Coaches Coaches: How many years of experience do you have?

[JBS]

How many years of experience do you have coaching. Do not include experience as a gymnast. Answer the poll...or answer the poll and tell us your story.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Never enough

 

[JBS]

Never enough

Very true!

 

[BarCoach]

16. I started teaching rec and preschool when I was 15 and continued through high school. While in college I coached preteam (and did a lot of shadowing during team workouts). Came home and directed a program at a local rec center. Went through 2.5 years of grad school while only coaching a little bit. And it took me all that time to realize all I want to be doing is coaching. I'm 31 now and have been at my current gym about 3 years. Some day I will run my own gym

 

[coachmolly]

As a coach, 5-10 years. I was a gymnast for 7 years (from 8-15) but my heart loved gymnastics a whole heck of a lot more than my body did. I was one of those gym rats that just couldn't get enough. It was the days before Youtube, so I videotaped all the meets I could and watched them CONSTANTLY (every night before bed for a while). I needed to know the names for every skill, every gymnast, every coach. I poured over USAG magazine and IG learning all that I could. When I left the sport I had no venue to coach (the gym I trained at was 35 minutes away and I couldn't drive, the closest gym I had left on a not so great note), so I fed my passion in other ways until college. I got a coaching job in 2008 as a 20 year old college student and was addicted, just as I had been as an athlete. I've been coaching ever since. So I selected 5-10 years experience. I can definitely use more and am always open to learning new things!

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

Im in my 5th year coaching, I started assisting rec classes when I was 14, then got certified and started coaching on my own. Now I am in my first year coaching competitive and loving it, listening to anyone who will offer any help at all.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i'm assuming that i'll become pretty good at what i do on the eve of my death.

here is the beauty of our sport. the pedagogical learning curve for athlete and coach are one in the same. and especially if you were an athlete and became a coach.

when you start you suck. you suck for a long time. then you suck some more. then the light comes thru. then you suck again for a bit. then you have a breakout moment and suddenly charge forward. athlete trying to become the best that they can be. the coach helping them become the best that they can be. athlete and coach both learning. then BAM. it's over. biological clock runs out for the athlete.

the sport is so hard and takes so long to learn that it is never ending. you can NEVER become all that you can be cause it's never good enough and more to learn and you run out of time. same goes the way of a coach.

and just when you think you have a handle on things...along comes the next kid.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

LOL Dunno, nailed it. My motto is, if you think you know it all,,, time to go do something else.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

This week marks ten years, if I recall correctly.

At the end of all ten of them, I looked back and thought "man, I wish I'd known my stuff as well a year ago as I do now; I'd have handled that last season completely differently." I'll probably do the same next year. And the year after. And the year after.

 

[raenndrops]

I started out helping with Baby and Preschool gym. I did a lot of observing of the higher rec levels (and team too). I am currently sidelined with an injury - did not happen at the gym, but am still coaching the team girls (L3-L7 and Xcel Gold and Platinum). We have 2 other coaches who are injured (HC injured her wrist spotting her L6 daughter on something last week, and another coach has a history of knee problems & that's flaring up), which leaves 3 adult coaches and 5 high school age coaches to do the spotting. 2 of our high schoolers are boys and they can both spot back handsprings and one can spot kips and L3 bar skills. The one that doesn't work bars is learning to spot connected RO-BHS and Standing BT.
I coach everything but vault... they are only doing flatbacks, handsprings, and 1/2 On-1/2 Offs, so not much to say other than run faster... don't slow down at the end... drive your heels... be tight... legs together... get a stronger block, etc... and vault is on the opposite side of the gym from the bleachers.

 

[Short Balding Guy]

Wow it has been 13 years of gymnastics coaching already. I am proud to say that I continue to be a learning adult and a learning coach. In fact, yesterday I learned a bunch of artistic FX Dance moves from our ballet teacher before/during/after practice. What I do not know is enormous. Many judge/coach friends remind me of this frequently. What I know, I know.

"I am a coach story" - For the readers of the forum I have noted before that I enjoyed my sport as an member of the US National Team (Jr. & Senior) in a different sport. I competed all over the world for almost a decade. Loved almost every minute of sport. College gave me the opportunity to be a D1 athlete in a different sport. Sport took a back seat during Grad school, Business School and me enjoying a role in senior management in a corp. 50 here in the US. During my tenure I participated as in US Triathalon doing many full triathlons. as I received an early retirement option from company and I leaped at the opportunity. I had always promised my wife (ret. DVM gymnastics coach and judge) that I would try my hand at coaching her sport, gymnastics. I mentored with our States best, spent time mentoring at a club that coached elites and spent a little time at Dynamo's Moscow ( a good friend/aquaintance arranged) soaking in the exactness of their athletics. USAG performance clinics, Elite Assoc. clinics and USAG functions have provided me info that I have worked to put into practice in our small gym.

I work to build minds, body and gymnastics sport in the athletes at our small gym.

Best wishes from a small short balding guy, SBG -

 

[pamred4]

2 1/2 years

 

[mOm2gymnast<3]

I have no experience personally except being there for my dd during privates since 2 years ago. Owner of the gym just offered me a position as an assistant coach for preschool and lv 1. I will be shadowing the more experienced coaches for a while. He has been training me personally as well. It has been fun since. I hope to learn as much as I can.

 

[aileenmaryf]

Its hard for me to say when I truly started coaching. I took an interest when I was in 8th grade, and my HC let me help with my little sisters' classes, then I eventually started helping out with other rec classes. Eventually I was helping out with the younger team kids too. I am now in my junior year of college and I coach at a club in town and also as the assistant coach in a town nearby. When people ask me and I don't feel like giving them the whole story I usually say 5 years.

 

[iwannacoach]

..... then the light comes thru. then you suck again for a bit. then you have a breakout moment and suddenly charge forward. athlete trying to become the best that they can be. the coach helping them become the best that they can be. athlete and coach both learning......... be cause it's never good enough and more to learn and you run out of time. same goes the way of a coach.

and just when you think you have a handle on things...along comes the next kid.

I love those kids who challenge my ability, and who never suspect that's the case until I tell them. Coaching "wisdom" is knowing that you can't solve every problem by intuition alone, nor the first time even when you've solved the same problem many times before. The thing is, you coach every child through *their* firsts, and that makes every skill taught your first with that kid, and they all offer a slight twist to the usual problems.

Until you get that concept and stop blaming the kids for not learning it the same way as Suzie, who still isn't $**&^%#%$ kipping, you'll suck just as dunno claims, and continue to do so until you can completely appreciate his words......

then you have a breakout moment and suddenly charge forward. athlete trying to become the best that they can be. the coach helping them become the best that they can be. athlete and coach both learning.

Coaching isn't about us and our knowledge. What counts more is knowing the kid and coaching that child according to what and who she is. It really doesn't matter how much you know because, if it doesn't work for a certain kid, they won't learn it until you figure out how to teach it for the hundredth time.....

 

[Aero]

The gym owner I work for owns three gyms, and I've been working at two of them for nearly four and a half years. I want to share with ChalkBucket my full story though, because I really like how I got my job, and it's probably one of the most defining moments in my life.

So...

I was never a gymnast myself, but I always had a fascination with the sport and a deep appreciation for it as well. It really appealed to me, and I thought it was just amazing to watch. Right after I graduated high school I started training parkour with a good friend (for those of you who don't know, parkour is an athletic discipline that is all about using the body in creative and efficient ways to move through your environment. Watch a video or two on YouTube. ) and we got a bunch of other people into it too. It was actually quite amazing and life changing because I met a lot of great people through parkour and I still train, hang out with and see these people regularly. Parkour is also what got me a job as a gymnastics instructor. My friends and I were all looking for a gymnastics gym that holds an open gym we could attend in order to learn flips and other types of skills safely. We ended up at one gym twenty minutes from our town and it was like Christmas. All the mats and the amazing spring floor felt like it gave us super powers. Not to mention the foam pit, which we could literally throw our bodies into in any ridiculous way and be completely fine. Prior to this, we were learning flips on our own outside at our local playground, falling on ground-up tires for cushion. We were hardcore. Anyways, my third week attending the open gym, I was about to try spotting my friend for a standing back tuck because he was ready, and I watched enough videos on how to spot a back tuck, so I felt ready to help him. Everything went fine, and I spotted him five times. The sixth time he wanted me to move away and he landed it. He was super excited and ended up doing them all night. At the end of that night's session, the supervisor walked over to me and asked where I coach. I laughed and told him I don't coach. He then said, "Well, you should. You really seem like you know what you're doing." I told him thanks, and that I researched how to spot online because I figured it was a useful thing to learn for what I do. He then asked me if I currently had a job and I told him no. I had actually just gotten fired from a factory job that I only had for three weeks, and prior to that I was fired from my job at RadioShack that I held for eight months. I was really broke, and pretty depressed at the time. He then offered me a recreational coach position on the spot! I was literally floored. I couldn't believe it. I brought my resumé in the following week and so started my job as a gymnastics instructor. Since that day, I've started a parkour program at my gym, rebuilt the open gym program, and amassed a very large following of students at both gyms, many of them loyal to me.

Lately, mainly over the past year and a half, I've truly fallen in love with gymnastics and the rewarding job of working with kids. I started seriously entertaining the idea of becoming a competitive team coach, especially after seeing so many of my students leave to go onto a team after I had prepared them so well. I found myself wanting to hold onto my students for the long term instead of letting them go off to a different gym or program. I really wanted to see them develop under my care over the long term. I wanted to test my own abilities as well, to enjoy the challenge of bettering myself and my job, and of course to make more money to support myself. I started doing tons and tons of research on every aspect of the sport and wanted more and more. I was surprised at how deep the world of gymnastics goes. I finally asked to meet with the owner to discuss my desire to start a team of my own. He gave me a green light, and after lots of planning and hard work, I am now a proud Xcel team coach of 11 crazy monsters. My main goal is to reach my full potential as a WAG JO coach, but I figured starting with Xcel would be a great way to begin. I've never been happier to be honest.

So yeah, there's my story. I know it's really long, but I wanted to share it with the community. ChalkBucket has helped me so much in the short amount of time I've been a member, and it's one of my most valuable resources now, so perhaps my story can help someone else, or at least provide a smile.