Teaching Skills or Encouraging Skills

Family Update

Last night I took my daughter Jae (Bailee wasn't interested) and nephew Cody to a Indiana Pacers game. The Pacers played awesome. They beat the Bucks easily on a great shooting night.

Jae was so excited to reached her arm out over the railing as the players walked by and they slapped her hand- pretty cool to see you child's eyes light up when she has the opportunity to do something like that.

Jae then went over a few row of seats and got Larry Bird's autograph. We sat about 15 feet from him. I watched him patiently sigh autograph after autograph- nice gesture on his part. Oh yeah, Jae had him sign a second one for Bailee.

All in all, it was a fun night. I needed a night like that just to get my head to stop spinning with all the work we have been doing.

Teaching Skills or Encouraging Skills

I am known as a Naturalist speed coach. I take what the body shows me, tighten it up where needed, and then let it go. I then make corrections as the athletes show me they need it. This brings up a point. I would consider my teaching style of many skills as an encouraging style rather than a directing style. Now I direct when I need to make strong points, but for the most part I encourage athletes to let their bodies lead the way. I will make the corrections initially if needed but more I would rather use kinesthetic feedback and have the athlete figure out how to move. This is a more engrained form of learning. The athlete had to feel what was correct rather than me just telling him or her.

When you think of the big skills that I advocate- Plyo step, hip turn, directional step, decelerating patterns, lateral gait system- they all happen quite naturally without any input from a me. So I encourage these skills more than teach them. If I see a faulty pattern due to a correctable mistake or posture I will kick in my coaching skills and guide the athlete to a correction.

Let me give you an example of the above comment; If an athletes continually drives his or her shoulders up too high (rears up) during the plyo step linear acceleration I would make them aware of it first- sometime that will be all that is needed. If they need more I will then work on exercises that break the pattern of rearing up. It might be core strength, but I think it is more of a firing pattern that needs to be re-adjusted.

The more I allow athletes to figure things out and the less I say the better results I have seen for long lasting results. Give it a try.

Speed Insiders

As you know my Speed Insiders membership http://www.speedinsiders.com/ has been launched and is up and rolling. You can take part in a truly educational, informational membership by signing up now. I am giving you 2 FREE months just to test drive it.

Speed Insiders is a way for me to share information with you through many different medias (cd's, videos, hot sheets, live teleseminars, events, and more...). There will also be opportunity for us to interact and communicate on topics of athletic development, speed clinics, strength training, coaching styles, and so much more.

Looking forward to having you join the Speed Insiders. Go to http://www.speedinsiders.com/ to join the experience.

Yours in Speed,

Lee