Tuesday December 31st 2019
I started this current competitive year with a trip to the Ontario Institute of Sports. This was the first in-person meeting for my journey to complete my ACD to obtain my final level of coaching. The bombardment of information showed that I would be in for a lot of work, most notable reading and analysing articles and books from Master level coaches in the field. While I knew that there would be a lot of work involved, I guess I was slightly taken aback about how much work there actually was. I imagined that the level of work would be similar to that of a Master’s Degree both in the quantity and quality of work that would need to be submitted. Currently I’m reading an article on the methods of effective coaches. While I’m already implementing many things in the article at this point in time, the thing that stood out to me the most is the constant correlation between that they make between being an effective teacher and an effective coach. The article clearly states that both are intertwined and that to be an effective coach, you have to be an effect teacher. With more reflection on this year, it also occurred to me that there are so many components to being an effective teacher which I’ll elaborate on a little more.
A new year, a new group of athletes and a fresh start
Fast forward to December and I’m currently in the midst of finishing my school term as well the first module of my ACD. The work was quite plentiful and I’ve read and absorbed a lot of material since then. However, the article that still stuck with me the most was the article about the correlation between being an effective teacher and a coach. It’s with that in mind, that I reflect on my current career as well as the year we’ve had in Quebec while moving forward.
The Urban Games represented a huge step towards increasing our visibilty in the province
As a teacher, there have been ups and downs in my career. Last year was particularly hard for me on many levels and I was glad that it was over. This year began with a fresh slate, both career and with my team. The rebuild for me was in full swing as I greeted a fresh group of young recruits, knowing full well that many of them wouldn’t even wrestle this year due to work that I would have to put in, in order to get them even ready for the most basic level of competition. With a new group of students as well as some classes that I hadn’t taught in a while, this was a new beginning for me. In a way, this mirrored the year in Quebec wrestling as well as we began the year with a new constitution, an new board of directors and a new focus. Change is often difficult but necessary if you want to evolve and move forward.
Linda Morais and Jordie Steen qualified for the Canadian Olympic Team in style
Our year calendar year for 2019 in Quebec wrestling also has to be considered successful if you look at our body of results at the provincial, national and international level. I’ve written about our success as a province through the year and though I’ve been doing this for many years, even I was pretty impressed at what I saw from a variety of clubs during the year.
The Matteo Pellicone Tournament was a great experience for me this year
It occurred to me as I look at the year in a whole that the results that we achieved as a province came not only from having some solid athletes but some solid coaching that basically involved effective teaching. As mentioned earlier in the blog, some of the most effective coaches are also effective teachers. These coaches are abel to be both self-reflective and at the same time, stay true to their principles. I’ve seen many coaches in the past year that have absolutely no idea of what they’re doing, due in large part to their lack self awareness. While I seriously doubt that these individual will change in the near future, one can hope that they will become less visible as time goes on.
With that in mind, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year to all the athletes, coaches and volunteers that read this blog. Your consistent support and patronage means a lot as the readers continue to increase. I wish you all the success in the upcoming year as we move forward as a province and hopefully we can exceed the year that we had in 2019.