Thoughts on Coaching

awesome-train.blogspot.com

Learn it.  Love it.  Know it.

After approximately six minutes of consideration I've decided that the easiest solution to my malware problem on the old blog would be to start a new blog.  And then this URL was available which pretty much sealed the deal.  Most of the old posts are here now which I imagine is mostly to my benefit but you know - you can still read them too.

Actually the review of old posts has revealed a couple of things.  First - I used to work out WAY more than I do now.  And with more drive.  Second - I pretty much only write on a few themes.  Goals.  Motivation.  Perseverance through adversity and awesomeness.  It's not necessarily a bad wheelhouse but I thought I'd see whether I could get out of it for a minute.

I've started to do some coaching this year which I LOVE.  Back in the day I used to teach French horn students (and WAY back in the day it was swimming lessons) and while I don't really want to do that sort of thing full time I do miss it and coaching has dome some work to fill that gap.

But as opposed to music lessons or swim technique, the coaching space in roller derby is a sort of weird confluence of various styles.  In my first year of learning to skate I took lessons from speed skaters, artistic skaters, jam skaters, former hockey players and then just a whole lot of folks who taught themselves.  Of course every one of them is certain that their style is the most correct and each of those styles have some pretty significant differences between them.  It makes for an interesting learning environment and that's before you get to the many opinions that exist just within the roller derby community.

Then there's the matter of trying to aim at a moving target.  Two years ago I got picked up to a team without having solid transitions on either side.  Today we don't even let new skaters practice with teams until that skill is down cold.  The rules of the game literally keep changing so the things that are most important to know how to execute change too. 

So the question becomes not just how to teach new skaters the rules of the game and basic skills but also how to best prepare them to pick the most right action for them out of the many possible right actions (not to mention the many possible wrong actions).  In doing so I often wonder whether it's possible to create a method of learning any particular skill that's more direct than what I was taught or whether doing so would miss some fundamental skating skill developed by learning an intermediate version of that skill.  Was the 'intermediate' version really necessary at all?  If we teach skaters the methods deemed most important today will those most important methods still be considered as such in two or three years?

^OK - so that's incredibly vague and esoteric.  Let me see if I can provide some examples.

I used to call getting low the 'all purpose flour of roller derby.'  Now I'm not so sure.  Consider what it feels like to get low on transitions.  Do you really know anyone who stays low throughout the turn?  Last year we took some footage of Nasty Nikki Nightstick doing a turn around toe stop and when reviewing the video at slow speeds discovered that the very moment of her turn she stands up.  If you think about it in terms of physics, this makes sense.  It takes considerably less energy to spin an object that is straight up and down than it does to spin something that is unevenly weighted on the lateral axis.  Imagine spinning a straight straw versus spinning a bendy straw that has its top bent.  The straight straw is easier to spin.  Following that logic it's easy to imagine that teaching new skaters to transition while bent at the knees and waist is actually making them less stable. 

... and what about when making a wall?

Look how low I am!  I'm Low McLowerson!  So Low!

Look at Jes Rivas! (lane 4 in blue)  She's... in an athletic position!  She's Athletic McPositerson!  So positioned!

You guys - Look.  You can't really play roller derby in a deep squat all the time.  I spent a lot of time reviewing footage last fall and noticed that blockers I admire like Juke Boxx and Jackie Daniels have a much more upright position than I had been taught.  These players stand with their back up and their butt down which gives them a less low position but much improved lateral movement not to mention a whole 'nother way of feeling the jammer on their back.  I've been trying to teach myself the same but have found that nearly everything my body knows about how to stop and move needs to be adjusted because the stance is so different.  It's going to be a long road.

So what should we teach new players?  It's true that you hardly ever see anyone playing 'too low' while we often see players who are too tall.  Should we bother teaching a more nuanced stance now or is it better to let them develop as skaters and re-learn it later?  I don't really have the answer for that and not just for skating low but for a lot of things.  And do you know what?  That's what I like about coaching.  In a lot of ways it's a skill that allows you to really tap into critical thinking and creativity in ways that simply playing the game does not.  I don't pretend to know all the parts and pieces of how to put this game together from the ground up but I do look forward to a vigorous exploration in the years to come of exactly that topic.