140 likes | 269 Views
8/26/2012. 2. Introduction. The most important skill required for leadership is the ability to accurately assess where you are at any given time. Situations change with and/or without our plans. Leaders need to recognize and accept this (and learn to accentuate it).If you can accurately deter
E N D
1. 8/27/2012 1 Determining Your Position Brian Brown
Asphalt Green Unified Aquatics
2. 8/27/2012 2 Introduction
The most important skill required for leadership is the ability to accurately assess where you are at any given time.
Situations change with and/or without our plans.
Leaders need to recognize and accept this (and learn to accentuate it).
If you can accurately determine where you are, then you can best decide where to go.
Purpose today is to share some of the ideas and methods which have evolved out of coaching within the uniquely challenging environment of NYC for eight years.
3. 8/27/2012 3 Asphalt Green Unified Aquatics Team of 230+ swimmers from all 5 boroughs of New York and parts of Westchester and New Jersey
Unique coaching challenges
Transportation
Real estate values
Manhattan “Island life”
Unique coaching opportunity
Most diverse ethnic and economic team in country
4. 8/27/2012 4 “My way or the highway” but “When In Rome…”
The coach creates the environment and the environment creates the coach
Aphorisms developed before and since being at AGUA
“Work Works”
It’s a race, not a beauty contest
You can’t fool Mother Nature
Sometimes you have to go over the edge to know where it is
Learn By Doing / Teach Yourself
100% of 100%
Fitter is Faster
War Against Mediocrity
5. 8/27/2012 5 War Against Mediocrity We are engaged in a daily War Against Mediocrity
It is a battle with a familiar enemies:
Time
Society
Athletes
Oneself
As coaches we are facing (seemingly) insurmountable odds. Every thing around us wants to immerse us in “the ordinary.”
It’s like being lost in a jungle, a desert, on a mountain, or in an ocean every day – how do you find your way to your intended destination, a place called Excellence?
6. 8/27/2012 6 Having An Internal Compass “It’s all about…”
A single, theoretical point in space does not exist in reality
Opposites attract (and are attractive)
It’s very easy to think in terms of opposites, but two points in space are still theoretical and do not exist in reality either
Black & White Ideas… (Gray and Invisible ones too!)
Two intersecting sets of opposites are necessary to complete an accurate picture of the question at hand
7. 8/27/2012 7 3-D Reality requires 3-D Thoughts
8. 8/27/2012 8 What is necessary for really fast swimming?
North / First Thought—Endurance
South / Opposite Idea—Technique
East / Related Thought—Speed
West / Hidden Aspect—Power
9. 8/27/2012 9 Some Role Models We have plenty of knowledge about each of these ways of producing fast swimming.
All great coaches use all the different aspects for fast swimming, but some are more well-known than others for their particular style, aka their “North Star”
North—Endurance
Urbanchek and Shoulberg
South—Technique
McKeever and Quick
East—Speed
Salo and Marsh
West—Power
Reese brothers
10. 8/27/2012 10 Maximize each aspect, then move on North—Endurance—8 weeks +/-
3,000 For Time
Pace and Color Charts
Just plain hard stuff
South—Technique—2 weeks +/-
Focus on something as a group
Have a deadline by which something needs to be fixed
East—Speed—3 weeks +/-
10 second speed
Max efforts of specific race distances
West—Power—5 weeks +/-
Racks, cords, paddles, etc.
11. 8/27/2012 11 Charting Your Whereabouts During your season you must be able to adjust – to know where you are whether or not that’s where your plan was supposed to take you
Verify (or correct) your map and your route
Have an explorer’s mentality
We are all trying to go somewhere we’ve never been before
Someone else’s map may be flawed or outdated
Your own map may not account for changes in the terrain
Trust your North Star
When you are a little lost, follow the first thought you gave to the question, “What is required for fast swimming?”
12. 8/27/2012 12 What This Means Real Life in coaching
New coach, new success
Same program year after year creates stale swimming
Dinosaurs become extinct, or at least irrelevant
Real Life in swimming
Kids can swim fast off of any type of work. Examples of very different training ideas are all around us. Explore them.
The trick is to not get lost (or at least not for long) in the myriad methods
13. 8/27/2012 13 What This Means (Part 2) The goal of training is to induce evolution
We may not always be able to control these changes, or their timing, but we need to be cognizant of this natural process
When one trait is improved through focusing on it, other traits become dormant
Explore new directions, but always trust your North Star
14. 8/27/2012 14 Next Steps Thank you
Questions