've dedicated my life to, although that hurt.

I wasn't sure where this newsletter edition would go, but the thread just kept unravelling as I was typing tonight. I am genuinely worried about the future of coach education and development, because we would rather put a new generation of young people through the same traumatic ringer that we went through as young people instead of actually stopping to listen to them - which ironically takes LESS effort than designing an entire session plan anyway. If I had to suffer to learn, you must too. If I had to wait in line and touch the ball once in 10 minutes, you do too. Of course, this isn’t intentional, but that’s my point.

Many people think that learning and development is an additional burden, because you have to attend a course on a weeknight or take time out to think about your practice, or maybe even reflect on how your practice went (how dare I suggest such a thing). But I don't think it has to be.

Maybe its as simple as following your curiosity, and taking a moment to appreciate the sun reflecting through your window. With the right structure and support, maybe it will be one day. I'll tie the knot here for now, but no doubt this thread will continue someday soon.