drawing attention

As a cricket coach I've developed into someone whose approach has been that of 'drawing attention' to learning. I'm not particularly driven to telling players what to do. I'll simply set a session up and provide the experience. As we progress, we talk and identify processes and plans that we feel will work best for the player.

I'm not a coach that necessarily believes there is a right or wrong. I'm not a coach that stresses about mistakes - mine or the players. I may have once. I certainly don't now. The mistakes are crucial to learning, especially within games as the experience has so much more value. As long as the player embraces the event, they'll establish plans and processes to address for future situations.

I remember throwing my wicket away in a run chase once. The run rate was rising, the ball was turning and I lost my patience. I tried to hit a boundary which resulted in being caught in the deep for 85. I left the field of play and sat down to take my pads off. Our wicket keeper and resident number 11 came and sat next to me. "What was your thinking"? He asked. I explained my rationale behind the shot. "Pity", he said. I looked at him quizzically, and he continued, before getting up and walking away, "we can't win the game now".

And that tiny conversation gave me so much future information. Every future situation was different, but my behaviour and thought process to walk away, take a few breaths, consider my role, all helped far better future decision making. All he had done was draw attention to my thinking and self-management. It was priceless.

No, I didn't win every game from that day on when in similar situations. I definitely approached them with greater control and clarity of thought though. I learned to assess the game from a more detached perspective. Walking away and reversing the mindset. What do the opposition want? What don't the opposition want?

That one failure taught me so much thanks to his intervention.

I don't believe every training / coaching session needs to be loaded with answers. It should be loaded with questions though. Not questions spoken out loud, but experiences that educate, consciously or otherwise.

And that's another goal of Runmaka. We will provide the environment and additional training content to ask the questions. You train, you talk, you experience, you learn.

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