SimonHarlingBlog Posts

If you did what you told others to do. What would change?

Authority is a specific position occupied within an organisation. An organisation that has influence over the way you do things. Legitimacy is the right and acceptance of authority.

Authority without legitimacy is like a punch without power. You can keep throwing it. But at some point, people are going to notice that nothing much is happening.

The term “grassroots” means to gather everyone up at a local level and create change at a national level. Yet, sport is run at a national level, top-down, in an attempt to create change at a local level. The opposite of grassroots. 

Maybe you think the term  “grassroots” can also mean “foundational” or “developmental” and that a misunderstanding about terms doesn’t matter. So let me give you an example. 

If I am going to develop a plot of land I want to know what I can build and at what cost. If am going to put down a foundation on a plot of land, I want to know what I can build on that foundation, the dimensions, specifications, and cost. 

Whenever we put down a foundation or we develop something we want to know what we are getting and at what cost. Grassroots movements care about creating change. The cost matters less than the change.

The terms we use. The questions we use. The conversations we have about what we do. It all matters. 

At a grassroots level, If we care about increasing participation then let’s talk about how we increase the number of people participating

If we care about development let’s talk about the development plans we have, what we get, and at what cost. 

And if winning is all we are really worried about then let’s only talk to each other when we want to organise fixtures. 

It once attracted your attention and because you craved it, you changed your behaviour to get it. Now it goes unnoticed but the behaviour remains the same.

To improve control manipulate your surroundings.

You can find my Atomic Habit book notes here

It is clear that more coaches are asking for mentors. What is not clear is where the coach expects to go.

Any road will do if you don’t know where you are going.

So here is a suggestion.

Write to 3 very different people whom you admire within the industry. For each cover the following.

What you are looking for

What type of help you would like from them

The outcome that you seek

When asking for a lift being on the right road is helpful, knowing where you want to go, is better.

I took my desk-bound, screen-watching, teenage nephew out on his mountain bike.

2.5 hours later I returned him to his worried mother.

Kids are not broken. They don’t need fixing.

Kids are capable, durable, and above all fun to be around.

We just need to make the time.

Props to Mountain View Bike Park. We need more places like this where kids can go and be themselves.

Hard on the outside and soft in the middle.

Being clear on what is nonnegotiable creates a strong force field. While on the inside letting go of what requires control provides the space to play.

Of course, you could try appearing soft on the outside, while quietly seething on the inside.

The boiling frog story goes like this. Put a frog in boiling water and it will jump out. Use tepid water brought to a boil and the frog stays put.

When the situation changes, but slowly, if we are not paying attention, we don’t notice until it’s too late.

The good news is that changing locations is a natural thermoregulation response for frogs.

You know what to do if you want to be as smart as a frog. Pay attention to your surroundings.

What comes easily to you?

What could you drop that would not change what you do?  

Under what conditions do you get the best out of yourself?

What is essential in what you do?

Would people miss what you do?

Related to education and scholarship

Not of practical relevance; of only theoretical interest. 

Courtesy of Oxford Languages. 

Here are a few questions a coach should ask before attending a conference, event or talk. 

Who is benefiting? 

How does it help me?

Who is it for?

The Athletic Kids Conference has no panel of experts. Just coaches like you, meeting, connecting, and working to figure out how to take your next best step forward.

Let’s get to work.

Small-sided games are very forgiving. No time to sulk or overthink it. If your first touch was bad, maybe your second touch will be better. Opportunities to correct your mistakes come thick and fast.

The opposite of standing out on the wing, waiting to fluff the only chance you will get all game.

36 days to find a new rental property.

2 more stories to finish your book.

£1000 to hit your income target for the month. 

Nothing wrong with a deadline, it can tell you where you are just don’t confuse it with what you stand for and how you want to show up.

Shoulders back.

If you put a bunch of strength and conditioning coaches in a room it’s not long before the conversation turns to bargains and trade off’s.  

“Pre-season is 6 weeks long and aerobic conditioning requires longer than that to make a significant difference. “

“Racket sports players show up for 2 weeks blocks of fitness training, at a time, which is never long enough.”

And so it goes on. 

The job of the strength and conditioning coach is to understand the principles of strength and conditioning. A way of understanding the forces that might be at work when applying training doses without consideration for social conventions.

The alternative is to dose the training to fit social conventions. A rather “Hobbesian Bargain“. In exchange for protection, peace, and stability (income) we confer our rights and freedoms (obedience) to the client.

We imagine our bargain to be time versus the desired effect. “If I had more time then I could produce a bigger effect”. But the bargain is much more than that. It is the freedom to think.

After all, caution will get you nowhere. 

When we capitalise it, in marker pen, using large writing, it feels good. Like we are shouting it out for others to hear. 

And yet writing BOLD every day in a journal means that at some point soon, the desired effect will wear off. In fact, it was unlikely to have ever paid off. 

To move intentional statements to action. Try this small step. 

Before your marker pen runs out and the novelty wears off, share it with someone. That way, you have done another bold thing. From your head to paper and now the world. 

Be. Do. Say.

Define it.

Do it.

Talk about it.

To become bold we first need to begin by doing bold things.

“White middle-aged white men are dinosaurs.”

Dinosaurs once ruled the school with a brain about the size of a walnut. 

Being inflexible, slow, and entitled might be on brand but it’s not helping the cause.

The four stages of competence model, used by psychologists to help explain stages of skill acquisition is helpful.

Unconscious Incompetence. The equivalent of cold calling. The value of your idea, skill, or task is unknown. With kids and novice learners this is a problem. 

But problems have solutions. 

Broadly speaking coaches show up using one of 3 strategies:

Prestige; “Take my word for it”. The hope is that your clients are star-struck and will follow you’re every word.

Dominance; “You have to do it or else.” Compliance. Bullying is a proven strategy but that doesn’t make it right.  

Principled; This approach can be slow, chaotic, and requires an understanding of the creative process.

Here is a simple way to think about it. 

A Fundamental Movement skill for kids is jumping and landing. To improve the skill of jumping and landing it would be reasonable to offer kids the task of skipping. 

Watch what happens when you leave a pile of skipping ropes on the floor during practise. Some kids will pick them up and excel, a few might try and get bored. The rest will show no interest. 

Now you could tell them all to skip for 5 minutes before practise starts. But what happens when you are not watching? The chances are the status quo returns. The kids who love to explore and are curious will play. The rest do something else. 

Nothing really changes. 

To move from Unconscious Incompetence to Conscious Competence is dependent on the stimuli to learn. Fear, status, and a curious environment are all options. A well-drilled team can look like success but a kid who can think for themselves might just be a better moonshot. 

Perhaps a better question might be. How do I get them to care?

Try the skipping rope test

Resources that might help

What do you focus on?

Qualifications
Experience
The sport or activity
The values of the program

Here are some links that might help

Centric

An example not a challenge

Skills come out of necessity

Click here for the podcast mentioned in the skit

What do you think when you see kids on social media videos using battling ropes in gym classes?

If you think it’s better than nothing. Here are 3 resources to come off the fence.

And if you are a youth coach. What is behind the answer you give to the question?

What do I want people to see?

The bar is set very low. We want kids to be active. Perhaps with better questions and honest answers we can do better.

The culture of MORE in coaching.

More clients
More qualifications
More income

Perhaps there is a better way. A culture where you feel you can belong.

What better way to do that than to create it yourself?

Links that might help

Getting out of your own way is to recognise the doubts you have and do it anyway. But that doesn’t happen as often as we would like. 

The mechanism of choice when choosing a new student council, a coach for the village team, or just about any other elected position is based on popularity. And that means that we don’t get who we need for the job at hand we get the most popular. The prize is not the chance to do the work but the chance to elevate status. 

What would change if the coach of the local football team was chosen via a lottery? 

Choosing to wing it or the secret sauce approach would no longer be an option. Coaching mentorship and peer group support would support the coach, driven by the change they create not the qualification they hold. And of course, the players move from passive to active, since they carry the culture through the age groups. 

When we hold status we fear losing it. The more qualification you have the more entitled you feel. Perhaps it’s time to create a system where the only currency is the change we create. 

Are you willing to change? If not perhaps you are in the way. 

Thank you to Malcolm Gladwell for bringing my attention to the idea

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-powerball-revolution

Asking anyone to trust the process, is like asking someone to trust in magic. Of course, you don’t trust magic, why would you? After all, it’s an illusion, a mind trick. 

Can you remember the last time you made an elephant disappear?

Forget the processes that are well-trodden paths of compliance. I’m talking about following a process that has no fixed outcome. A process that provides value, often in an intangible, unmeasurable way. In a way that makes you feel good about what you do and who you are. 

Just like magic, you can’t fully trust it, but you must fully buy into it for it to work.

When Derek Sivers sent an email out to CD Baby’s 2 million customers a misunderstanding cost a week’s worth of labour to explain the mistake. 

Berating kids that can’t jump over hurdles is one way to ensure they pay attention. 

If you want to stop doing something increase the pain that you feel. 

Increasing participation and physical activity levels might not be a simple problem. But making activities a satisfying experience is a good start.

If you are a football coach who plays a 3,2,1 formation then let the kids play a 1,2,3 formation. That way you can explore your fears and they can explore a new way of playing.

Go!

Fasting is easier than dieting because it removes all your choices.

Diets work because they restrict choice and calories not because cavemen ate that way, purple is a magic colour or olive oil is the elixir of life.

I’m sure you are ahead of me. If you don’t trust yourself to make a good choice. Don’t give yourself a choice. Make it disappear.

When we need you to come to football practice we are much more likely to try to control the outcome. Compliance.

When we want you to come to football practice there is room for choice. Flexibility. 

The choices we make reflect our motives.

Here is my note that I’ll be sending to all the parents of my u10 and 11’s teams for the coming season. I want to give coaches, parents, and players the choice not to choose my approach. Flexibility. 

It’s an expansion on my second coaching principle of last season.

#1 I don’t care who wins. I do care that my kids compete for and with each other.

#2 I don’t care about the better players getting more game time. I do care that each kid gets the same amount of playing time.

#3. I don’t care that my best players play out of position. I do care that all my players play in every position on the pitch.

I want you to come to training. I don’t need you to come to training. 

All my players are treated equally. No preference is given to any player because of attendance or lack of attendance to training or previous matches. The end result is always the same. Each player will get the same amount of playing time. 

How it works:

If there are too many players to make 7 v 7 work, I’ll ask the other coach to make up teams of 5 v 5 or similar. I’ll always look to reduce the number of players, never increase, to help each player get time on the ball. 

The alternative is to have lots of players standing on the sidelines, lost in large-sided games, or picking only the players who came to training last week. 

I want you to make a choice to come to football. The flip side is not wanting to come to every match or practise. Provided you turn up when you say you are going to turn up, there will never be a problem.  

The main goal is to give you all an equal opportunity to play football. I hope we can all stay flexible to that goal.

You might miss an appointment because you regret making it and now you haven’t got the guts to cancel.

Maybe you think that your time is more important than the person who is waiting for you. 

Or you simply forgot.

To navigate the issue of no-shows. Contracts can have late charges and penalties built in to protect both sides from buyer’s remorse, reneged promises, and misinformation.

In the service industry deposits are more common, and they work. The fear with deposits is the creation of an entry barrier for walk-in and new customers and a difficult moment for the usually loyal who have slipped up. 

At the heart of the problem is entitlement and it isn’t very helpful. In the end, it comes down to a choice. Take a little loss, punish everyone or seek to understand each other with an honest conversation about expectations. 

If you cared would you be there?

To get more people up on their feet and dancing it’s tempting to think that it’s on you to become a better dancer. That the best version of you will amplify the signal that you are worth following.

But that is not the case,

The best signal you can send is that anyone can do it, that you are welcome to try, and that it might just be fun.

Are you asking? Then I’m dancing!

People sing in the shower but never on stage.

We encourage kids to play multiple sports not because kicking a football is the same as playing a drop shot. But because the kid who can do both has movement options.

What a kid does with that potential is on them.

If you find yourself looking to see what you can add, not take away, you are at the beginning of the journey.

For context and confusion, I’ve added a new coaching principle (#2) that might just have taken many others away.

1, The body is sensory

2. The numbers matter less than the emotions attached to them

The magic numbers are 2,500Kcal, 8,000kg lifted and 10,000 steps now go, and remember consistency is the key. Make those numbers happen and let the magic do its thing.

On the flip side of obsession with numbers is acceptance, a willingness to learn, and emotional control.

It’s worth remembering that there are two sides to every story, neither is magical, and both require honesty, but only one of them contains all the barriers to change.

Anxious that my eldest daughter couldn’t swim more than a length before entering secondary school, we joined a fancy gym with a pool. 

In the space between predicting the future and letting go of the progress we expect to see, we swim. 

Summer holidays are a time to play, who knew as a parent it would be mostly with your emotions. 

A breakthrough moment. New information that changes everything. In an instant, the direction of travel changes. 

I had one of those moments, a few weeks back. Over the course of the day, researching content, it became too clear to me, at least, that “I could and should” change direction. 

At the time I was reading The Manifesto Handbook 95 theses on an incendiary form by Julian Hanna. The book did what had promised to do. It lit my fire, it made me feel the change that I wanted to create was the change that I could and should bring to the table. 

New information might start the fire but how it makes you feel is the fuel that keeps it burning.

At Christmas when I was a kid, we played the tray game. Someone would go out of the room, place 10-15 household objects on a tray and bring it back into the room. The winner was the person with the largest recall of the items on the tray.

Active recall is a helpful skill when recalling information without a specific cue. But rarely is the challenge the amount of information. Unless of course, we forget who it is for, where they are at and the change we seek.

One foot in front of the other provides us with forward motion. A chance to get our head down to focus on the task at hand. 

Writing a blog every day is an example of a complete, deliberate outcome that on its own is unlikely to change your world but cumulatively might just change your thinking. 

A reminder that one small step at a time is how it all starts but when we focus on what we can build, create and generate, we shift from a small price to pay to a small win every day.

Steel is real.

No, I’m joking, that’s second. 

Where you look is where you go. That’s first. 

Look at the tree. Hit the tree. Don’t look at the tree.

Instead look for the fast sweeping trail that goes past the tree, way more fun, 

Yes, it’s a metaphor, but it’s also solid advice if you are on a bike heading down a fast descent with a tree waiting for you at the bottom. 

Where you look is where you go, on bikes and in life.

The passion economy is a collective of people swapping what they love to do for money. 

Like any gold rush, the seller of the shovel makes more than the person digging. 

My advice. “How to follow your passion and scale” is not talking to your passion but to your instinct to make something of yourself. 

Instincts are helpful when you fall but less helpful when they are telling you to make something of yourself. 

Buyer beware. Use both your heart and your head.

Such an odd statement don’t you think?

It’s the least that I can do, but it is the thing I am most willing to do it. 

The principle of least effort is broadly speaking about the path of least resistance. We are willing to do it provided it makes us feel good and it is easy to do. 

This brings me to a question. 

To keep doing the thing you really want to do. What is the smallest step you can take?

Seth Godin describes the minimum viable audience as “ the smallest group of clients that can sustain you in your work.”

The smallest viable audience doesn’t protect us from failure but it might mean we don’t have to sell out. Selling out is the last rung on the ladder of human hope, not failure. So why worry about failure when you could be selling out.

It’s the least we can do.

It helps ideas move quickly.

When Chris Anderson popularised the long tail you can hear his talk here the opportunity was for the aggregator, not the creative. 

The aggregator provides the platform for the creative, curating content often with no setup costs to the creator. Udemmy is an example of an aggregator.

The trap was to think that was the end of the story. Digital marketplaces are huge and creators get crowded out. Attention can be expensive. 

Nothing has really changed. Those who want to create, create and the best way to reduce costs is still to improve the quality of what we do.

I learned a version of shorthand at University to survive in Organic Chemistry lectures.

The abbreviation cf is short for compare. 

Steven King writes around 6 pages, 1000 words a day

The rookie mistake is to get your head up and take a look at where you are in the world (just in case it turns out you are world-class). What comes back is usually a disappointment. But we do it anyway. 

That’s interesting because it tells us how little we know about the environment we have just stepped into. 

Comparing yourself to others in a novice writing class might be more helpful.

Compare yourself to 6 months previous might inform you.

Comparison helps us build context and context is only helpful if it helps us make good decisions. 

Comparison is said to be the thief of joy, it might also be a waste of your time.

The idea of giving someone a 2-minute elevator pitch is to help them describe what they do in a  memorable and impactful way. 

A strength coach might want her prospective clients to achieve their physical goals by becoming stronger. 

But stronger than what?

Now

The opposition

Her peer group

Than ever before 

And what if your prospective client feels strong enough already?

So how do you get the right information across?

Write your elevator pitch on a blog, your website, or a CV and it’s passive. People can choose whether or not to engage with your content. And what it means to them. 

Deliver your elevator pitch as intended and it is on you to inspire and engage the audience. An audience that has just found itself in a confined space with little prospect of getting out. Much like a teacher.

But there is another way.  

In my mind, a youth sports coach is someone who holds a space open for kids to explore movement, skills, and relationships with their peer group. 

Ask a kid what they want to achieve and it might change the next time you ask them 

Ask a kid how they will measure their success and most will have no answer.  

Open allows for experiences to inform and for kids to change their minds without judgment.

The task of an elevator pitch is to get clear on what you do and how it works.

But perhaps the real skill is in helping your audience figure out what it means to them.

Dose-response curves allow pharmacologists to see the effect of a drug at a particular dose independent of time. 

What would change, if all that concerned you was how much you did and the effect it had?

Values and principles can help us to communicate our choices and reflect on our outcomes as we collide with the world. 

Maybe it’s why most of us choose not to pour our hearts out. Living with and through your values and principles, in a competitive world, is a true test of the courage of your convictions.

Howard Schultz the creator and current CEO of Starbucks in his book Pour Your Heart Into It describes their approach as one that values dogmatism and flexibility. How much flexibility and how much dogma is not clear. But was is clear, is that the original concept of Starbucks has shifted to meet the needs of today’s consumers.  

Derek Sivers, who grew CD Baby into a $20 million company closes out the book, Anything You Want, with a simple message. “Pay close attention to when you are being real and when you are trying to impress an invisible jury.”

A curious innovator who had excelled at making a perfect world for independent musicians. Derek was happier with 5 employees and happiest when working alone. At the time CD Baby was sold it employed 85 people.

Howard was brave enough to listen. 

Derek cared enough to sell CD Baby having learned that the only obligation you have is to your own happiness. 

There can be no doubt that what we value and believe shapes our view of the world. But not necessarily what we do in the world. To align what we do with what we say, flexibility helps, courage is mandatory.

Until I’m fit enough to go to the gym

In your head, the story might go a bit like this. 

When I’m more successful than I am right now I’ll do the thing that successful people do.

Of course, it’s a trap. Resistance. Friction to your momentum. 

The antidote?

Try consistently doing something that moves you in the general direction you want to go in. 

Be ok with ever-decreasing circles. Continue circling around and around until you are ready to listen to what you actually want to do. 

And when you are ready.

Give yourself permission to live in the gap between success and failure for as long as is necessary. 

I’ve yet to find a magic trick to resistance but I find persistence and a kind spirit to the way you work helps. 

Last night I attended a first aid course. 

Unless the person I am assisting is unconscious the right thing to do is ask them what they want. If they are in pain, their preferred position. And what they want me to do to help. 

Here are the principles I took from the session:

Preserve life. 

Prevent deterioration 

Promote recovery

Take immediate action

Don’t put yourself in danger.

Meet people where they are. Ask. “What can I do to help?”

Avoid getting emotionally involved in their problems.

Be open to getting help

First aid, is a life skill. We would do well to remember the principles. And then apply them to life.

Oh! You can’t do it?

Listen to me. 

Watch what I do.

Now do what I do.

Not getting the hang of it? 

An experience that can leave everyone confused about why it’s not working. And that might just be your experience in sports and physical education. The problem comes when coaches and teachers conflate providing an example worth copying with skills, drills, and content.

But perhaps there is another way.  

Take away your car and you have no option but to walk or ride. 

Remove the TV from the room and you will no longer find yourself lounging on the sofa. 

Hide the chocolate hob nobs at the very back of the cupboard. 

I know I’m cruel. But you get the idea.

Design the environment to the change you seek and the rest will follow. 

Some coaches are failed sports stars, they just didn’t quite make it. So they become a coach. It looks a lot like being a sports star only it carries none of the risks.

I know, I used to get asked for autographs outside football stadiums when I worked in football. And for a while, it was a thrill. Until the boredom of waiting around for others to perform took its toll.

When I came out of football and served individual clients. One of my major failings as a coach was to want it more than the person I was coaching. I took it as a sign of superior commitment. When it was actually, a failure to communicate what was important to me.

As for client failure rates.

Highlight reels ensure reputation damage is minimal since no one is looking that closely. Coach enough people and it’s easy to point at the odd success.

What was really happening? 

In truth, I was hiding, bearing none of the risks. Nonconsequential failure. 

For the father who is dreaming of coaching their daughter to success. The rep counter on the gym floor working their way through the day. And the coach who is plumping the pillow of those he serves.  

The antidote. 

Figure out what you are afraid of doing.

Put yourself on the line. When I created my gym, it was a platform for others. It should have first been a platform for me.

Crawl. Walk. Run. 

Seventeen hamstring pulls in one season might just be a situation. But it is much more likely a problem.

Problems have solutions.

It turns out the Strength Coach in question was using maximal squats prior to sprint training. Either a rather difficult dance between fatigue and potentiation. Or just flat-out confused about the order in which you do things. 

I have a suggestion. 

Writing and coaching/teaching might just be the perfect dance between being and doing. A balance between showing your workings out and living with the order in which you do things. 

Of course, what you share might be wrong. 

But better to be wrong once, than another 16 times before you realise, it might just be too late.

At what point do you stop following and begin to lead? 

Because…..

What you have been following is not working.

What you wanted is not what you have got.

The situation you are in gives you no other option. 

The answer is always the same. When you have to. 

Rather than wonder if you are a natural leader. Maybe a better question might be. 

Under what conditions are you ready to lead?

Mapping out success is not like mapping out the London Underground. Straight lines and regular stops. Success just doesn’t travel that way.

And that makes giving feedback hard.

How do you know when it’s working?

The temptation is to control the direction of travel. And that works on the underground, but not so much on people.

What really separates people from trains, tracks, and maps, is the ability to accept that we can move in a general direction of travel.

Plans and goals may provide direction of travel. Timelines and other constraints might well keep us on track. But “what if” keeps us flexible.

A library is not the right place.

Shouting down the social media rabbit hole will get it off your chest but is unlikely to be helpful.

Giving feedback is a skill and unless your group, collective, or organisation are good at it, (it’s unlikely that they are), they won’t be much help either. 

I can think of three types of thinking out loud. 

Screaming to be heard.

Pushing an idea around.

Pulling an idea down. 

Knowing which type of thinking you are engaged with might just change what you do.

On reflection, one helps you review the order in which you put things the other not so much.

“As he faced the sun he cast no shadow.” Oasis 

Far better to turn around, face your shadow, and dance with it.

If it were easy everyone would do it. 

And that’s true if it’s obvious what we should do. 

Prof Matthias Lochmann changed how German Football approaches youth development by counting the number of touches a player has with a ball using a handheld clicker. 

Easy is not the same as obvious.

A coaching friend of mine has been feeling overwhelmed and under-committed. 

There are not enough hours in the day.

In chaotic, complex situations, constraints enable creativity. They buy time. 

If you only had two hours in which to work a day. What would you do?

The way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things. A tendency to act in a certain way. 

One way to adapt very quickly is to monitor the disposition of successful groups that work in your field. Once matched for constraints. The only thing left to do is shine a light on what works.

It’s that simple.

Creating change is hard. Harder still when we can’t see it.  

Radiologists are trained to look.

When asked to review a set of slides for cancerous nodules, 83% of the radiologists sampled missed a picture of a gorilla, 48X times larger than the average cancerous nodule, superimposed on their last slide.

You are not looking for hairy gorillas when you are trained to look for cancerous nodules,

Send your kid to a football camp and the coaches are trained to develop technical football skills. Coaches who are trained to see technical skills, look for technical issues to fix. Making it hard to see the physical and psychological mix that helps kids develop in full.  

It is tempting to simplify the challenge and fix it. Teach coaches another skill, add another responsibility, and produce another process. You only have to look at job recruitment posts to see how that plays outs.

But, that would be missing the point. Change is not easy exactly because it is owned by the majority but driven by the minority. In this example, only 17% of the radiologists saw something different.

Before coaches learn to take on specialist skills. Perhaps, it is time to first teach coaches to be open, curious, and experimental in their approach. After all, isn’t that what we ask of the recipients of coaching.

Are you willing to change?

Perhaps you are a team leader, a coach, or a teacher, and dealing with people’s problems is what you do. 

They can’t see it.

Maybe they don’t care.

And that’s your problem. 

It can change how you show up, it changes the focus of your work, and it can weigh you down. 

People change when they are ready. Which might be never. And that is not your problem.

Far better to change the environment and play, don’t you think?

More and more coaches are turning to social media to help them design training sessions. 

This might be a good time to remind ourselves about one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. 

Social media is designed to create connection, not context.

Content gets your attention. 

Context focuses your attention.

Perhaps it’s time to connect with coaches who like you want to focus on what actually matters. You can register your interest in the Athletic Kids Conference here.

In 2001, the year my daughter Ellie was born, I completed the Tour Divide in 27 days. Canada to Mexico, 2700 miles, unsupported, on a mountain bike. Cycling through British Columbia, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico traversing the Rocky mountains.

From the snow pushes of Montana to the hot desert of New Mexico, the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest over 10 times. Ask a local where the nearest town was, and they would often say, “it’s downhill all the way.”

Maybe they thought I needed some good news.

It is said that if you can get out of Montana you will make it through the Tour Divide. Each year, less than 60% of those who enter will finish. Most bail in Montana, but not all. I was with one cyclist when he decided to quit. We had spent the day cycling through the mud in Wyoming, continually washing our bikes off in the nearby stream just to make a few miles.

It was not hard to see, why he quit. My friend for the day was the stronger cyclist, but things had not gone his way, he expected to be much further up the track. But, he wasn’t. Progress had been too slow, and the prospect of the trail ahead no longer held him together. So he quit.

My progress had not been smooth either. But every so often, I had a small win, something that told me, I could and should keep going. 

Riding 80 miles on a ripped tyre that I had Macgyvered was proof I could adapt

Getting out of Montana felt like a landmark.

Riding solo for 4 days was tough but it showed me I was mentally strong enough.

Soaking up the big climbs in Colorado, I knew I had it in my legs.

The difference between me and the cyclists that quit was that I was growing in confidence, they were not. 

Any journey of discovery is much the same. Regular wins that somehow signpost you to success are not reality. But take a win at random, collect it as evidence and use it against any doubt you may have. And you are in with a chance.

Tour Divide Profile Image

We could but we choose not to.  

Strawberries are no longer seasonal. It used to be that the cost was too high or the availability was just not there. The market fixed that. 

Sport so is no longer seasonal. 

We can’t blame the market. After all, it is our choice. The market simply puts the item in front of us and asks the question. Do you want to buy it?

If we want kids to be active, healthy, and curious we need to help them make better choices. Not the same one, over and over again. 

Who do we think they are going to learn from?

Define it. Do it. Live with it. Repeat until successful.

To help people relate, we often compare the thing we are selling, to something we already know. 

It’s like that only it will help you with this.

Making Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) relatable to sport is one such example. 

“A squat is like the set up in a golf swing and it will help you generate more power.”

When sport is at the centre all else revolves around it. Sports scientists are guilty of selling Fundamental Movement Skills into sports like a bad timeshare salesman. But that is a distraction to the real issue of the day.

Article 3 of the UNICEF’S Convention on the rights of children. “The best interest of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect the child.”

Fundamental Movement Skills are fundamental to humanising. Sports skills are not.

To help you realign your priorities. Know how much time a child in your care spends developing their movement vocabulary through play.

Every child gets only one childhood. We need to respect their time. Not exploit it.

We all come across situations that require more. More time, more money, more people. When we put more resources behind it, we get more of what we want. Whether you start, from a place of plenty or a place of poverty, the thinking is the same. We all wish for more.

Like the kid running down a steep hill whose face has changed. Wanting change is not the same as creating change. Be clear on what you wish for.

Questions for when you are in a rush to get where you are going. 

What is this about in 3 sentences or less?

Why you?

Why do we need it?

What do you plan to do with it?  

What will happen if you don’t get it?

What will happen if we don’t get it?

1 in 4 kids in Wales is obese.

If obesity didn’t come with significant risk factors I doubt many would care. But it does. And it costs society a lot of money not to fix the problem, but to manage it. 

One of the ways we manage the problem is to encourage activity which in turn improves health. But when we are stuck in our ways as we clearly are, maybe there is something that is needed before activity and health. A skill that transcends activity and health, I’d argue that skill is curiosity. 

The curious ask, “what else can I do?”  Curiosity gets you off the sofa and out exploring. Curiosity gets you eating things that are different, and just maybe not in a packet.

I’m launching the Athletic Kids Conference. A live online conference for teachers, parents, and coaches who want to raise active, healthy, and curious kids. You can register your interest here. 

It is not a conference with experts, opinions, and best practise. 

It is a place to meet others who like you want to create change. 

I look forward to joining you there. 

I once thought everyday athlete was a cool title for a project. But it wasn’t. The people it was aimed at helping thought it made them sound bland.

Everyday value, suggests it won’t cost you much but that’s ok because you are not expecting much.

Everyday is bland, monotonous, and not much fun.

I write every day and someday I don’t think I can do it.

The kids ride to school every day, it rains, often it’s dark, and too many motorists are inconsiderate and mean.

Yet, every day, we can, if we choose to see it, consider the payoff and its value.

Active, resilient kids.

A body of work.

And sometimes, every day, not every other Tuesday or when you feel like it, is extraordinary. 

Thank you to Lily, Sara, and Dyfydd from the BBC. We had a lot of fun filming our family bike story in the sun yesterday.

Has anything been more important?

Stuck in the middle between bored students and a university that needs bums on seats. 

The edge that made your project worthwhile rounded off in a meeting room.

Working for a group that prefers the powers of telepathy to the skill of communication.

Sure there is the hustle of the side gig. But, the side project is a chance to change the culture. How things are done. Without, waiting for the green light from inside a room.

If you whinge twice about the lack of progress in work, at university, or at the club you work at. Well, the third time, just maybe it’s time to actually get out of the box.

Think small, act big.

It can happen to you. 

Or it can happen for you. 

When I was younger I was involved in a near-fatal RTA while out running. I went traveling to figure out what to do next since every day thereafter was a bonus. 

Some twenty years later, I experienced another instant life-changing experience. Only this time, it happened to me and for me.

The difference?

The one, well that was on someone else, it happened to me. At least that is what I thought.

The other, in time, became an invitation to grow, and take on skills that were missing, so as not to go back.

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone. Except maybe those who want to grow.

The closer one gets the clearer the sound becomes. Move further away and you move out of earshot. 

Of course, you could amplify the sound to attract more people but that risks distorting it.   

Leave it and your most important task, your only task. is to turn up each day and delight those who love the sound as much as you.  

We have the time. The trap is to think we don’t.

The kid with all the skills is easy to see. 

Young technically proficient kids, win a lot when the others are not as well drilled. And that casts another vote towards the expertise of the sport-specific technical coach. Day after day she is reminded that she knows what she is doing.

And because there are enough kids to point towards and say “that was me.” Some success is enough to continue to breed. Survival bias.

Here is how we have fallen into the trap. A positive feedback loop of sport-specific technical coaching. The foundation of sport in this country.

It’s obvious to see the technically proficient kid.

It’s desirable.

It’s easy, just follow the others.

And if you win, you tell the others. 

And yet, technical and tactical sport-specific success is not breeding success anywhere else in the community. Far from it.

The answer lies in the definition of success. 

Not a skewed definition of success. But a more well-rounded definition. A definition that serves the community, for the many, not the few.

A mentor who doesn’t have the experience you require is not as helpful as a network of people who have done what you want to do.

An informational coach is not as helpful as a storyteller when you want to initiate change. 

A friend who allows you to offload is not as helpful as a motivational coach when you want to keep your engine running and stay in the game. 

A storyteller is not as helpful as a transformational coach when you have an honesty problem.

I hope you weren’t expecting the answer. But here is the point. 

If you find yourself misunderstood, don’t redesign the label, work harder on the message.

Standing with the fridge door open “I’m bored.”

Stressed and anxious “I’m fidgetting.”

Working too hard to impress (self or others) at the gym “I’m breathing through my mouth.”

Calling it out because we want to get better. Improve how we do things. That’s not hypocritical because we are working towards something that may never be perfect. 

But calling it out when it suits. That’s for attention, not to resolve the issue.

Take my kids to a restaurant and the chances are they will order pizza or spaghetti bolognese.   

When I ask the kids I coach to show me different ways to get from A to B by jumping, rolling, or running. I might get a few different options, but not many. 

I could choose to get furious or passive that my kids don’t choose something other than pizza. The alternative is to encourage them to try something else, and if they don’t like it, I’ll eat it. 

When I coach my kids I like to show them a few different options and then create a game, where they can try applying their new jumps, rolls, and running styles. 

If we want our kids to develop a comprehensive movement vocabulary, we need to keep going back to the table to try again. Over time, with persistence, an open mind, and a sense of adventure, it is possible, that the vocabulary of our kids will expand to include new tastes, movements, and experiences. 

We could wait until they are a little bit older, and wiser, and try again. Only, the time has passed. Our kids know what they like and what they don’t like, in their world at least, and now it’s even harder. 

Since everyone missed practise.

I’ve lost count of the number of different ways we have tried to get the kids to eat vegetables. When we wanted our kids to eat spinach we hide it in their eggs in the morning. And that worked for a while.

Then we made a spinach curry and the rest was history. 

Lesson learned.

The issue was not the spinach. The issue is what we did with the spinach.

Hype can validate your existence. 

But for the hype to create change, it has to be true. And that requires validation.

Validation is the act of proving that it is right, or accurate.

Not to be confused with thinking you’re a right, wanting to be right, or thinking it’s your right. 

If the change is worthwhile, the hype will come. 

Create change, not hype.

Design from the top down and it is tempting to focus on features and ease of use. 

Work from the bottom up and design comes with feeling. After all. Why else would you continue if it didn’t make you feel good?

It was youth football, kids kicking a football around, But not anymore. Now it’s “grassroots” football.

I’m not sure when it changed, or why it changed, but it did.

Grassroots, is to gather everyone up at a local level and create change at a national level.

Odd then that the change in name to “grassroots” has occurred at a national level, to create change at a local level. 

You couldn’t make it up. Could you?

A salmon swims upstream to spawn.

Endless pools help swimmers produce a stroke that is more efficient.

Going against the tide can make you stronger, and give you insight. But perhaps it’s most useful when it provides purpose.

In or at the centre. When there is nothing else to do but focus on the centre, whatever that may be, then you are “centric”. At the heart of all that matters.

I’ve been coaching for 20 years plus and not once has anyone asked me what I do. Not in any great detail at least.

I’m also a parent and again nobody has asked me what we do with our kids or told me what they do when they have them in school, at clubs or in activities, week in week, in any great detail.  

Which is odd. It’s odd because we are living in a world that is “child-centric”, kids are at the centre of what we do as parents, teachers, and coaches. And you would think that we would all want to know what the other was doing, for redundancy, for gaps, for progress or to find out where we are stuck.

But perhaps the friction is to do with the word “audit”. A word most of us turn away from. We might want to know the good stuff, but the signal that something is missing might not be worth the risk. Not, now, maybe later, likely never. 

Our intent brings us full circle, back to the word “centric”. If we are truly child-centric then we would want to know, right?

“Until we make the unconscious, conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Carl Jung. 

The upside, of any audit, is awareness. To move from unconscious to conscious. The downside is the risk, that you have done something wrong, and that can be hard to ignore. 

So, let’s make a deal. No judgment. It gets in the way, and besides, as you will see from the Athletic Skills Audit, it’s an unrealistic position, to begin with. No one person can do everything, so relax. 

Here is what I want you to do.

Take the Athletic Skills Audit and talk about it amongst teachers, coaches, and other key people who are involved with your kids. Ask them to contribute, details on how to fill out the audit are on included. Share the findings with everyone involved. 

The real upside to all of this is, that I’m sure you are already there, connection. A way to start a conversation about the best way forward. With the question. How do we raise active, healthy, and curious kids? At the centre of that conversation.

I write to help coaches, teachers, and parents commit to what is important to them. 

Let me tell you a story about my two kids that might help.

My eldest is quiet, unassertive, and happy to go along for the ride. My youngest is on the fake it till you make it tip, and it works often enough, for now at least. 

The eldest has on her wall “I will speak even if my voice shakes.”

The youngest. “Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.”

In reality, my eldest says very little and occasionally erupts at her little sister when it’s not going to plan. And the younger is too busy being angry every time it doesn’t come off to learn very much at all. 

Nothing really worked. The journaling. Not even the long life lessons from dad. 

Until we started to introduce the idea of the eldest asking questions. Rather than “I want” or “ I feel” it was about asking a question. The eldest had an idea about what she wanted or how she felt but was not ready to verbalise it. Easier to begin with a question. 

The youngest now had someone who challenged her thinking.

And here is my point.

Whether we are on a fake til we make it tip or happy to follow someone else. If we are happy to accept that we are products of our environment. The smart move is to speak up, learn to accept the challenge, and begin to explore. 

Here are some edges for you to explore with your kids, partner, teachers, and coaches. 

Sport Specific Skills – Functional Movement Skills

Uncontested – Contested

Niche – Developed 

Fast – Slow

Chaos – Control

Success – Failure

Simple – Complex

Follow – Lead

Safe – Unsafe

Certain – Uncertain

Engaged – Compliant 

Self-Paced – Timed

In Sync – Out of Sync

Isolation – Collaboration

Strength  – Endurance

Stiff – Flexible

Mobile – Stuck

Accurate – Inaccurate 

Begin by asking questions, it might just be the easiest place to start. And then in time learn to ask better ones. 

After all, anyone who cares about what they do loves to talk about what they do.

The alternative is to pretend to know or just not say.

The idea of Supermarket Sweep is to answer riddles and if the answer is correct dash around filling up your shopping trolley with high-value items.

The winner finds the highest value items using the least amount of effort.  

Here is my shopping list for my 9-12-year-old kids football teams. 

Things you might notice:

Some items take longer to complete but no one item is more valuable than the other. 

Not every item is stocked in one shop

Every recipe requires at least one item from each of the 5 sections.  

A communication tool. Shopping lists become useful when more than one person can use them. The work is to pass on the message by making the label clear, you can see this is a work in progress for me by following the links in the shopping list. 

Let me leave you with my own riddle. 

I have the highest value. I cannot be bought, yet I am created.

What am I?

Acting as if you are all in, is not the same as learning what it takes to play all in.

Top sprinters, athletes, and weightlifters have learned what it takes to peak when it matters most. 

Let’s do it all again tomorrow, only next time better. Might just be a better place to begin.

When it doesn’t happen that often, you might be able to count the number of times on one hand. 

My kids taught me this. 

Trace your inhale up your thumb and trace your exhale down the other side of your thumb before holding your breath at the knuckle. Repeat as required.

Last night we sat for a while, mouths closed, tracing our breath as it slowed until we could count it on one hand.

The things you can count on one hand are not always rare, or extraordinary, but often they are.

“The intention is not to move the ball, rather to move the opposition.” Pep Guardiola.

Holding space is the result of good coaching. Players trust the coach enough to stay put despite what appears to be unfolding in front of them. And they trust each other to stay put because each knows what the other needs. 

The space a youth coach holds for her players is less technical but no less important. Because in that space, is the collective doubt that it is not working. A collective of parents, kids, and the coach themselves. 

This is why it makes no sense to me to have novice coaches working with young kids and inexperienced parents.

Good coaches hold the space in which kids need to work. Creating experiences that inform. Bad coaches move when the opposition moves.

James Clear in the book Atomic Habits reminds us to:

Make it obvious

Make it attractive

Make it easy

Make it satisfying

So why are 10-year-olds kids standing on a rugby pitch, out of season, on a grey, wet and cold evening in May listening to a coach explain the optimal position for a jackal? 

The honest answer is that none of them has anything better to do. And that might sound harsh, but what if it was true?

If you want someone to do something different, you just need to make it better than the alternative. 

“Just” is to lever the fear of missing out in your favour. And right now we need to do better, a lot better because JUST is a lot stronger than you think. 

Here is an alternative suggestion. And here is how you create leverage through connection, community and coaching. 

Make it obvious:

Track each kid in your club and see what they do and more importantly see what they don’t do. That way you begin to see the barriers to developing a kid’s movement vocabulary. 

Provide support and connection to the kids who need it most.

Make it attractive

Reward positive behaviour changes with club socks, hats, and shoutouts, helping the kids be seen. And most of all, find ways to support those in the group who are hiding. 

Make it easy

Get the more active parents to facilitate the activities as long as they promise to get out of the way. Bring groups together and invite friends outside of the circle to join in, including the quiet ones,  Be inclusive, and have fun with activities. It might surprise you, and that’s the point. 

Make it satisfying

Encourage positive behaviours by getting the kids to post photos and videos of themselves doing the activities within their groups. And if they don’t want to post photos get them to write in, draw a picture, or tell you about it on a call.

Above all, have fun with it and give your kids something better to do this summer.

The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible by recording one score for each of the 10 activities listed below.  

You have one week to complete the tasks. 

Some tasks will need some practise, and you might find some easier than others. So make sure you plan your week to make sure you give yourself enough time to complete the tasks – good luck. 

Throw, catch, hit and aim: 

Throwing and catching against a wall. This activity gets you 5 points: Throw and catch the ball with your right hand. Now try it with your left. Now try it balancing on your left leg, then on your right leg. Now complete 20 throws using a mixture of the throws you have just practised. 

Another 5 points are on offer if you can take 5 long steps away from the wall and still complete 20 throws and catches without dropping the ball once. 

Jumping and landing:

Not everyone has a skipping rope. But I’m sure we can all find a line to jump over. Find as many ways as you can to jump over a line. For example, try sideways, with wide feet, narrow feet, forwards, backward, twisting, and turning each time you jump. 1 point per day up to a maximum of 7 points.

Running:

10 points if you organise a game of tag or bulldogs with your friends. 

Or you prefer to run on your own. 

Run around the centre circle of a football pitch, clockwise and then anticlockwise 3 times each way. 

Then try starting, stopping, going sideways, backward, fast, and slow as many times as you can in 10 minutes. Use the lines on a football pitch to remind you to do a different style of running each time your feet touch a line. Have fun. 

Kick and shoot:

This activity gets you 5 points: All you need for this game is a wall and a ball. If you play football already, use a tennis ball, if not use a football.

This game is all about building rhythm. Can you complete 20 passes without losing control of the ball? Use only your right foot. Switch and use your left. Finally, alternating right and left feet.

Rolling, ducking, and turning:

How many different types of rolling do you know? 5 points if you can go the width of a sports pitch using different rolls.

Here are 3 to get you started. Pencil roll, forward roll, and teddy bear roll.

Balance and falling:

5 points for finding 3 trees that have fallen down and keeping your balance as you walk the length of the fallen tree. If you fall off, go again, until you make it across without touching the floor. 

There are another 5 points up for grabs, if you create a balance where you are inverted, upside down, it doesn’t need to be a full handstand, get creative, pull some shapes, and use a wall if you don’t have a partner.  

Move and make music:

There will be dance and theatre classes running in your area. Go along and give them a try. 

No access to classes. No problem, music in the garden or a U tube video will be just as much fun. 10 points when your feet find the beat.  

Wave and swing:

Not all parks have monkey bars so this challenge might take some research. Pick up 10 points if you can make it from one end to the other. Not yet? No problem, you get 5 points and now you have something to work on.  

Climbing and scrambling:

Climb 4 different trees for 5 points. The same 5 points are on offer if you go to a bouldering wall. 

Pushing, shoving, and fighting:

Let’s not start a fight with your brother or sister. Instead, get 4 friends or members of the family and have a tug of war match. Best of 3 wins. Don’t forget to tell us how you get on. Good luck. I’d love to know how you get on. You can contact me here.

If we tracked what we did all day like the chores, taking the kids to school, and showing up for work, most if not all of it gets done. But, what about the important stuff? 

And maybe that’s the point. What is important?

It is tempting to create a plan for all the others things we want to do…..taking care of ourselves, connecting with others, and going on an adventure. And when it doesn’t happen we can blame the plan and promise to get better.

Yet, start with a blank piece of paper and a conversation about what is important and you might see a difference. 

Each day you start with a blank piece of paper. Lock in the nonnegotiables (non-negotiable for now at least) and decide the order in which to put the rest. 

Breakfast

Kids to school

A call from the boss

And then 10 press-ups. 

At the end of each day:

What happened?

What was good and bad about your day?

What else you could you have done?

What you would do differently?

Now go again. 

A conversation with yourself, your team, or your partner, sometime in the future about the long list of things that you have yet to do might not be as valuable as the one with a blank piece of paper and the possibility of today.

Dogs chase their tails because they are a bit bored and want to have some fun. How much fun is not obvious, but it keeps them busy. And that’s the point. 

What’s the plan when you catch up with your tail?

Here’s a tool that might help.

When players say they will do your training plan for the offseason they won’t. 

So why is this helpful? 

Because it’s better than thinking your players are lazy or know better, or that they don’t like you. 

Instead, you work with the heuristic and get curious.  

The alternative is to defend what you can improve.

Your choice.

Don’t make training suck. Is great advice for youth coaches.

Tags games work. Playing the sport the kid has signed up for, the same. But what doesn’t work, for many, is relentless practise. 

At a young age, Andre Agassi was hitting 2,500 tennis balls a day. The task and Andre’s skills were clear. The environment, murky. 

Conflate the task with the environment and you too will muddy the water. 

The job of a coach is to engage kids in learning a task that is fun. The work of a coach is to create a learning environment that requires effort, inconvenience, and a willingness to want to improve.

Engage to create change. But know you can get one and not the other.

Who wouldn’t want to create coaching environments that help their kids grow in confidence? 

Here are three common approaches. 

Fake it till you make it approach. 

“I am not confident”/“I am confident”

The least you can do is look like you know what you are doing. And that’s helpful until it’s not. 

Uncontested approach. 

Everything you do is great. 

Until someone else does it better. 

Smoke and mirrors approach. 

I wish my kids would be more confident and communicate.

The coaching equivalent of telling everyone else to take a step back to make it look like you are stepping forward. 

But there is another approach. An approach that doesn’t involve a white coat and a diploma on the wall. 

The nonconsequential failure approach.

What’s the hard part?

What did you try?

What did you do well?

What can you try next time?

You guessed it, coach. Now is not the time to lose your mind. But it is the time to experiment and find a way.

What’s the hard part?

Maybe it was the PE teacher, a Geography teacher, or a coach at your club. Whoever it was, you will recognise the steps taken.

Someone saw you struggling.

For that person to take the time to help you figure out where you were on the task. Two things happened. This task is worth it and so are you.

As a result, you began moving, no longer stuck. Even if you did not know it at the time, deep inside, you wanted to get better. You began to see value in what you were doing, and so did someone else, you began to make it yours. Ownership.

Whoever was helping you made your progress feel like a big deal, to you at least. 

Part of the deal was giving you the space to get frustrated when it didn’t quite go to plan. 

So you kept coming back to get better. Frustration was a price worth paying.

Now you the all-conquering hero are a teacher, coach, or parent with a story to tell. 

But even with all the above steps, there is still one missing ingredient in the recipe. 

Can you guess what it is?

The coach, teacher, and parent wanted you to get curious and try, so they got curious about you. 

Coaching is a mirror. You get what you reflect. Pass it on. 

The Dot

Games are the default option of the youth coach.

Simple. Slow. Easy to understand.

Complex. Fast. Difficult to understand.

Some are more useful than others.

(On the way home from school pick up with his two kids following )

You’re an idiot you don’t belong on the road and you don’t pay road tax (argument spoiler; neither do electric cars).

You’re an idiot, you should get out of the way (argument spoiler; place those most at risk of a collision at the top of the hierarchy. Give way to cyclists and pedestrians).

Don’t bang the roof of my BMW because next time I’m going to send people to get you (argument spoiler; my dad is actually bigger than yours).

Anyway, I looked up the definition of an idiot. An example of an idiot is someone who thinks it’s safe to play in traffic.

So next time you see me on a bike, please be considerate, and drive safely around me and my kids, after all, I’m an idiot.

What kind of football coach would teach a kid to catch? A goalkeeping coach. 

True, but think wider. 

Why would a football coach teach a kid to catch? Because it teaches the kid to track a moving object. And in time, with the right skills in place, move to effect the moving object, in this case, catch it. 

How does a football coach teach a kit to catch? I’m glad you asked.

Next time you see a young kid flinch, duck or turn their back when a football bounces towards their face, think. What kind of football coach teaches a kid to catch? 

Risk slowing down progress. 

Ridicule and humiliation are risk management tools. Ridicule the problem and it is likely that it may just feel less important and go away. For those in the group who are out of synch, humiliation teaches what it looks like when we don’t comply. 

Coaches beware. 

Dynamic tension might not feel like the progress we want but it just might be the progress we need.

I wanted a place for my kids to explore different movements, not worry about getting it right or pleasing their dad but to begin to find their own way.

So I created “The Squat Garden”.

Here are the rules that help my kids explore the squat pattern and shape how I show up, so I don’t get in the way.

Don’t look for the right answer. Do allow yourself to experience different ways to squat.

Don’t compare the different versions of the squat. Do know you will like some more than others. The ones you don’t like are not being mean but they are likely to be trying to teach you something. 

Don’t think you need to do a set number or even do them in order. Do play and be curious. Watch what happens when you change the order in which you do things. Does one squat version make the next version feel easier or harder? 

Don’t hold your breath. Do try inhaling on squatting down and exhaling on coming up and then try it the other way around. Does one make it easier than the other? 

I talk about breath a lot. Here are a few resources that will help. 

Close your mouth

Press up Garden

Teeth and taglines

There are rules to this game

Don’t just do the ones you like. Do try them all and by all means, do more of the ones you like the most. 

And perhaps the most important rule of Squat Garden? Talk about it. Create an information-rich environment for your kids to enjoy. 

Here are the videos my kids made in their very first Squat Garden. Enjoy

Who learns quicker? The kid who wants to hit the skin off the ball. Or the kid who watches and tracks the ball.

Coaching is seen as a way to speed things up. And that might just be confusing for a youth coach. 

Toni Nadal, noticed something different when he threw a ball at his nephew Rafa Nadal. He moved towards the ball, the other kids just stood there. Rafa Nadal was watching, tracking the ball, and then deciding when to move. The others had no decision to make, they just waited. 

The role of a youth coach is to develop context, not speed.

From an early age, we are trained to spot the difference. 

Parents, teachers, and coaches are all trying to do the same thing. Raise, active, healthy, and curious kids. Researchers of Physical Literacy are doing their own thing.

Arguing about the definition, of physical literacy is just one of those things. With a stiff definition of terms, you are rewarded for colouring in between the lines. Open and flexible and it becomes difficult to judge a watercolour against a piece of graffiti. 

We rarely see the value of the creative process. Instead, we reward those who stick between the lines since it’s easier to judge the difference. 

But perhaps the lesson in all of this is simple. 

Who do you serve? Yourself, your peers, or those who are doing the work of trying to develop physical literacy?

Different for different sake is not nearly as useful as explaining the value of what we are doing, in a way that is useful to the others. 

That way maybe we can all join in.