Magic Coaching

This is an article about getting better. Whether you are coaching or being coached, you are reading this magazine so this probably fits well within your personal agenda. Improving one’s bowling is a tricky process. Effectively helping someone else to do this is beyond tricky…it’s amazing.

There is a technology to the coaching side of change, but few break it down. Every coach wants to help their players to be great, but it is a rare and special thing when both a coach and an athlete are willing to do what it takes to become exceptional.

“Science you don’t know looks like magic.”
—Christopher Moore

Rarer still is the existence of a coach/student relationship that allows any athlete to reach maximum potential. Your students want to get better. You, as a coach, want to get them there. Here is an odd question – If everyone wants to get better, how come so few players are willing to change…anything? And if we really look, the same question may be asked of us coaches as well.

One-shot coaching

In the mythology of coaching and sports psychology, if you just give away enough information, the bowler should get better. If this was in fact true, all one would have to do is read one of the fine coaching books available or any/many of the awesome articles in Bowling This Month.

You could set up some sessions with one of the master coaches in your area. That is a good bet. The up-side of this is that you are quite likely to get some tips, feedback, and teaching that will improve your game. The down-side is that no single tip or piece of coaching help generally lasts for long.

One-shot coaching can help for sure, but true transformation as a bowler takes time, repetition, and often an ongoing coaching relationship. Good coaches know the game. Great coaches can spot nuances that lead them ...