Friday, February 13, 2009

A rewarding night at Weston

Wednesday night, I went to help with Bill Koch League skiers (skiers between 5 and 12 or 13 years old) with their double poling. Jim Stock, the head BKL coach, was worried that none of them were double poling well, despite striding well, and after seeing them do it, I had to agree. I've never coached a group this young before, usually I deal with highschoolers, and since they're skiers they're almost always good kids, attentive and willing to learn and in it because they love it. I figured the little kids were probably in the same boat, but just in case, I made sure to never talk for more than 2-3 minutes, so as to not outlast any attention spans.

We were working mostly on the "teaching area" at Weston, because it is under the lights, and we had a lot of parent volunteers and other coaches (also parent volunteers) to keep things organized. It was a big group, the biggest group I've ever worked with, but apparently Jim talked up my supposed classic technique enough that they thought they were getting something really special, a notion I was not about to disabuse. So they listened attentively, and even willingly shouted "BAM!" as they slammed their poles into the snow like I told them to. Highschoolers would never do that...

I am always amazed that suggestions made by a coach can actually manifest themselves as technique changes, especially when it happens right before your eyes. After doing some drills, I gave them two things to think about, and they were almost instantly skiing better. After we finished up our double poling part of the lesson, I called on different people to ask what they'd work on, and everyone gave me serious answers that followed in line with something I had said earlier in the night. I was definitely on a teacher's high after that. There is nothing so rewarding as teaching something that you love to a younger generation and seeing them "get it". These kids are going to be the next wave of CSUers going to JOs, and I was psyched to have gotten to work with them this early. Now if they can just remember any one thing I've said, we'll be ok...

2 comments:

Christopher Tassava said...

Coaching (at least with receptive audiences) sounds almost as much fun as skiing and racing. What, I must ask, were the two things you told 'em?

Alex said...

I think I told them three things. Keep their feet together when they double pole (they were sliding one foot way out front, which is sort of cheating since then you don't have your hips forwards), look down when they pole (to engage the abs), and bring their hands up higher. There was more, too, but I've forgotten...