Week 4 Lecture and Tutorial

This week (week 4) the main topic for our lecture and tutorials was the importance of observation in coaching.
In our tutorial I tried to apply this myself. To do this when we were practising I watched the other teams to see who their best shooters were (we played basketball) so that my team could shut down those players.
I also observed my team in the different set moves we tried and it was easy to see what worked well for us and what didn't work so well.

Being a swimming instructor myself, i need to observe my students constantly not only to work out how to help improve their swimming, but also to know that they are safe and to keep them safe.
I find that in being a swimming instructor I use observation constantly. To work out how to help improve a child, or adults stroke I need to watch every single little aspect of their current stroke to see what if anything needs to be changed or improved.
As well as being a swimming instructor I also work as a Lifeguard. Being a lifeguard it is my job to observe. It is amazing the things you can know about people just by watching them and seeing what they do and how they do it.

I think a good way to make training more 'athlete centred' AND 'athlete driven' is to film the athlete training or performing a certain skill and show it back to them. In doing this the athlete can learn to use observational techniques themselves and can also determine what they need to work on and improve themselves, with guidence from the coach.

For this unit I have been trying to apply all the topics we talk about in lectures and tutorials to my own experiences to gain a better understanding of what works as a coach and teacher. I've found that relating these ideas to my own experiences really helps to make sense of it all and I know that these techniques and ideas have helped me already :)