snip general consensus

We do need to encourage people to push their envelope, but we need to
be very careful not to draw people into water grades and experiences
that they are not mentally ready for.

Hmmm - I think that has considerable validitiy, but there is a difference
between setting someone up to challenge their ability and knowing that there
is a nice,safe pool to collect the bits in and that there is little
entrapment risk and the situation where a mistake will result in someone
getting a serious fright and /or being put into a position where they are at
real risk.

Again, the good coach will assess this - in much the same way that a Scouter
will assess the degree of risk and challenge a child is ready for.

One of the problems is that the good coach may well not have the depth
of knowledge of the candidates to make that decision. The problem lies
not in the technical dificulty of the water being paddled, but rather
on the understanding of the mental state of the paddler. A paddler may
well be capable of paddling, and we may know that they can safey carry
out a task, but in their mind they have the wrong attitude and they
then could be in danger of failing to complete through lack of
commitment to the action.

I became aware of this when I nearly lost a 2 Star candidate when ,
after a year of paddling and capsizing and many successful attempts at
Eskimo rescues we were doing a capsize and swim to shore. She
hesitated, went over, and we waited for her to pop up beside the
boat... and waited. I was charging towards her when there was a great
sucking sound and a pop and she surfaced gasping for air.

She had gone over, panicked, failed to even try and find the grab on
her spray deck and as it was a tight fit she couldn't just pop it off
by pushing against it.

It turned out that she had always gone through the motions of looking
for the grab but had always been too panicky and had just pushed
herself out of the boat. Now none of us had realised this. We made the
assumption that she was doing it okay and was perfectly happy with the
action. We were wrong. As a result we pressed her to push her envelope
without correctly assesing her state of mind or her ability to
correctly complete the capsize drill - which she had "faked" for over
a year - and had fooled several coaches into thinking she was doing it
right.

We have now changed our approach to this candidate, and also to the
way in which we go through the capsize drill to make sure this does
not happen again.


Ewan Scott
http://www.claytonwestscouts.org.uk

Ewan Scott wrote:
The problem lies
not in the technical dificulty of the water being paddled, but rather
on the understanding of the mental state of the paddler.

This is the argument I use for having given up coaching, all of a sudden
I found I had lost the knack of understanding the emotions etc. of the
beginners. You would be surprised how many people tell me I should coach
to put something back in to paddling despite my trying to explain that
to them.

JIM

"Ewan Scott" wrote in message
...
One of the problems is that the good coach may well not have the depth
of knowledge of the candidates to make that decision. The problem lies
not in the technical dificulty of the water being paddled, but rather
on the understanding of the mental state of the paddler. A paddler may
well be capable of paddling, and we may know that they can safey carry
out a task, but in their mind they have the wrong attitude and they
then could be in danger of failing to complete through lack of
commitment to the action.

I agree that it is hard but not impossible. A good coach has to be more
sensitive than your typical outdoor type. This often means that women make
better coaches than men although sadly they are few and far between. The
key to all of this is good listening skills, good observation and learning
from your mistakes and from those of others. The best of coaches will
always be looking to find better ways of doing things. Occasionally you
will get it wrong but hopefully you can pick up most of such instances in
future.

We have now changed our approach to this candidate, and also to the
way in which we go through the capsize drill to make sure this does
not happen again.

The example you give is evidence of this learning taking place. I suspect
you will be much less likely to miss such a situation again. Does this not
disprove your first point above (the good coach may well not have the depth
of knowledge of the candidates) as I would guess that you will now be
looking out for candidates that look more confident than they are.

Incidentally, perhaps for this reason, good coaches are in my opinion more
often than not
non-professional coaches which is where canoeing had such an advantage over
many other sports that tend to be dominated by paid professionals.