Having delivered a week of a Closing the Gap Summer School with Create Development I found myself challenged in new ways. The ethos of the project is around empowering pupils to make the transition from primary to secondary school by raising their awareness of the skills (Learning Powers) they have and need in order to be successful in their new environments. The challenges for me were manifold: A target audience with whom I had little […]

In recent posts I’ve made some observations about the behaviours during coaching sessions for my cricket club.  With the changing of the clocks and the improvement(!) in the weather we have now moved to outdoor training.  Having talked about the challenges in terms of seeking leadership I thought that maybe sometimes a lack of a decision maker can in fact be a positive thing.  A controversial thought maybe, but watch this clip: http://www.facebook.com/v/10150621366175936 As the […]

Having run a successful session with the club juniors last week, the changeover to the adults illustrated a few things.  Usually the nets are set up and ready to use as the colts have trained in them.  This time though, the soft ball session had not needed them to be set up.  As the senior players arrived I was debriefing the juniors.  Rather than setting up the nets (the whereabouts of which were known as […]

Recent injury has forced me to think about what I can achieve when coaching without being too physically involved.  I’ve mentioned before the set up we’ve got going this season for indoor pre-season cricket training – colts followed by seniors in the same venue on the same night.  This has given rise to me being able to access a range of coaching resources which previously haven’t been utilised.  Each week one or two senior players (with […]

To start with I want to refresh your minds with this previous blog post: http://www.gingercoaching.com/?p=69 You’ll now remember the player who initially complained about her group, and then became chief organiser for them.  I wrote at the time that the experience had made no difference to her as a player.  Now though, the proof that it was worthwhile has emerged. The next time I ran a similar session – a selection of progressive practices to […]

I’ve been raising my expectations based on my Learning Nutrition experiences.  As such, I chose to hand more responsibility for the content of one of my community junior clubs sessions to the learners.  This session is weekly and has the youngest players of my regular work. I had 8 players, and wanted them to split into two groups.  I asked them to do so and ended up with two groups of three and a two. […]

Complex Carbohydrates provide us with sustained energy.  In Learning Nutrition terms we suggest that offering praise for positive behaviours has this effect upon our performers.  By combining this praise with a shift in control (Minerals) I’ve had a breakthrough with a challenging player. The challenge is not aggressive, but in a cheeky trying to catch me out type way.  Has been coming to me for several years, and has recently started playing at other clubs too.  […]

I found myself in a new situation recently when delivering some one-off tasters in a primary school.  The aim of the tasters was to drum up more interest for an eaarly morning badminton club that I run.  I had arranged a half hour slot with each of 6 KS 2 classes.  My plan (which due to the nature of the choices involved thoughout was essentially the same for all classes) was to start in a […]

Whilst the main focus of the Learning Nutrition experiment is upon working with children, I could not resist using this new method with my adult group. The group was initially for beginners, but has been running now for 2 seasons and as such those that have been coming throughout have reached a reasonable club standard of play.  New players have joined along the way meaning there are a range of abilities on show. Having spent […]

My ongoing exploration of the minerals element of Learning Nutrition has begun to show some progress.  I have continued to offer a range of activities but am now moving to the 3* menu.  An increased awareness of the language I use has brought about some more change! Whilst, when I give a range of practices initially, most groups continue to start from the beginning and progress from there, I feel progress has been made as […]