How to improve the relationship with the athlete?

Often, coaches ask how they could improve their relationship with the athletes they coach.

My first response is always to advise them to listen to them and talk to them more. Some understand while saying they don’t have the time. I reiterate that it is better to stop the activity 10 minutes earlier to talk to them than to coach technique for 10 minutes longer.

Athletes like any other human need to share thoughts and emotions. It is not enough just to do, you also need to learn that you need to give words to what you have done in training and competition. It is not enough just to do, you also need to be able to explain it and let others know through a process of observing and evaluating yourself. Is this not part of training? Or should training mean just doing drills, like a robot doing without knowing the meaning of what it is doing and, therefore, cannot understand the meaning for itself.

Easier and less demanding for the coach is to administer exercises with the hope that what he teaches will come true, just as a doctor administers medicine to a patient.

The coach should get out of this ambiguity of wanting to lead with only a directive approach and lacking interest in building autonomy and developing the young decision-making skills.