1/3 of the way through. Try-outs last night went really well. I think the ratio of kids who are psyched and climbing and enjoy practice drastically improved. We now might have the opposite problem of last year--we have more kids who want to train and compete than spots on the team. It can be a good problem to have but, like I said yesterday, we really don't like turning kids away. The path to be on a team now is to either get on a club, which have limited spots, or come to the gym regularly to the point where you're noticed and known. I don't feel like that's too big of a barrier. At least one coach is in the gym almost all the time and it makes sense that if you want to be on a team you need to show some initiative and self-directed motivation. I think we've raised the bar from "interested beginners" to "motivated intermediate".
I had a really good run last night because I happened to start running just as Thomas was passing by and I joined up with him for about half my run. Before my run I was thinking "oh my stomach hurts, oh I'm tired, oh I've been on my feet too long, I have a headache" and then running with someone else gave me some momentum and then for the 2nd half on my own I sped up and ended up running pretty fast at the end. It helps that the last 2 miles of my runs now have a significant downhill but it's also just how running is so mental. If I had been by myself I'm almost sure I wouldn't have felt that good and would've slogged my way through it and thought about how dead my legs felt. Instead I ran 10 miles under 7 minute pace for the first time in months and it was great. In the middle of upping my mileage a substantial amount.
There's a v6 in the gym that I really want to project because one of kids on the team figured it out and we tend to climb similar stuff. That's my project for the day.
Reflecting on coaching: I think the most important aspect is establishing a positive coach-athlete relationship. Overwhelmingly the strength of a relationship determines how a given interaction or moment will be received. I don't believe that coaching or teaching can exist in the abstract where a person with knowledge or experience is sharing information with a student. A big problem I have with schools is that this is the model that they use. To me it's like giving someone a multi-vitamin and water and calling it the ideal diet. We know that there's so much more to food than nutritional science can explain just like we know that there's so much more to learning and how a person comes to form their worldview and identity yet we pretend like textbooks and tests are supposed to be sufficient. I'm rambling. What I meant to say was that I think on the foundation of a good relationship you can pass along tools and attitudes that might be useful in the future. By tools I mean things like positive self-talk, being able to ask for help, trying really hard, using humor, expressing how you're feeling, persisting at something difficult, self-evaluation and self-awareness, supporting and encouraging others. Obviously there are a ton of concrete, climbing-relevant skills that will be taught to but there's a quote by Mike Smith that I really like,
"It's not about where you end up, it's about who you end up becoming on your way there."
As for teaching all that stuff, I think you have to live it and be intentional. There's a stoic saying that basically says, it doesn't do any good for a sheep to talk about how much grass it eats, what matters is that it grows wool. If you hope to teach it, live it and do it. Don't just sit around yammering on a blog.
Anyway, I just noticed a line in my big toenail and I'm pretty sure it's from when I had covid and that's kinda cool. The end.
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