You remember your last competition?
You spent months in preparation, together with your coach and teammates. You sharpened every tool in your arsenal and learned how to beat every trick your opponents could dish out. The thought that your mat enemies are preparing to kick your ass in this very moment, made you training like a mad man day and night.
And then… you lost…
But the grief of losing to an opponent you could beat was not the worst.
It was that look of disappointment in the eyes of your coach, that hurt you more than anything.
And then you decided:
“Never again!”
…
Many of the competition athletes have gone through this experience. And many will forget the names and even faces of ex training partners. No one forgets their coaches.
The role of the coach is a complicated one. He is a trainer, a sparing partner, a father figure, a leader, a psychologist…
He spends more time with his athletes, then anyone else in their families. And in most of the cases, he knows them even better than themselves.
A lot of people have the desire to sit in their friends corner, during a match. And a lot of people do, when the coach is not present (for variety of reasons, including rogue participation of his athlete in a tournament, without his coach approval). But the way friends know each other is different from the way a coach knows his student.
Studies show close to 99% of the coaches would not coach athlete, they are not familiar with, stating that “there is no possible way to give advises, without knowing the player’s character and style.”
The guy who invested years of his time to prepare an athlete, knows his limits, his strong and weak sides, his breaking point, his best moves, his feints and combinations, but most important, his mental state.
He will lead his trainee to perfection on the mat, using his natural talents, improving his weaknesses and sharpening his best weapons, while building confidence and self-esteem within the athlete. There are different ways to communicate with every member of the team talking slow and easy with the aggressive and hyper players, using confident and demanding tone on well balanced guys, shouting at the slow paced guys.
Majority of coaches will talk individually with each of their players, motivating them hours before they put their feet on the mat. They will counsel and calm them, even using massage and in a lot of cases, the help of pharmaceutical products.
After the competition, experienced coaches will use the first 24 hours, to analyze in details their players performance, then take their minds off the sport, by engaging them into social and cultural activities. No trainings are performed in the immediate days after a competition.
Scientists have discovered that using a “simple psychological reaction” in the means of coded words and phrases, used during the training of an athlete, could be a very powerful tool. The Bulgarian professor Gidikov states, that using the same phrase in certain time intervals, can lead to creation of a certain rhythm of conduction. And we know that this is a complicated neural process. So, here is a scientific example, of how powerful connection between a coach and athlete is created.
Starting as early, as the first time you ever set your foot on the mat…
