Do coaches need actual gymnastics experience?

[triptwister]

Does an airplane builder ever have to fly an air plane to be an expert air plane builder? Does anyone ever have to do the thing that they are setting up to be done in order to be good at setting it up to be done? Does a heart surgeon need to have a heart attack in order to tell a patient what it feels like? Does a lawyer need to be sued in order to be good at suing?

No.

That's the point Linsul was making, dancengym. You don't have to do gymnastics in order to be good at teaching it. However, I give you credit for helping make my point which I'm not allowed to mention.

 

[Galadriel]

Do you agree/disagree that a coach must have actual gymnastics experience or must have been able to perform a skill well in order to teach it? Why or why not?

Well - if you had to be able to perform a skill in order to teach it, we would never have any new skills being developed - so obviously this isnt a prerequisite.

 

[All Chalked Up]

I bet it gym owners, ideally, would want gymnastic experiance for they're coaches. All of our coaches are formers gymnasts at our gym.

 

[Linsul]

The correlation in this comparison is highly flawed

No it's not. Much more important things than gymnastics are handled by people who've never experienced the purpose/situation of what it is they're contributing to making or selling. It still works.

You stated part of the reason you're asking this question is to judge a coach by. It's unrealistic and as the responses have overwhelmingly shown, not necessary. Judge them by what they produce, not whatever level they may have competed at however many years ago.

 

[dancengym]

Triptwister
I admire your passion on the subject matter you dubbed “professionalismâ€￾. And I do agree, it would be great if we had a regulatory body to ensure the quality of gymnastics coaches. With two aspiring gymnasts, I have all the concerns you’ve listed about the quality of coaching and the need to improve the system. But how do you propose to go about it? Having a University for Coaches, with the specific sports as their majors/field of expertise? There you’d have a certificate saying you are certified and have completed the requirements of a university. Yet, the question still remains. Are you a good coach? Does a degree make you a good coach? Does being a gymnast make you a good coach? Bottom line, as always, there are no quarantees. But what I am getting from this thread is you can coach effectively at the lower levels, level 7 and below, but to coach an elite or Olympic gymnast, it would appear, as records have shown that these coaches have reached a high level of gymnastics.
As dunno, pointed out, you sound pretty pissed off. You made reference to you coaches “cannot hold your head up highâ€￾. Sounds like a personal problem really.
Lastly, certainly it is not a prerequisite to be able to do a skill, in gymnastics and otherwise. However, I believe you need a skill on which to build upon or improve on. The more complex a skill you can do, the more complex a new skill can be developed. The new inventions of today are built or developed based on what we currently have, not what we had decades ago.

 

[dancengym]

Linsul, I did not mean to offend you by commenting on your post. I do get your general point and do agree with you. What I found highly flawed was the choice of your comparison-"A heart surgeon doesn't need to have a heart attack to be great at unclogging arteries". It my opinion, having a heart attack teaches nothing about unclogging arteries. Hence the person who had a heart attack can never ever be a heart surgeon based on that experience alone. Whereas, a gymnast, or even a non gymnast takes an active role in obtaining a skill or education to be a coach. I just thought it was not the best comparison. That's all.

 

[triptwister]

I don't mind at all that you don't have to do a squat of gymnastics to be good at teaching it. I do mind that in America, you don't need squat to be a coach. You may never have seen a gymnast in your life and may call yourself an elite coach. And no one can say you are not. That's the way American gymnastics is set up. And that's the way it is. I could walk out on an elite floor at a USAG gymnastics event and you would never know the difference and I would be qualified to do it having bought my professional card and passed my safety certification. Hello, are you reading this?

People try to insist that elite coaches DO NOT exist. Well, I agree. They don't because no official ruling organization has defined what that is. There are no official levels for coaches at all. You can say you are anything you want and no one can dispute it.

What does this mean to the public? It means they have no good way to avoid a quack for a coach. You can't depend on reputation because reputation depends on who is doing the talking and why they are talking. You need to find qualified analysts to get qualified opinions else you are taking someone's word for it that you don't know you can trust. And who's to say who is a qualified analyst?

Why can any coach hold their head up high? Because they can. That's the problem. Not every coach should be able to if we had enforcement and regulation. If we had enforcement and regulation then the public could trust our industry. And coaches like dunno would be an elite designated coach whether he likes it or not.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

but you see, i don't want to be a designated anything. the truth is, i will only be as good as the biology that i coach. my wife and i will not hold ourselves out as 'elite coaches' because there are no guarantees.

i know so many coaches that are so very good at what they do worldwide. and they continue to coach because they love it and the hope for the day/s when they have that unique biology to coach in order to keep their upper level skills and knowledge honed.

trip, you end up digging yourself in to a hole with some of your thoughts. you need to come back to coaching, if that's your desire, you can see what is actually taking place in our industry.

you made a comment in another post that you could just walk right in to a competitive elite floor and all you need is a professional membership card and safety cert. this is absolutley false and disingenous from an accuracy point of view.

 

[gymdog]

you made a comment in another post that you could just walk right in to a competitive elite floor and all you need is a professional membership card and safety cert. this is absolutley false and disingenous from an accuracy point of view.

Yeah, I'm pretty confused about the statements you're making. Why do you think you can do this? You can't. The issue to me is not elite coaches, but lower level coaches (where the lack of competency can be shocking). Not sure if anything will fix that though, except getting MORE coaches and more competition. Right now in many places you can be fairly incompetent but you're not going to get fired because you can't be replaced. This doesn't even put any pressure on people to perform or learn, they just keep doing whatever they want.

The incentives need to be changed (oooh, the econ major in me is coming out)

 

[10.0]

So okay I will entertain, what makes an elite coach an elite coach? Do you think is John Smith off the street got his safety cert. and USAG pro. coach license he could walk into any gym in the county and coach elite level gymnasts? Well yes maybe he could, but for how long until the athletes/parents/other coaches and gym owner figured out he was incompetent? I would figure by that level it would not take very long. So would he be an "elite" coach? Yes I guess so for about as long as I would be a rocket scientist after I doctored my resume and got the job. I agree with the poster who said the problem is in the lower levels. These athletes are often little kids who really do not have a clue and a lot of gyms make the mistake of trying to save money by hiring any one off the street to coach them, after all how hard can it be to teach a back ward roll? Well it isn't until you do it wrong and a kid breaks their neck or in a less extreme example how hard is it to teach a handstand? Now this gymnast who has passed by the low levels with her "handstand" gets to the preteam coach and she needs a handstand on the beam, problem is since she was a preschooler she has been doing it with bent arms, her back arched, sticking her head out kicking like a donkey to get up and no one noticed no one cared now you have to rip it down and start over when it could have been taught correctly from the beginning. Long point in short better coaching needs to start at the low levels and I agree education is one way to better that. To get back to the original post, no I do not believe you need to be able to do a skill to teach it, but you need the education to teach it correctly, and you need to adapt to your athletes needs, not everyone learns a skill in the same exact way. How is a science teacher able to teach all about outer space? Do you think they have been to outer space or did they just get educated on it and learn how to give the lesson properly?

 

[BlairBob]

If you look at USAG University site you can find this:

http://www2.usa-gymnastics.org/education/certrequirements_linked.pdf

So there is a push by USAG, especially as they are starting to count GymCert courses as elective credits.

As for the lower level coaches and rec coaches, too often they are not developed enough and staff training is only available to team coaching staff when it comes to sending coaches to training somewhere. Sometimes the only training these lower level coaches get is tagging along or what they can observe on their own or by asking questions or their own research.