The last couple weeks I’ve been engaged in coaching a little closer to home.  Working with a 7 year old of course can be a bit demanding. . .Not that I’ve not been posting at all mind you, Each morning I’ve been over updating Greg Stamer’s Newfoundland Journal.  Greg’s been pulling off some amazing stuff by the way.  Still, here on the home front  I’ve been learning and maybe re-learning a thing or two about coaching and you don’t always need a kayak.  Of course in my life, kayaks are never that far away.

Coaching is a major part of my daily life. Even when I’m not paddling. Having a young person around the house means you spend a lot of time in “coach” mode. In addition I have a unique circumstance that forces me to keep that “coaching” hat on even when the child is gone. Most of the time I enjoy the challenges, sometimes I just want large quantities of whisky. It depends on the day, and the situation. This past 2 weeks though, have been interesting when working with Gryphon. We have taken on the beginning of martial arts training, learned some boat control, built a playhouse, and learned to ride a bicycle all in a very busy fortnight.

Martial arts classes for a kid like Gryphon is a no-brainer. It fits right into his state of play. He was jumping and kicking already with reckless abandon and endless energy. In this case of course you are just taking what the child already likes to do, and molding it into something more organized and thought through. It’s always easier to channel the flow of a river than it is to dam it and force it into a new direction. Using his preset interest it’s been fairly easy to keep him on task. Daily practice sessions are fun and games. When daily practice becomes “work” the student begins to slip.

In paddling he took a big leap from always wanting to be towed to spending an afternoon of strong focus on boat control. It helped of course that a girl from his class in school happened to be paddling the same time on the same channel of the lake. You can’t show off without learning your chops. By the end of a couple hours he was paddling straight and able to do fairly strong rudders and draws in his EPI-Sea. I was surprised by how easy it was to coach him. Once again it just shows that a child with a reason can learn very quickly.

Now on the other end of the spectrum is learning to ride a bike. We’ve all been there. The problem with learning to ride a bike is not that you don’t want to do it, it’s the fears that come along with you. The fear of crashing, the feeling of spiraling out of control, racing ahead and not being able to stop. . It can be much easier to get a kid to practice his 8 point defense, than to get on a bike that may hurl him to the ground. The problem of course is that the fear is in the present for a child. If they crash it will hurt right now. It’s hard for them to see that future when they are riding their bikes around town for fun. Kids do not so much succeed by visualizing a far off goal. They tend to live in the here and now and learn from immediate reward. Martial arts offers that reward in spades; you can wear a cool uniform, shout your “Kiai” with every move”, and kick a lot, where as the bike offers the chance to crash and get a handlebar in the groin.

As a parent I am faced regularly with very different coaching scenarios. With Martial Arts I’m often restraining a wild horse, pulling him back to keep his focus and stay on track, on the bike I’m encouraging him to push a little further. In Martial Arts a 7 year old will practice all day, (whether you want him to or not), on the bike he wants to know if he can be done now. At least, that’s where we were until the weekend. Now two things have changed. First, Gryphon earned is first “stripe”. His instructor has found out how focused Gryphon can be if he’s determined to do something, and fed that part of his character. Gryphon also learned to ride his bike. I had to show him that the mistakes and falls help us learn, not easy wins. I worked with him on accepting failure as just part of the way we program our “computers’. Soon he was dragging himself off the ground and telling me what he “learned” each time. At that point I knew he was going to have it. The success came just a day later.

As coaches in anything in life it is often the same story.  In sea kayaking each student we see comes to us with their own experience, needs, desires and gifts. There are people who want to learn because they have a vision and people who are struggling with fears. At times our students are there because their spouse dragged them there. Sometimes they think they know more than they do. Sometimes they are filled with self-doubt, sometimes they are drowning in self-confidence. Sometimes they can’t swim or are fighting some other perceived personal weakness. Often students bring a combination of these.  It’s a coaches job to understand their students and guide each of them according to their unique perspectives. Certainly hard to do sometimes. Watching Gryphon these last couple weeks has helped me revisit the ideas.  In the end whatever label of “expertise” we wear;  coach,  teacher, father, master or whatever title we enjoy, it means nothing if we don’t understand that “student” is a label we never leave behind.

To quote Mr. Miyagi. . “No such thing as a bad student, only bad teacher.”

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