Taking advice/coaching

[Jack Milchanowski]

This has been an interesting thread. Obviously everyone has an opinion just as we all have a nose. I have had the privilege to be around many elite/Olympic coaches of many sports and to be mentored by a couple. All of them had their own strengths and weaknesses. There were two common denominators among them: 1.They never raised their voice to their athletes. 2. Each of them was always positive even in the face of obvious poor performance.

I have learned that a coach does not know how to coach if he/she is yelling at his/her athletes.

Having spent 25 years coaching archery I have some very strong opinions on coaching also. I have had the privilege to coach archers who have set local, state, regional, and national records. I have coached collegiate All Americans. I have had archers who have competed for the United States on international teams. I have also had many archers who have never wanted to keep score. I enjoyed working with each and every one of them over the years.

Mental training was mentioned by a few in the thread. Some seemed to suggest that mental training should not be started until a shooter is capable of shooting over 80%. From my experience I have to disagree. Mental training, I would argue, is more important to be learned by the shooters while they are working their way up as a beginner. The shooter will advance at a faster pace to the 80% level and beyond with proper mental training. The mental training is ingrained and becomes second nature when one reaches a higher level of achievement. Relaxation techniques, goal setting, positive affirmations, and mental training should be taught and, depending on the age of the shooter, fully explained. All of these items also can be applied to normal life/work/school not just shooting. I have taught these items to each of the archers that I have coached. I would teach these techniques to beginners as young as eight years old. With the young ones the training had to be more subtle.

I was a below average archer and soon learned I had no time to practice if I was always coaching so many. Most of the archers I coached could outshoot me easily. I stayed positive all the time. I did not ever criticize. I would never “coach” during a tournament (too late by that time). I taught mental training in one form or another from day one. I tried to make sure they could keep archery fun. Practicing any shooting sport is usually a very lonely proposition. Think how hard it is for a very young teenager. Was I responsible for the great success of several of the archers I coached? I played a small part in their success. I felt as if I was providing a road map for them to follow and they did the hard work.

To accept coaching/advice from only a coach who can shoot higher scores than you is a little naïve in my opinion. You need to have someone who can “coach” and effectively communicate with the athlete.

Sight alignment, sight alignment, and sight alignment.

Come see us in the woods.
Jack

[david alaways]

I dont even think my coach shots! In my 4th competition (the first one he coached me in) he took my score up to 569, If I was to limit myself to only coaches that shot better than me (198 NRA slowfire 22) WHO WOULD COACH ME? When Im around Zurek or Demerest I take FULL advantage of the situation and try to get as much experience from them as I can. B ut its not only them " Shi, Hurt,Morales,Kraft, Russ etc" there are 50 guys out there that maybe with just a sentence have coached me, alot of them have never out shot me! ALOT OF THEM I HAVE NEVER OUTSHOT. next time im around the top 5 shooters I will ask them who coaches them, I will get back to you (I will bet that none of their coaches out shot them)David.

[jackh]

I had a mentor coach 30 some years ago (LTC Miller). Bottom line for me is I coach myself these days, and I always out shoot my coach. My coach talks a lot, but he can't shoot worth sh*t.

[RobStubbs]

Bad information is IMHO destroyed the hopes of many aspiring shooters and allowed the practice of poor techniques to become life long habits that could never be broken. Find a good coach and train with good information and you have a chance of becoming one of the elite shooters we read about.

I tend to agree with pretty much everyone else here. A good coach is a very different beast to a good shooter. Sometimes people can transition well from one to the other, but more often than not they can't.

Taking advice from a poor shot subjects you to incorrect information that , if you practice it long enough may doom you to the marksman class for the rest of your life.

An analogy to your logic above Bill is like saying an expert lab worker when promoted up the scale will make an expert manager. Those of us on the receiving end, know the exact opposite is more often the case.

Rob.

[jackh]

Another thought. Perhaps we are not all on the same page with definitions of "coach" vs "teacher". Or how to shoot vs how to compete.

[david alaways]

I already knew how to shoot , my coach was teaching me how to compete! I know Oz can shoot, but has a problem competeing, Does it take a good shooter to teach you how to compete? usually it takes a confidence builder and more and more experiences. #1 problem with AP &FP not enough experiences(unless u r made of money!......David.

[Spencer]

One interesting aspect to this is the approach that the Chinese were (are?) using.

On day-one a new shooter is assigned an existing club member as a coach/mentor. That coach/mentor generally remains assigned to that shooter for the shooter's career in the sport.

The assigned coach/mentor is responsible for the development of the shooter:
- all the protocols and ettiquite (safety, procedures, etc.)
- the basic techniques
- as the shooter develops, the shooter AND the coach/mentor go to specialist coaches for specific coaching bits
- if the shooter develops to a squad, the coach/mentor goes to the competitions as well (a carrot)

The coach/mentor does not need to be a better shooter: but does steer, guide, cajole, whatever.
The coach/mentor does not need to have a doctorate in the individual areas (technique, grip-making, gunsmithing, physiology, mental aspects, whatever). There are specialist for these.

Spencer

[220]

Thanks for all the replies. Interesting reading, most seem to agree a good coach need not be a good shooter, but must understand what is required to shoot and be able to comunicate this to the shooter, the more experience they have the better.

I can't bring myself to accept Bill's point of view that only elite level competitors make good coaches. If he was suggesting that the rare coach that Steve spoke off who can shoot well/coach well is the ideal given a choice I fully agree.

The Chinese model Spencer raised is interesting as it is similar to the coaching in most professional sports. A head coach and numerous assistants that specialise in specific skills.

[2650 Plus]

Plase remember that I am putting this proposistion forward my own point if view, and my experience may not be the same as yours. My first coach was K.P. Dunn. We shot our first 2600 on the same day at a match in Oklahoma. Next was Blankenship,TD Smith, Frank Green,Hershel Anderson, Hulet Benner. There were some "Pretend type coaches " along the way but little or no benefit was derived from them.If you have had good help fron the less experienced shooter / coaches along the way, thats great. Knowledge may come from anywhere, but the best seems to come from those who have been there and done that. That is the point I am making and I am certain that the point is valid. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[robf]

I suppose this means that if your the worst shot in the world everyone's advice is valid...

[jackh]

Bill you are indeed right in a certain perspective. I mean like jackh could never ever improve the shooting of Blankenship, or Anderson. JackH wishes they would coach jackh.

Coaching takes different forms. Tom Lasorda teaches and runs a team, but he was not the greatest player. Lasorda is a great teacher and motivator. That's one kind. A help session from Blankenship would be another.

[2650 Plus]

To RobF, Any advice is just fine for the worst shot in the world so long as the worst shot is happy with his / her performance level. This worst shot needs to find someone with a knowledge of the fundamentals that can adaquetly explain them if the shooter ever decides to make the effort to improve. Have you any more nits to pick ? Good Shooting Bill Horton

[David Levene]

Knowledge may come from anywhere, but the best seems to come from those who have been there and done that. That is the point I am making and I am certain that the point is valid.

You do appear to have changed your stance on this Bill.

Instead of saying that poor shots give incorrect information you are now saying that good shots can give good information; two totally different positions.

As to whether the best knowledge "seems to come from those who have been there and done that", that may be your experience but it isn't necessarily true.

[RobStubbs]

Knowledge may come from anywhere, but the best seems to come from those who have been there and done that. That is the point I am making and I am certain that the point is valid. Good Shooting Bill Horton

I would go further than David and suggest that the best information doesn't come from someone who's been there and done it. As I mentioned previously there's a massive difference being able to shoot well and being able to coach / teach someone else how to do it. As a very simple observation; world class shooter X has perfected his or her technique, which suits them. A coach needs to identify what works best for shooter Y. That is very likely to be two different things and it takes a good coach to work with that.

Rob.

[Richard H]

I'm sure everyone's opinion is coloured by their experiences. There are mediocre shooters, who put as little into their coaching ability as they do their shooting. I suggest these are the people that Bill is talking about. Then there are those that take coaching very seriously, study and better themselves in regards to coaching. The quality really runs the whole gambit from great shooters-great coaches, great shooters-poor coaches, poor shooters-poor coaches and poor shooters-great coaches and everything in between. Another important aspect is the coach athlete relationship, one athlete can find a coach poor and another athlete could find the same coach great. Shooting and coaching are separate skill sets, some shooters have the skills to coach some don't, some coaches have the skill to shoot well some don't. Coaches just like shooters have to be evaluted on their own merits, if you take preconceived ideas into the relationship these can greatly effect the outcome of the coach/shooter relationship.

[David Levene]

Shooting and coaching are separate skill sets, some shooters have the skills to coach some don't, some coaches have the skill to shoot well some don't. Coaches just like shooters have to be evaluted on their own merits, if you take preconceived ideas into the relationship these can greatly effect the outcome of the coach/shooter relationship.

I wish I'd said that.

[Jack Milchanowski]

Well said Richard.

[alb]

First off, not everyone on this forum is a high master, so the question may mean different things to different people.

Personally, I only take coaching advice from people who shoot better scores than me -- but that's mostly because of how poorly I shoot. It's also because I don't have any good coaches around to talk with.

I've read just about everything there is to read on the subject, but this is no substitute for a coach who can watch what I'm doing and spot flaws in my technique. I don't have access to such people, so I have to work things out on my own. If I talk to someone who shoots a lot better than I do, chances are that when I describe a problem that I'm having, it will turn out to be something that he's already worked through, so he can make helpful suggestions.

I sometimes wonder if some of my problems aren't due to mechanical problems with my pistols. For example, when I first got my .45, I had a local guy do my reloading for me. I had occasional failures to feed. When I got my reloading press, I reloaded my ammo to the same OAL, and I continued to have feeding problems, even when I checked the OD of loaded rounds with a case gauge. Recently, I started seating the heads a little deeper, and my feeding problems seem to have dissapeared.

I mention this because every so often, I have a shot where my wrist spasms and it feels like I'm 'dragging' the shot off target, and the trigger feels like it's really hard to pull. The exact same thing happens when I have a failure where the gun doesn't go back into battery, except that the gun doesn't fire at all. This never happens at all when I'm dry-firing. I wonder if my problem is due to the gun going just far enough back into battery to make the operation of the trigger really rough. This would never happen during dry-firing because the gun is always in battery -- I just re-cock the hammer for each shot.

If this is what is happening, a good coach could have saved me a lot of time. A good, experienced shooter might also recognize the problem. A poor shooter might also have experienced the problem, but never figured it out.

Then there is the fact that a high master simply commands more respect for his shooting ability and his opinions than an expert. If a high master recommends something, one is naturally inclined to give it a more serious and thorough try than if the same suggestion came from a mere expert, with the consequence that the results will likely be better. This is simple common sense, because the risk of the poorer shooter giving bad advice is greater, which decreases the risk-discounted reward. I.e., it raises the 'opportunity cost'.

As a practical matter, there aren't that many really good coaches out there -- none where I live, apparently, so it really comes down to finding someone -- not known for his coaching skills -- who knows enough so that he can help me. The only other credential that is in any way indicative of this level of knowledge is how well the person shoots.

At my level, it's a question of the failure of fundamental techniques holding me and others like me back -- not subtle nuances of mental aspects. I don't need someone who's techniques is as flawed as my own giving me advice.

Regards,

Al B.

[Richard H]

Unfortunately due to the low number of real coaches in North America, that's why shooter here, maybe more so than in other countries, rely on other shooters and self coaching. Just as there is little coaching for shooters there is only a little development for coaches too.

Unlike other sports, tennis, golf, figure skating, gymnastics, where coaches can actually earn money, coaching in shooting is basically done for the love of the sport as usually far more money comes out of the coaches pocket than goes in.

[Guest]

Al, Richard I can see the logic behind taking advice from those that shoot to a higher level when a qualified coach isn't available.

Got me thinking about the whole coaching /advice thing a bit differently. When I say coaching I am thinking more about technique, what needs to be done to produce a good shot. When I talk of advice I'm looking at little the things that might make implementing this technique more consistant.

Club coach watched me shooting the other day. I was giving him feedback after each shot on what I thought I was doing and he was telling me what he was seeing. At the end of the match we had a talk and he said something that I have thought for a while. You know how to shoot you know when you are doing something wrong and usually what was wrong.
I guess a lot of shooters are in this position. Their technique is sound most of the time, they are trying to eliminate the few shots that aren't.
If an experienced qualified coach isn't available the next person to turn to would be a more experienced competitor, these usually are the better shooters so I guess you would only be taking advice from higher level shooters.