When I am coaching and sailing there are a few concepts to learning I find
useful. Here I intend to give a brief overview of them and then give an example of how I apply them.
Ø How you can spend your
time on the water: A well balanced diet of all four
is preferred.
o Play: Looks like this. Unlikely to improve your sailing, but the fun can help to keep motivated and build sailing friendships. Best saved for warm days with light winds.
o
Deliberate practice: This is the hard bit, but will lead to big improvements. This
link goes to a nice article on what it is. http://expertenough.com/1423/deliberate-practice
Think Rory McIlroy chipping balls into a washing machine drum for hours on end,
or David Beckham practicing free kicks in his local park until the sun set.
o
Competition: It is always good to get out and and race to test your skills. No sailor wins them all and with the right attitude
getting beaten can be very useful to work out how to improve.
- Comfort and learning zone
If
an activity is too easy improvement will be slow, if it makes you terrified improvement will likely be
non-existent. Between the red and green zones
the magic happens. Sailors (with the coaches help) need to be able to work out
where they are and to either make the activity more challenging or calm
things down.
Ø Learning and developing a
skill
o
When learning a new manoeuvre
or improving an existing one (e.g. Tacking) it is useful to go through a few
steps.
1. Start by breaking the manoeuvre down and practise each bit. (Focus
on each bit of the tack one at a time)
2. Bring it all together to practise (Get your tacks looking slick)
3. Put it under pressure (Tack 5 times one after the other and keep
them all as you practised)
4. Put it under more pressure until you can do it perfectly without
thinking
o
Make practise harder than
competition and racing will seem easy……
o
Be pleased with and give praise
to effort, results will follow.
a)
I feel clever when I am
learning something
o
Mind-set a) is the best way to
progress.
I try to have all of these concepts in mind when coaching and sailing. I also, try to make the coaching as visible as possible. By this I mean I will start my coaching sessions by outlining what I am trying to achieve and the concepts behind it. I also try to get the sailors involved in planning and developing the coaching as much as possible. This is an idea I have taken from a book by John Hattie, 'Visible Learning For Teachers'. I find it gets the sailors to buy into the session and hopefully helps them learn independently in the future.
As an example a possible session for developing boat handling.
Start by outlining the aim of the session. I often get the sailors to determine what success will be. For example, maintaining speed when changing direction; smooth turns; controlled swift movements by the crew around the boat.
Next outline how to learn and develop new skills and explain exercises will be designed to gradually increase pressure. The aim being to first learn the new skills then make it harder to make the skills automatic(ish).
Focus on 2-3 key points, for example adjusting the sail when changing direction and using weight to aid steering.
On the water exercise 1 would be sailing around a smallish triangle. Coaching focuses on the points identified earlier.
As the sailors develop the correct technique increase the pressure a notch.
Exercise 2: Either a 360 around the gybe mark or removing the gybe mark altogether to increase the angles of the turns.
Exercise 3. Remove the anchor from the windward mark. Drifting mark gradually increases pressure by reducing the space.
Or, a 360 at each buoy, sailors can be paired up to work together to improve their turns. They watch each others turns then as they sail to the next buoy discuss how they could improve. Peer coaching can be very effective.
Challenge the more able to do a 360 without touching the tiller.
Now for a bit more fun. Possibly sailing standing on the front of the boat using weight to steer, or tether rudders with elastic and do the same from the cockpit.
Hope this helps to design training for others or yourself. These are just brief explanations of some theories I like to use when coaching, I aim to try to write more about them in the future. Happy to answer any questions.
Andy
As an example a possible session for developing boat handling.
Start by outlining the aim of the session. I often get the sailors to determine what success will be. For example, maintaining speed when changing direction; smooth turns; controlled swift movements by the crew around the boat.
Next outline how to learn and develop new skills and explain exercises will be designed to gradually increase pressure. The aim being to first learn the new skills then make it harder to make the skills automatic(ish).
Focus on 2-3 key points, for example adjusting the sail when changing direction and using weight to aid steering.
On the water exercise 1 would be sailing around a smallish triangle. Coaching focuses on the points identified earlier.
As the sailors develop the correct technique increase the pressure a notch.
Exercise 2: Either a 360 around the gybe mark or removing the gybe mark altogether to increase the angles of the turns.
Exercise 3. Remove the anchor from the windward mark. Drifting mark gradually increases pressure by reducing the space.
Or, a 360 at each buoy, sailors can be paired up to work together to improve their turns. They watch each others turns then as they sail to the next buoy discuss how they could improve. Peer coaching can be very effective.
Challenge the more able to do a 360 without touching the tiller.
Now for a bit more fun. Possibly sailing standing on the front of the boat using weight to steer, or tether rudders with elastic and do the same from the cockpit.
Hope this helps to design training for others or yourself. These are just brief explanations of some theories I like to use when coaching, I aim to try to write more about them in the future. Happy to answer any questions.
Andy
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