For coaches: to speak it’s a part of the coaching

Talk, share ideas are part of the coaching. Many athletes complain that they are not listened to by their coaches, that when they make a mistake get upset, in practice often ignore them, that’s just ask to train more and when they perform bad they tell them they have no confidence in themselves or have to concentrate more.

If human beings could change only by these sentences no one would have ever problems, since the first mistake the athletes would know immediately what to do and it would correct automatically. “Are you nervous? Cool down! Are you distracted? Focus! Are you afraid? Think positively! “. We know, thanks to our everyday experiences, that this approach is good for nothing, but when many of us are taking a leading role, as a parent, teacher or coach, we forget this simple truth and we start to claim from others they will change their behaviors through these simple statements.

When the coach behaves in this way, he acts like a person who ignores the value of the performance psychological component, that is to say to have the expertise to provide a high level of performance, it does not mean doing if at that time you are afraid or not confident. Confidence that doesn’t automatically comes only increasing the load of the workout.

Adrian Moorhouse, former British swimmer, gold in Seoul and now successful entrepreneur of a large consulting company, said “The only thing my coach has not done for me is swimming.”

Daniel Costantini, former French national handball coach, world champion and best world coach for the International Handball Federation said “I felt I had to change my workout in nature but not in the nature of my relationship with the players. I launched this participation approach, leading a team with the Socrates’ maieutics.”

Alex Ferguson wrote “in the middle of the game we seemed doomed, but as I said at the end of that season: In a crisis situation you just calm people.” We scored five goals and we won.”

We could continue with other evidence to confirm the value of dialogue and sharing between coach and athlete. Two questions: why don’t many coaches behave in this way? Why are they unaware of the importance of dialogue with the athlete?

I recommend reading the excellent book by Hubert Ripoll, Le mental des coaches, 2102, Paris: Payot.