Gym Momentum

Coaching Thoughts from Iceland

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In my apartment here in Iceland I have a TV but there are few shows for me to watch in English. So I watch a lot of sporting events and cooking shows. (I guess my TV experience isn’t that different that when I am back in USA!)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Yesterday I caught the end an interview with noted chef Bobby Flay. He offered two pearls of wisdom that I found very appropriate for coaches. The first one was to never rest on your laurels, constantly strive to get better, keep an edge. The second was to stress the fundamentals everyday. He reminds his chefs everyday to salt and pepper both sides of the meat. Everything is based on repetition of sound fundamentals. Food for thought and action as you begin your week.

THE JOB OF COACHING?

Watching a variety of different sports while not understanding the commentators gives you time to see more. Watching plays develop, watching what players are doing while they are not involved in a play or rush, and watching how coaches interact with the athletes. What occurred to me is that coaching is not a job it is not an industry! It is a way of life, a lifestyle, a profession. It is fueled by passion and driven by dedication to improving the lives of the athletes we work with work. To adopt this lifestyle is not for the faint of heart or the dilettante. Extrinsic rewards are few, fame and recognition is minimal and fleeting. The joy of coaching is not in the championships and the world-class athletes it is the day-to-day and week to week satisfaction of seeing athletes focus and dedicate themselves to excellence.  My greatest accomplishments were not the talented athletes who achieved success at JO Nationals or at the Elite level. It was the marginally talented gymnasts who I was able to get them to believe in themselves, to compete skills that seemed “above their ability” to shave a few tenths of a point in execution and get them to JO Nationals (or even State or Regional Championships depending on the level). No one notices that but you and the athlete, but that is enough. Those are the intrinsic rewards, the things that make it all worthwhile. At the end of the day it is the satisfaction of knowing that you the coach can make a real difference. To those gymnasts- I dedicate my career to you.

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What Inspires You?

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what-inspires-youInspiration is everywhere — from the words of your favorite writer to the flowers and leaves on your morning walk.  It could be a song that plays on your  commute or the smile of a gymnast you are working with. You just need to open your eyes,  your ears and breathe it in.

When your workouts are stuck in a rut- Sometimes it helps to talk to others who are creative to get ideas about what gets their creativity juices flowing.

Lately I find myself planted in front of a computer screen for long hours at a time; it’s a part of my job, after all. While it’s easy to say that I find loads of inspiration through visual blogs and social media websites, they really are just time killers. The truth is that I’m most inspired by stepping away from the screen. When I walk out into the gym I feed on the excitement of others.  I  also find inspiration in reading other people’s writing gets my imagination working (lately Get Psyched, Wendy Bruce-Martin’s Blog).  Sometimes art or photography does the trick.

I do some of my best thinking when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night or when I wake up before the rest of my family. In those quiet moments, I sometimes practically “write” an entire lesson plan, clinic or lecture in my head before I actually sit down to type it out.

When I spent more time in my own gyms and less time on the road doing clinics I was most inspired by going to a competition and getting our butts kicked. I am a very competitive person. I don’t like to lose. I don’t like it when we under perform. So when we do- I am inspired to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Some of my best and most creative workout plans have been written on a plane on my way home from a disappointing competition.

What Inspires You?

Let me know. Post your response on TWITTER @gym_momentum #inspire2015

The Moments We Coach For

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Beth Gardner, Heart of Texas Gymnastics

Dear Fellow Coaches,

Thank you for the work you do every single day in gyms across our country.  You have such impact on the children with whom you work.  You teach them skills so far beyond cartwheels and back handsprings.  The lessons you teach them are so far reaching that they will carry them with them for the rest of their lives.  Never under-estimate the impact you have on their lives every day.

I was utterly flattered and totally thrilled when Tony asked me to help out with his new project.  He asked me to write an article about anything I wanted to cover.  I racked my brains for days trying to come up with something I wanted to cover; a drill, a lesson plan, something about early childhood development.  There were numerous topics I could choose from, but none of them jumped out at me.  I kept thinking, and trying to wring it out of my brain.  ..but I couldn’t come up with anything that really struck me in the moment.

Until today.

Our girls competed at Judge’s Cup a couple of weeks ago.  Like many meets, there was a photographer there taking pictures of the meet for later sale.  When they posted the pictures up on their website, I went to look at the pictures some of my parents told me about.  There were several really good pictures on the site, but four stood out to me as extremely special.

They weren’t pictures of perfect performances or awe-inspiring skills.  They were snapshots of the moments immediately following each girl’s performance at beam.  They were snapshot of the moments we share after each event when we touch base before going back to our seats.  I’m sure many of you know the moments of which I speak.  When the kid knows they did well, and walk over to their coach beaming with pride or they know they have blown an event and they run to their coach for comfort.

Those moments.

So, I ordered the pictures.

They arrived in my mailbox today, and as I opened them and looked at them, my singular thought was, “These are the moments  for which I coach.”

Let me share some of the moments I cherish…
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Wit and Wisdom of the Week

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Lately I have been finding myself collecting quotes and phrases. I write them in a note book, I write them on scraps of paper and stick them in my pocket, like many people I will write them on my hand.

These can be anything from something funny a kid said in the gym to something more profound that I read in a magazine or book.

Here are my favorites for this week:

“Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
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