Hey, Amy here.
I went to a boxing tournament over the weekend (which was amazing)...
I was noticing some things about the different coaching styles of the coaches that were there.
For example, one of the coaches was yelling the whole time, he was telling his athlete every single thing that he wanted him to do.
And he was yelling things like "ATTACK!!!" and "RIght hook, right hook, right hook
PLEEEEASE!!!!"
And he even yelled at the opponent when the fight was about to start. He yelled, "You can't win, you won't win!"
He was super angry and loud... my friend and I were kind of chuckling as we watched him. And the opponent's coach was quiet...
And the one with the quiet coach ended up winning.
Then a guy from our gym fought, so my coach was in his corner.
My coach is a very soft spoken guy all the time... but he's one of the best coaches I've ever had, in anything.
Anyway, during the fight, my coach was talking to the kid in between rounds, and he was quiet during the fight. Kind of like the opposite of that other coach that
was directing every move.
But I was so curious what he was telling him, what kind of coaching he was giving him.
Our guy won the fight.
I wanted to know what my coach was saying to the kid during the fight so I asked him afterwards. He said,
"I just told him to focus on jabs and side stepping. Keep it simple."
And I found this to be profound... because it was so different than what we saw the other coach doing... but it worked so well. Just keep it simple.
I don't think it's nearly as effective as a coaching style to micro manage people like that one coach was doing... it's deflating... it makes
people think they can't succeed unless someone tells them exactly what to do.
Plus, it's so much more complicated and confusing when someone's screaming all sorts of commands out... so different than my coach's way of keeping it simple.
My coach doesn't yell anything at all... his coaching style is so empowering.
And, so far, I've never seen him lose a fight, so it obviously works.
And he trains his fighters to treat this like a sport... not to attack and yell
things at the other team. Our fighters treat people with respect, because that's how they are treated.
It's like in the Karate kid, when the one gym had the sensei that taught 'no mercy' and 'sweep the leg' and those boys were all mean in their lives because that's how they were trained to be.
In the end, it doesn't work. It doesn't work in the long run to live like that or to approach our passions like that.
Anyway... there are so many life lessons that we can take away from any good coach... so I loved getting some of these
lessons this weekend, and wanted to share them with you.
