Coaching Styles: Good & Bad

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Here's a follow up to a discussion started in the USFA News/Jacobson thread.

What is the best style of coach? A screamer, a reassurer? Intense or calm? Someone who teaches by humiliation, or with encouragement?

We've all seen the coaches who are over the top intense, screaming things like "Three times--same action! Are you STUPID?" in the face of a young fencer. But often, their fencers do very well.

We all know coaches who are kind and supportive and treat their students with respect. Some of those students do well, others do not.

If you have a coach that is a screamer, how much is too much? At what point, either as a fencer or a parent, do you throw yourself into the coach's face and complain or protest?

And if you feel you or your kid needs a figurative "kick in the pants" to get them motivated, how do you approach the coach for that?

Let's hear some of your thoughts and experiences with fencing coaches

[thebigriddle]

I think it depends on the needs of the fencer. The coach, instructor, teacher, should understand what will work with the student and what won't. Sometimes, yell works and other times saying nothing works very well. Patient he really cares, if isnt' then it might be time to find a new instructor. Sometimes people need a kick in the ***, this isn't being mean, it shows that he cares.

[Repechage]

I would not improve with a screamer or a hitter. I shut down and walk out when someone yells at me. I once had a coach break a weapon over my mask, he hit me so hard in reproof, and I had no respect for him after that and didn't listen to anything he said. I simply couldn't. Someone who hits me that hard has no control over himself and doesn't understand how I learn.

I'm very self-motivated but I tend to be hard on myself when I mess up, so my coach was very good for me because he would work me hard in lessons but simply ignored it when I got frustrated, and he waited for me to settle me down. When I got things wrong, he stopped and explained or altered his actions so I was forced to do the correct thing.

Sometimes the bad behavior I see from coaches is their ambition leading them astray. They want success very badly so they treat their fencers as a means to success.

[edew]

A good coach is one who knows when to use a carrot and when to use a stick. Sometimes (and for some people), carrots help; sometimes (and for some people), sticks help.

That's what a "personal" coach is, someone who can fine-tune his skills as a coach to the individual. Otherwise, it's like jamming pegs into holes. If you happen to find a round peg and you only have round holes, you get lucky. There's no skill (on the part of the coach) involved.

[Mo]

Originally posted by Repechage

I'm very self-motivated but I tend to be hard on myself when I mess up, so my coach was very good for me because he would work me hard in lessons but simply ignored it when I got frustrated, and he waited for me to settle me down. When I got things wrong, he stopped and explained or altered his actions so I was forced to do the correct thing.

Repe,
Your description sounds like an excellent coach to me. Most fencers especially female fencers are very self motivated. They are smart, they are very perfectionistic. To have someone point out their flaws at the top of their lungs does no one any good.

Rep says:Sometimes the bad behavior I see from coaches is their ambition leading them astray. They want success very badly so they treat their fencers as a means to success.

I agree with this too. Some coaches want the honor and the glory and forget that they are dealing with young people.

My kid's previous coach by my daughter's description said, "when I fenced well it was because of him and his brilliance. When I fenced like crap it was because I was stupid." Either way there was no benefit in it for her.
I cannot believe anyone needs abuse to do better. I can see a coach saying, "you are not working hard and your fencing shows it, if you want to do better you need to work harder," in a calm dispassionate manner. Quietly delivered words of advice are always better.
A good coach knows when to deliver a joke and when to comfort. They know when to back off and when to put on some pressure which can be something like, "you know you can win this, Calm down and do your best."
A coach is a partner with the fencer. If your coach is not willing to work with you or your kid, things should change. There needs to be communication and listening happening on both sides.
It is not an issue of a carrot and stick, it is two people working toward one goal, coach and fencer working toward the best they can be. There is no need ever for abusive crap.
A coach is only as good as his students....

[jusplainfencing]

my coach has adapted to my personality i quit fencing because he yelled at me im a very sensitive person and cant take people yelling at me so when i came back to train with him he knows how much i can take and how much i cant some people thrive under pressure and expectations while others like myself fold
if he gets too vocal ill stop in the middle of a lesson and wont continue until he calms down or ill just ask"are you going to be grouchy?" and it always works out but i think it definetly depends on the fencer.......

[Purple Fencer]

As a beginner in the coaching world (barely one step ahead of my student!), I prefer the low stress approach. I wouldn't appreciate it if I was coached by someone for who I could do no right, nor woudl I respond to it well.

I have found, with my small (3 people) sabre class and one private student (one of the three from the class) that I instruct the same way I'd talk to someone...making a joke out of everything, but makming sure I explain things as clearly as I can...and not just "Parry this way because I'm the instructor and I said so." She needs to know HOW her blade is going to behave on a certain action...what effects her hand position have on her attack/riposte, or else, how is she going to realize when it's wrong and learn to correct it?

I also refuse to ***** her out when she has a brain **** and forgets something we worked on 10 minutes previously...we're all human; it's not a big thing. We laugh about it (usually maming references to MY age), then she gets it right and we move on.

In the tourney this weekend she got two points against her from an itty bitty kid who shoudn't have come near her. I know some coaches who would rip her a new sphincter for that...I just told her she took it a little too easy on the kid. She'll learn from it.

I teach like I like to be; friendly and open. I can't be a hard-*** like some coaches. I'm very open with my praise when she does something right. if I hadn't been directing the bout where she pulled off a perfect temp shot to the wrist, I would've jumped for joy...it was just perfectly timed. If, during a lesson, she just totally loses focus, I put her on guard and giver her a good hard whack in the head...which she likes! If it's a soft hit, she says "that sucked" and I hit her again! It's never in anger...I've learne3d that's a way to get her to focus...we always start our lessons with a hard shot to the head.

Weird child.

Lastly, I don't talk down to any of my students. 2 of them are in their early teens. I treat them like adults and give them the respect they earn for coming to class and putitng up with me. I get respect back, and they learn easier.

[Gav]

I like coaches who listen to what you're telling/asking them and respond. I don't like coaches who say, "do it this way because I am right". I am quite self motivated but, like a lot of people, sometimes fail to see my own faults [technique-wise] and find it extremely useful to have someone watching and handing out advice.

I can't see why anyone would want a coach who shouted and screamed at you - that would just put most people off. My old master (he's semi-retired) is an ex army PT yet he only shouts at you if you were being really stupid or deliberately dangerous. I've been on the recieving end of a telling off only once that I can think of and in retrospect deserved it.

PS He's also only about 5' tall and really skinny - yet I would still not mess with him even though he's 62.

[135711]

also, shouting is sometimes reserved for those people who have developed a rapport over the years, and because of that, it doesn't reek of hostility.

[achilleus]

Originally posted by 135711
it's completely proven, yelling, screaming, hitting as teaching tools are forbidden in classrooms for the simple reason that all you'll turn out are fearful robots afraid to take a risk. It would mean the instructor lost their grip.

Ask yourself, what were your best teachers and how did they speak. A person who knows their stuff is able to instruct without becoming hostile towards a student. There is no need to 'control' a person in a classroom situation, it's very simple to teach, if a teacher is over hostile and can't communicate properly, they have simple problems with self expression. The learning process is different for each person, it seems the instructor lacks patience, a lesson has to be incorporated into the student over a few days, that's why its: lesson; drill; bouting with others in classroom. The free fencing in classroom, is where the student "puts it all together" for himself. It's not about winning when your free sparring in a class right after a lesson.

I would say to motivate a lax student, prodding would be more appropriate. It could be the ratio of student to teacher is off; if you're teaching by yourself, all three weapons, to more than 8-9 students you're in trouble. If you have 10-15 you're bananas if you don't put one more coach in your salle.

it's not always about students who need to be told to work harder. This isn't required schooling. If a student doesn't want to work hard, they can just stop. Not every person has to be a high level competitor.

The coaches who push, yell, and scream can be those whose personal success is more important than their students. However many times it's a matter of teaching the young stubborn person who won't listen until they've been broken down. I've seen so many youngsters come through convinced they're right never listening to anything that comes out of their coaches mouth, until the coach points out their faults, over and overand over.

Some people need that kind of motivation, to push them to hgiher and higher levels. Some don't.

I remember reading 2 seperate articles on the same coach Csaba Elthes. The first by Michael D'Asaro where he described his first lesson. Elthes was verbally and physically abusive, tearing him to shreds, then at the end of the lesson pulling him aside and saying that he could make him an Olympic fencer. D'Asaro made the team shortly thereafter.

The second by Peter Westbrook. Took lessons with Elthes, didn't like and left. Later he started to take lessons with Elthes again, only this time Elthes wasn't abusive. Westbrook explained to him 'I listen, you don't need to make me.'

2 different methods, each student has their own needs and learns differently.

[achilleus]

[135711]

to yell or not to yell

[Zelda]

Its true... a coach has to be able to adapt to a student. What works for one may not work for another. They also have to be aware of what might be on a students mind that is causing them not to concentrate.
I will always remember my coach just after I got my honours results...I was in a bit of a blue funk as I had only got an upper second and not the first I wanted. He sent me an email asking me to meet him for coffee after he finished rounds at the hospital (he was a med student @ the time). We sat down and talked about everything, he finally got out of me what was annoying me and told me that while to me it seemed important, I had to look at it in perspective of what I wanted to do. He was right, and knowing that he knew what was pissing me off, helped both of us with my fencing.
I guess what I am trying to say is that a coach has to be aware of what is happening in a fencers life (especially the younger ones) which may be affecting their performance. Exams are wonderful distractions, as are pracs, love lives etc. If the coaches arent aware, and just keep doing the same thing day in day out a fencer will not grow as a person/fencer and eventually they may not feel they are getting anything out of it. I know my coach in brisbane has a rule about not interfering with any of the fencers personal lives, (as he says, what he doesnt know about he doesnt have to fix) but sometimes gentle teasing of the younger girls gets the agression going!
Coaching is a two way street. A coach has to want to help a fencer achieve thier best, but a fencer (or any other sportsperson for that matter) has to want to improve in some way for the coaching to be of any benifit. Just taking lessons for the sake of taking lessons is wasting both your time and the coaches.
Right, I think thats my ramble meter finished.

[Peach]

I've had a few coaches. My main coach (and my daughter's first main coach) is the owner of the club where I train. He was good for my daughter because he didn't get distracted by her emotions and didn't give her a hard time about them, just worked with her. He's good for me because he sees the long term and isn't always concentrating only on his talented juniors--I was pretty bad when I started out, and yet he continued to give me lessons. I've always been bothered by coaches who deny lessons to people they don't think can make it. I know their time is limited but sometimes they get captivated by "stars" and don't spread their time around enough . . . and then the "star" leaves them for someone else.

I was reading an article in the local Philadelphia paper about male coaches who had changed from coaching male teams to female teams. One of them commented that he started the first day with a female team by yelling at them, and stopped when he realized that half of them had tears in their eyes. That related to what Mo said about female athletes--they are perfectionists and hard on themselves.

I coach boys in a school fencing club--3rd through fifth grade. Thinking about it, like Gav's coach I never yell seriously unless it's a safety issue, and then I give them a red card, which means they can't play any of the games we finish up with, and if they earn a black card it means they lose the right to use a weapon and have to re-earn it.

They seem to really love fencing. I never have a problem getting kids to sign up--in fact, I have to turn kids away sometimes. I don't know that it's because I'm a good coach, I think it's more that they get to learn to hit one another with long sticks.

[haggis]

Gav is in big trouble!! I know he's about to start getting some lessons from a coach who shouts, screams, swears, hits with violence, believes in coach infallibility and is about 6' and not skinny at all.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

I hate to be Americentric, but does it seem that most of the big yellers/student abusers tend to be European coaches?

We've had kids in individual sports for almost a decade now, and many of their coaches have been Euros, mostly Russian. We've been told by other parents that these kinds of coaches grew up in a different system--sports "colleges", government sports factories and the like, and that they are just a reflection of the way they were coached as athletes.

After years of struggling through gymnastics training (think of a row of little girls sitting on the ground, all crying because now it's time to be "stretched") we entered into fencing, hoping it would be different.

Our first big fencing meet was the national championships in the youth events. Two of the first coaches we observed interacting with their kids were screaming and belittling their fencers beyond belief...and our hearts just sank. As the meet went on, though, we began to see other coaches speaking calmly to their charges, taking just the right steps to send them off into combat.

One coach in the Y-10 event had a ref who was totally clueless about sabre. After the third or fourth completely wrong call he didn't break into swearing...he stood up at the side of the strip, and with genuine agony on his face called to the ref: "These are children! You cannot do this to them!" We could have kissed him on the lips.

Now that we've been in this sport for several years, I don't think fencing coaches are any worse than other sports---gymnastics still seems the worst--but I worry about parents who will leave their child with an abusive coach because they think "he will get our kid to the Olympics" or because he/she is "The Maestro" from Latvia, Hungary, Mesopotamia...anywhere exotic, and "everyone knows they make the best coaches."

Parents (and adult fencers, too) need to be able to vote with their feet when it comes to abusive coaches. An empty salle is a signal they shouldn't be able to ignore.

[thebigriddle]

Well I have had my share of instructors wack me over the head, across the leg, across the arm, across the chest with the point without a jacket with a foil. Sometime I think it works. Other times it just pissed me off. But then again when I think about how fencing has evolved don't forget the foil and saber were killing weapons. The foil was the court sword. At one time you practice with out masks. Not really sure where to draw the line. I think it made me tougher as a fencer and as a person. In other martial arts sometimes you take a real beating until you get better. I do kendo as well and again I think of safety equipment used and then I realize that one time they used the real weapon and how far we have gone. I didn't like being hit in the back though with a fist.

[Sildar]

On the one hand, I really feel that stricter instructors will help students achieve the most. Let's face it, no matter what the safety equipment, playing with swords (even lightweight dull ones) is going to be dangerous if you don't have discipline. Likewise, every class seems to have one or two people who are prone to goof off or ignore the instructor, and if allowed to do so they can disrupt the entire class; it only takes one person slacking off to lower everyone's intesity level. As a coach at a University, I'm not running a social club or a dance hall; if people aren't at fencing to fence, and to learn something, there's no reason for them to be there. They're free to go to another club if they just want to hang out and BS.

I've had a few students who had such an inflated view of themselves starting out that they weren't able to improve, and the change in their attitudes that came about once they learned that they weren't the best fencer ever has been remarkable. Certain people need a not so gentle reminder that they have flaws and shortcomings. But as has been said above, some students need completely different teaching styles, dependent upon the student's personality.

There is a big difference between discipline and abuse, however. The best teacher always encourages the student to do better than they've done before; high expectations and strict discipline can be the best training tools. But I've seen a few coaches at various competitions telling students who just lost a bout that they were stupid and that they really screwed up. No one needs to hear that after losing, and it accomplishes nothing. I don't think there's a fencer who needs their coach to let them know they messed up under such circumstances, as they are already painfully aware of that. Suggest corrections, certainly, but don't punish a student for a failure they are already unhappy about. I think the line between discipline and abuse partially lies in recognizing how much is required to discourage undesireable habits. Some students fix something they're doing wrong just by being told once; some students won't hear what you're saying unless you practically beat it into them. Most students lie somewhere in between. A good coach knows their students limits. And any good teacher should use a mix of positive and negative reinforcement to achieve maximum results.

[mifencer]

Slo-mo, I hate to say it but you're wrong. I know a few national coaches (who are born/raised/trained in the U.S.) who hit their students. I know a few European coaches who would never even think about it. Don't bring in countries of origin, because there's no correlation.

I've given a few lessons where the kids (college age) wanted to be hit if they screwed up. If that's how they learn, that's how they learn. I don't believe in negative reinforcement, but I do believe in criticizing everything I don't like. It's a fine line, one that I'm probably not good at.


Riddle, Yuri hit you because you deserved it.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Originally posted by mifencer
Slo-mo, I hate to say it but you're wrong. I know a few national coaches (who are born/raised/trained in the U.S.) who hit their students. I know a few European coaches who would never even think about it. Don't bring in countries of origin, because there's no correlation.

I don't automatically equate abusive coaches with hitting...because coaches that routinely smack their students will eventually run into someone who reports them in a very public manner. More often, the abuse is psychological...calling an adolescent girl a "fat cow", telling people they are stupid, belittling students in front of the rest of the class, that sort of thing.

I don't pretend to know every single coach in the world...but in our years of competition, clearly, the majority of the coaches that I considered abusive were Euros. There are good old red white and blue bad coaches as well, but at the NAC level, when I see a coach engaging in questionable behavior, it is almost always a European coach. I'm not sure why that is.

QUOTE]Originally posted by mifencer
I've given a few lessons where the kids (college age) wanted to be hit if they screwed up. If that's how they learn, that's how they learn. I don't believe in negative reinforcement, but I do believe in criticizing everything I don't like. It's a fine line, one that I'm probably not good at.[/quote]

OK, here's a hint in our society. Never hit your students. Ever.
Criticize, cajole, encourage, push, support. But once you start hitting them, you're on the road to serious trouble.


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