Mind you, I am not an open-water swimmer. Nor am I a distance or even a middle-distance swimmer. I am a sprinter, having only raced a maximum of 200m in any one race. 55km is a long way to swim for a 2minute race.

This extreme training eventually led to me becoming ‘burnt out’ and I ‘retired’ from swimming at the ripe old age of 20.

I did end up coming back to the sport after 12 months out of the water, and 7 years later, my training resembles little of what I used to do when I was a teenager.

There are many reasons for why I do a lot less in the pool these days. One of those reasons is that, thankfully, sprint training has evolved significantly in recent years. The emphasis is now slowly changing from quantity to quality. Because let’s think about it: it really doesn’t matter how far you can swim if you are competing in a swimming race.

Another reason is that I am 27 years old. I have had many, many years of aerobic training behind me, and my body has benefited greatly from that, but now I cannot handle that sort of work anymore (if I am to continue to get faster, which is of course the goal). There is a trade-off between sprint and aerobic training, as a lot of aerobic training can be detrimental to sprint performance, as it will eventually transfer fast-twitch muscle fibres into slow-twitch. Unfortunately it is very hard to coax those slow-twitch fibres back into fast-twitch, and impossible to change traditional slow-twitch into fast-twitch at all. Check out this article from the journal Sports Medicine for a better explanation.

However, not only do I do less mileage in the water these days, but I am slowly learning that effective sprint training is also about the dosage of effort as well. I have known for a long time that recovery is as important to training as effort is, but I am only just starting to learn that the amount of sprinting is just as important. Overtraining can come in different ways, and it is often difficult to identify, but I have given some things to look out for below.

How to identify the effects of over-training

Unfortunately I believe that many young swimmers are over-trained. Whether that be through too many kilometres in the pool, or by not providing enough time between quality or hard sessions, or even by not getting enough sleep each night. As a parent or an athlete, it is sometimes hard to know when enough is enough. As athletes, we are taught that hard work will get us to the top. But it is not necessarily hard work that will get us there, rather than smart work. It is far better to perform 1 excellent repeat than 4 average repeats in a session. Not only because you are then practicing excellent swimming, but because you will have less time required for recovery after that, and you will be more likely to get up next time and do 2 excellent repeats (and so on as the season progresses).

So how do we identify if we or our loved ones are training too much? It is difficult, I admit, but there are some factors that can help us, which I have detailed below.

• Keep an eye on your or your child’s health. Is your swimmer getting sick all of the time? Are they constantly tired, or unmotivated? The body has different ways of telling us to slow down, whether it be mental (through making us unmotivated or not wanting to get out of bed), or physical (by getting us sick on a regular basis). 
• Weight. This is a touchy subject, especially for young girls going through puberty, and I would recommend approaching issues of body weight sensitively. But when I look around swimming competitions these days, there are a lot of young athletes who do not look as fit as someone who is completing 8-10 swim sessions a week should. If you or your child has a healthy, balanced diet (and I stress balanced – not limited!), and weight is an issue, then perhaps other factors need to be looked at. Over-training is a form of stress on the body, and can have the effect of ensuring excess weight is held onto as a form of insurance for the body.
• Performance. Overtraining will generally lead to a plateau or even a dip in performance. If you or your swimmer has been training very hard, but not achieving results expected, perhaps the training regime should be more closely monitored.

Check out this page for a better explanation of the effects of overtraining on the body.

If you believe that you have been over-training, then I would suggest communicating this to your coach. In my opinion, open communication between coach and athlete is one of the most important factors in achieving goals. The more your coach understands you, your physiology, and your requirements, the better s/he will be able to coach you. If you do not already do so, I would suggest a weekly meeting with your coach, to let them know how you are going, what is going on in your life, etc. If you do not feel comfortable with face-to-face communication, begin a training diary, and get him/her to read and provide their comments on it at the end of each week. Together, you can achieve much more than separately.

If you have any comments or questions related to any of the material above, please feel free to contact me!

Good luck in all of your training and racing endeavours.

Marieke xx

1. Research your options
2. Ask trusted advisors
3. Step back and look at the big picture
4. Evaluate the pros and cons of each option
5. Play with best and worst case scenarios
6. Ask for wisdom
7. Check within for the answer
8. Set aside the voice of fear
9. Trust yourself and move forward
10. Acknowledge yourself for doing your best

If you would like the support of an experienced Life Coach as you make decisions for your life or business, email: lifecoachlinda@gmail.com

Rob was there.  He believed that the best way to address any threat at work was to keep his head down, and work harder.  This thinking led to isolation from relationships Rob desperately needed and decreased vital communication with others to nil.  Rob was miserable.

What do you do when your own thinking creates misery?  Here are some questions that can help you toward a more pleasurable way of being.

• What am I thinking?   Clearly state your current thinking, the facts, and any assumptions you may be holding, preferably in writing.  Assumptions are thoughts without basis in fact.
• What do others say about this issue?   Ask questions of others to discover how they think about the issue.
• How did I come to my way of thinking?  Look back into your life experience and input from authority figures in your life to discover how you came to this way of thinking.
• How do I know my way of thinking is valid?  OR   What makes me wonder about my way of thinking?
• Why should I believe this way?  Why should I question this thinking?
• How else could I think about this?
• Revise your way of thinking to reflect greater truth, be more consistent with reality, and to serve as a better guide for living.

Rob had to use the questions above to help him think about his thinking and then adjust to a way of thinking that was truer, more consistent with reality, and served him better as a guide for living.  He began thinking that putting himself “out there” and communicating more might be better than isolating himself.   This revision of his thinking wasn’t a comfortable process but he definitely began to enjoy life more and function in a more effective way.  His friends say, “He’s growing.”

What do you do when your thinking doesn’t work?

Well, not to toot our own horn too much, but the feedback was brilliant! The women, initially sceptical, came away inspired, empowered and felt that they were now equipped with the tools to overcome barriers to gaining promotion. This was thanks to our wonderful facilitator. Feedback about her was exceptional:

‘Best facilitator ever’

‘Mind blowing’

‘Can we clone her?!’

So what makes a facilitator, or any speaker or presenter, this engaging?

I think a lot of it comes down to what I like to call the 3 P’s of engagement:

Preparation

This one is pretty simple but overlooked by so many. You cannot hope to engage your audience if you are not fully prepared. A facilitator (or speaker, or anybody giving a presentation) might have presented the same thing a hundred times and know it like the back of their hand, but unless they take the time to prepare it every time, making it relevant to each audience, it will come across as too rehearsed and regurgitated. The audience will quickly switch off.

Presence

This is harder to master and can take years of practice to get good at – but a truly engaging presenter/speaker/facilitator will stand in front of an audience and fill up the stage. And it can be learned. One simple tip is to do nothing! Just stand, look at your audience and say nothing for a minute before you start. It can be uncomfortable for the speaker, but the audience immediately engages.

PowerPoint

Don’t use it! No-one wants death by PowerPoint. However, if you do need to use it remember the slides are for your audience – not you! They should be simple and memorable – a visual aide to helping their understanding and embedding their learning. They are not notes pages for you to read off. If you merely regurgitate what is written on your slides you will send your audience to sleep.

There is undoubtedly more to being an engaging presenter – but these 3 points are not a bad place to start.

By Emma Webb

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Most adults have limiting beliefs and false assumptions at which they have never taken a critical look. They don’t pay attention to them until they are challenged by an alternative way of thinking or by a life event.  Such challenges shake our foundations and framework for living.  It’s confusing.

So how do I get things straightened out and on solid ground again.

• Clarify what I really believe currently and why.
• Examine how I came to my current way of thinking.
• Examine my thinking for truth and accuracy. Dialogue with others with the most open mind possible – the mind of a learner.
• Investigate the alternatives.
• Make a commitment. I may determine that my current thinking is the best out there. I may change my thinking in whole or part.

Let’s say, for example, that a friend tells me that I can fix my plumbing. “It’s easy,” he says. I believe I can and taking his word, I go at it and have a minor water emergency in my house. It was supposed to be “easy.” I am confused.  As I look at my assumptions more closely, I discover that it was easy to my friend because he has extensive plumbing experience and to him, it was “easy.”  My new commitment, “It’s easy for some. I’ll hire one of them.”

As a child, I was taught that the God of Christian Scripture created all that is. As a college student, I learned that in other religions there are creation accounts similar to the one in Christian Scripture.  I also learned that there are different ways of looking at the Christian account. I was confused so I had to follow the steps above to sort things out and come to a fresh commitment. My belief that God created was serving me well as a framework for living and I believe it is true and reliable. But now I base my living on this belief because I critically examined it and decided it was reliable, not because somebody told me so.

What’s been your latest shake-up?

Why Youth Sports Teams Should Respect Custodians and Other Service Employees:  Valuable Lessons for Children from the 2012 Presidential Campaign

By Doug Abrams

When historians write accounts of the 2012 Presidential campaign, the “47 percent” video will occupy center stage as a potential game changer.   Addressing a private $50,000-a-plate fundraising dinner in Boca Raton, Florida on May 17, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney was caught on film saying, among other things, that “there are 47 percent who are with [President Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them. . . .”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnB0NZzl5HA.  When the national media aired the explosive video beginning in September, the Romney campaign went into a tailspin from which it never fully recovered.

Neither Governor Romney nor anyone in the audience realized that the camera was on, perhaps because other audience members also had cameras.  Last week, the person who filmed and released the video came forward to reveal his name for the first time.  In television interviews lasting more than an hour, Scott Prouty said that he was working the fundraiser as a bartender for a company that catered such elite gatherings.  He brought the camera because he hoped to have his photograph taken with the man who might become President, but he arrived at the event with no idea what the candidate would say to the audience and no intent to influence the election.

Prouty explained that he released the video because he believed that the “47 percent” statements demonstrated Governor Romney’s world view and reflected on the candidate’s ability to relate to ordinary Americans.  Prouty added that he felt a civil duty to enable voters to weigh the candidate’s own words. 

Prouty also explained how, as he struggled with whether to share the video with the public, prior personal encounters reinforced his perceptions about Governor Romney’s world view and empathy.  Prouty had previously tended bar at another fundraiser that the Governor attended.  When he poured the requested Coke with a twist of lemon, the Governor simply picked up the drink and walked away without any “thank you” or other acknowledgment.  At the Boca Raton fundraiser itself, Governor Romney arrived late, began with a few quips about speeding up the dinner service, never acknowledged the service staff, never thanked or visited with them, and abruptly left the private home after his talk. 

When Prouty tended bar at yet another fundraiser, however, the featured speaker was Bill Clinton.  Before leaving the private home, the former President went into the kitchen to thank the chefs, waiters, busboys and bartenders; shake hands; pose for photographs; and compliment the meal.  The demonstration of respect left a lasting positive impression. 

Dignity and Respect

Askcoachwolff.com is not a political website, and my weekly youth sports columns do not discuss politics.  I write here not as a Democrat or a Republican, and I cast no aspersions on Governor Romney because the election is over, the voters have spoken, and serving children through sports has nothing to do with partisan politics.

I do try to remain alert, however, for lessons that parents and coaches can teach young athletes.  These lessons can stem from what happens on the field or in the locker room, but they can also stem from what happens elsewhere. The most important lessons have little or nothing to do with athletic skills, but everything to do with life skills whose influence outlasts adolescent athletic careers. 

Concrete examples sometimes reinforce these important lessons more effectively than mere abstract lectures can.  The story now unfolding nationally about release of the 47-percent video provides a concrete example that reinforces what I wrote last year in two columns that concerned proper conduct in youth sports. The first column — “The Power of ‘Thank You’” – delivered a commonsense, but often overlooked, lesson:  “[S]aying thank you takes very little effort, but recognizes a job well done.”  http://askcoachwolff.com/2012/05/02/the-power-of-thank-you/

The second column — “Why Teams Should Respect Custodians and Other Service Employees” – discussed the importance of “treating people with dignity and common courtesy.” http://askcoachwolff.com/2012/02/23/why-teams-should-respect-custodians-and-other-service-employees/. “Youth league and high school sports programs,” I wrote, “usually depend on custodians, maintenance staffs, grounds crews, security guards, grass cutters, and other employees who . . . go to work every day but often toil in anonymity, routinely ignored by team members who do not even bother to learn their names,” and who fail “to extend the respect and common courtesy that everyone deserves” as they seek to earn a living to sustain themselves and their families.

I explained that “[e]mployees appreciate team members who stop to say hello and chat, rather than treat them like pieces of furniture. . . .  It does not take much effort for coaches, players and parents to treat service employees with respect,” and “[w]ords like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ . . . can work magic. . . .”   

“I Speak To Everyone In the Same Way”

In youth sports and beyond, many service employees work at jobs commonly called “unskilled.”  The term “unskilled labor” rankles me, not only because I perceive all work to be honorable, but also because I believe that all work requires at least some skill.  There is no such thing as “unskilled labor.”

I recall a conversation with a college professor years ago. He held a Ph.D. and a string of other academic degrees that left him with more letters after his surname than in it.  But he told me about how his car had recently stalled on the highway and did not start until a young mechanic arrived to make on-the-scene repairs.  The mechanic may not have proceeded beyond high school, the professor said, “but he was a lot smarter than I was that day, wasn’t he?”      

Dismissing employment as “unskilled” can often be the first step toward dismissing the employee.  Albert Einstein said, “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”  For parents and coaches who choose to teach children about saying thank-you and showing respect for the dignity of work, Dr. Einstein provides sound advice about right and wrong.

Sometimes failing to heed the advice may even affect or change the course of American political history.

[Sources: Margaret Hartmann, Bartender Felt “Obligation” To Share “47 Percent” Video With the World, New York Magazine, Mar. 13, 2013, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/47-percent-filmmaker-romneys-a-terrible-guest.html; Peter Foster, Why Mitt Romney Should Have Followed the Example of Bill Clinton, The Telegraph (Britain), Mar. 13, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mitt-romney/9927532/Why-Mitt-Romney-should-have-followed-the-example-of-Bill-Clinton.html ]

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Here’s the quiz you, as a leader, should ace this holiday season.

First write down the names of all your staff members (hopefully you can ace this one, otherwise things will go downhill quickly ).

Next to each, write the names of spouses or significant others.

Then, write at least one thing that each person is passionate about.

Finally, and be honest on this one, if you were to buy each person a personalized gift that they would truly enjoy (fruitcakes and Target gift cards do not count!), what would it be?

Now go back and see how you did. Get the names of all or most of the spouses? Sorry, but unless you live in a cave, don’t pat yourself on the back too hard as that should be a bare-bones expectation.

Passions? You are getting warmer, but unless the relationship is less than a couple months old, you should be able to identify at least one for each of your team members.

And the measure of a truly engaged leader is that he or she should be able to get personalized gift for each staff member. If you know someone to that level, chances are you’ve put in the time to get to know them as a human being and not just a cog in a wheel.

Think about how you feel when you have that type of relationship with someone, especially someone you work for. The dynamic changes from “boss” to more of “colleague” or “partner.”

If you aren’t at that level, the good news is that taking Father Time’s Relationship Barometer periodically will help you identify gaps and help you do something about it. And if you cultivate that depth of relationship with each of your staff members, I guarantee your issues will go down and productivity will go up—saving you valuable time and money.

Then you might have some time to name all of Santa’s reindeer.

If you want to save even more time this year, email me at cwills@studentpaths.com with the secret password BAROMETER in the subject line and I’ll send you the spreadsheet template that I use as my relationship barometer

Chris Wills

Father Time, or Chris Wills, is passionate about helping other leaders learn and grow and free up time they didn’t think they had. He is the Founder of Student Paths, an organization that better prepares students for their future in college, career and life readiness.

by Steven B. Fulmer, author and leadership coach

With the goal of higher education to graduate students who are smarter, better, wiser, and more effective when they leave than when they came in, why wouldn’t that same principle apply to the people who work there?

How best can you as an enrollment management leader engage employees to achieve greatness and meet or exceed individual, team, and institutional recruitment goals, especially in this tight economy and competitive landscape?

Well, if I may be so direct, for one, we have to stop using the excuse of this “tight economy” for why things aren’t getting done. Let’s face it, in too many schools, organizations, and companies we are being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

People are one of the two most expensive line items in a college or university budget, and yet, when the going gets tough the first place cut is training, development, and support of that expensive resource.

Remember, people are the only thing that will bring you out of this “tight economy,” or beat your competition whether that’s through the quality of your recruiters or the brilliance of your professors.

So how best can you engage those employees? Invest in them! It need not be expensive, it can be with time, attention, recognition, small rewards, offering them a coach, or recognizing a personal challenge that is standing in the way of their success on the job or their ability to step into their personal leadership.

A program I built called The 10-Point Leadership Triangle™, which is all about how to engage people, and if I had to boil it down to one key point I would bring it all back to this one question:

“What story, does your leadership, allow your people, to tell about their life?”  

If you are willing to invest the effort to connect the vision of your department, institution, and mission to their personal story, you will have the single most powerful impact on engagement.

Why? Because in the end, most people don’t need to be right or want to be in charge, but they do want to feel like they matter, that you are all on the same team and there’s no “us and them.” People simply want to be honored, respected, and dignified.

Lately, the most common complaint I hear from employees is that the humanity of their organization has disappeared. They feel like a number and that it’s management against staff. I speak often on a set of principles I call HUMAN Strategies™.

You have a marketing strategy, a social media strategy, a financial strategy, a capital investment strategy . . . but what is your Human Strategy? If you don’t have one, then congratulations, you just figured out where to begin!

Steven Fulmer

Steven Fulmer is a leadership author, speaker, and coach. Owner of Steven Fulmer, Inc., he is a self-described HUMAN strategist and game changer who helps people personally and professionally achieve success and happiness. A former business executive who helped a software company grow substantially in numbers of employees and revenue, Fulmer is author of Leadership Just Got Personal (2012), creator of LifeQuest Mapping™ and the 10-Point Leadership Triangle™, and facilitator of George Fox University MBA Program’s mission and vision workshop. He lives in Oregon with his wife and 2 children. More is online at www.FulmerSpeaks.com.

Receive more leadership coaching tips for higher education enrollment managers by Steven Fulmer through Student Paths’ upcoming enewsletters and blog posts; sign up for our monthly enewsletter at www.studentpaths.com/join. Student Paths helps prepare high school students for their future through college, career, and life- readiness materials.

The future is a slippery thing.  It is a real possibility but not guaranteed.  We can’t know the future.  Given all the contributing factors, we can do very little to control it.  What does one do with it?  Here are some tips:

Plan for it.  Failing to plan for the future is a plan to fail.   But, too much planning can move into the realm of diminishing returns and is often more of an effort to ease our own fears and insecurities than to achieve efficiency and effectiveness.  Make plans that, when implemented, will position you for as little regret as possible.

Hold your plans loosely.   Between now and “the future,” the premises on which you planned may change and your plans will be outmoded.   And, given the “no guarantee” nature of the future, you may not need those plans after all.  Stay in a process of re-evaluating and planning broadly, but with details for the next step only.

Don’t Worry.  Worry is a self-chosen, energy-burning exercise growing out of a fear of situations that are actually out of your control.  Your future is largely out of your control.   Worrying about it is a waste of time and energy since worry has no positive effect on the future and robs you of the present.  It’s like spinning your wheels on ice.   It burns energy but has little effect for the outcome you want.

Be hopeful.  “No guarantee of the future” sounds depressing but is reality nonetheless.   A positive posture we can take for the future is that of hopefulness.   Though there is no guarantee, be hopeful for the possibilities that the future may hold.   Dream big dreams.

Live every moment of life to the fullest.   Enjoy the moment.  Celebrate the experiences you are having.   Full presence and participation in the moment can prepare you for a truly great future.

Grow from the past, gaze at the present, glance at the future

What do you do with the future?

Which of the above do you believe would be most helpful to you?

]]> http://activeeducation.com.au/2012/12/07/innovative-ways-to-engage-students-in-physical-activity/ Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:30:39 +0000 activeeducationmagazine http://activeeducation.com.au/2012/12/07/innovative-ways-to-engage-students-in-physical-activity/ By Andres Olascoaga.

Physical education teachers need to inspire their students to be healthy and active while at the same time overcoming the technology barriers that are affecting day-by-day teaching. The increased use of social media and internet services affects how students communicate with each other in games and sport because they have become reliant on communicating via computers, email and mobile phones. The problems that physical education teachers face is that many students in Years 8, 9 and 10 cannot match their motor ability to what is expected at their age. Sometimes their fundamental skills are much lower, in some cases matching students in Years 5 or 6. This is the result of them being less physically active in their daily lives. Teachers have to rebuild their fundamental motor skills in secondary school, which is something that is supposed to have been learnt in primary school. This means that many secondary school teachers face the task of inspiring their students to enjoy playing sport again.

Barriers To Re-Engaging Students In PE

The major problem that many teachers face is that in a class of 30 students, it is likely that a few students  are playing invasion games after school (such as handball, soccer, basketball, AFL, rugby or netball) or in a club environment, while the other group of students are engaged in individual sports (such as tennis, swimming, athletics or cycling). It is also likely that there is a group within the class that does not do any sport or physical activity, making it critically important to find a solution for the group of students that are disengaged. As a direct result of students using email, text messages and an increased amount of time communicating through the screen, students loose their basic human communication skills, which affects their ability to communicate effectively during physical education classes. Students will often need to re-learn the body language needed on court in regards to calling another student to pass the ball over or extending their hand to receive the ball.

There are a number of common problems that physical education teachers face, and some of these include:

• Lack of communication in games. Students often feel uncomfortable calling out each other’s names which contributes to their lack of spatial awareness.
• Students are using less court space effectively, which means they overcrowd the ball and move less throughout the game.
• Students are standing in the court and watching the game as spectators instead of being engaged in the game.
• Students lack confidence in decision-making because they find the new situations they face in the game challenging. For instance, they see a few students running towards them and they don’t know what to do with the ball or what kind of pass to make. They have become too reliant on the electronic world where they just have to touch a button to solve their problem immediately.

The SCT Teaching Model For Physical Education And Sport

As the electronic whiteboard and the internet revolutionises the way students learn in the classroom, the SCT (Space, Communication, Team Work) teaching model for physical education and sport will provide an innovation in education that will engage the disengaged and provide them with opportunities to play invasion games, and more importantly, to have fun playing with their peers in class.

The Method

Physical education should be the entry level for students at school; it is about having a go and trying new sports and games with your classmates. It is not about winning or loosing; it is about growing the opportunities students have to have fun and be active. The SCT teaching model for physical education and sport is based on the invasion games that are played in Australia. The intention of the model is to transfer the skills learnt in one sport to another, from one semester to another.

It is very important that schools with a primary and secondary campus coordinate their physical education curriculum and strategic planning to allow students to develop their skills in a positive way. It is recommended that government secondary schools will meet with the primary school physical education teachers in their area to coordinate what they will teach each term to ensure better planning and cooperation that will deliver better outcomes for all students throughout their schooling life. The SCT teaching method is a solution for teaching better invasion games and solving game problems such as overcrowding the ball, inefficient use of space, and lack of team work.

In regards to use of space, the game is played using zones on a netball court. Every eight minutes the students change the zones as well as the roles of defender, midfielder, forward and goalkeeper. The game is non-contact but it allows for defending because while there cannot be contact on the players, there can be contact on the ball. Overcrowding the ball happens when games are played with one ball in a big space. By playing the game with six soft balls in a smaller space, everyone is engaged and has multiple opportunities to pass the ball, intercept and score. The ball always has to go from zone one to zone two and zone three to teach students the importance of passing the ball through the defence lines.

Use Of Space In Invasion Games

In each physical education lesson, teachers should promote games that encourage the proper use of space. This involves students understanding how to use the court efficiently, how to spread out and play as a team, and how to play different roles in the game. You should teach games that encourage students to pass the ball in different ways and match their passes to the different defender’s position. You should also encourage games that promote the idea of team work. This could be achieved by encouraging them to pass the ball a certain number of times before scoring and passing the ball to different students rather than the same student each time.

An example of such a session is handball/netball. In this game students are divided into netball zones, with defenders, midfielders and forwards in each zone. Instead of using netball poles, use handball goals and have a goalkeeper for each team on opposite sides behind the D line (semicircle line).

The game is a non-contact game and defenders use a combination of basketball rules and netball rules to defend. This means there is no contact with the body but contact with the ball is allowed. The game is played with five balls at once, progressing from one ball to two, then three, then four and then five. Each time that you add another soft handball to the game, more students will become engaged and more opportunities to pass the ball and intercept are provided. By adding more balls to each game, smaller groups within the larger class will begin to interact with each other on court, as opposed to a few students controlling the game and all the others overcrowding the ball. By using five balls at once, students will get used to passing the ball forward and then turning back to the other zone as the balls go from zone to zone. With five balls in play, there is an increased opportunity for students to score.

The SCT teaching model will provide more opportunities for students to engage in physical education, develop their self-esteem and feel that they are contributing to each lesson. You will also find that every class has a different dynamic, which is a result of different students mixing with one another. The model will also assist teachers to overcome barriers such as motivation and participation, and also contribute to skill development and a better understanding of the games played.

Physical education and sport in school is a fantastic opportunity for students to be active, and for some students it is their only opportunity to exercise. These days, less and less students are engaging in after-school activities due to higher registration fees and working parents who are not able to drive them to the activities.

As educators, it is our responsibility to put the fun back into physical education and sport by changing the way that we teach, creating better team work and engagement, and encouraging students to be more resilient when they participate in sport. It is our duty to create fun, safe and enjoyable environments so that children enjoy the feeling of physical activity, which they will do when they are both challenged and having fun.

10. UEFA_B_GK_MODULE_JAN_2011-4

Please feel free to follow or contact me on ross.brooks@coerver.co.uk or on Twitter @CoerverRoss

Many thanks,
Ross Brooks.

You can squeeze every ounce of opportunity from the present if your focus is there.   Here are some tips for making the most of the moment:

• Focus on something bigger than yourself. Don’t ignore yourself but focus moreon others or a cause that makes a big difference for people and the world. Hold to Thomas Merton’s statement, “To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.” (Thomas Merton in No Man is an Island)
• Do something useful to create value for others or for your mission and goals. Meaningful service is energizing. If service is your job, perform a service unrelated to your work.
• Connect with Others. Meaningful and supportive relationships are a big key to health and making a difference in the world. Everyone needs good friends who can offer encouragement and support. Help others to feel valued, capable, loved, respected, and appreciated. Let them do this for you as well.
• Invest in Your Health including the physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of your being.
• Be ruthlessly grateful and hopeful. Do not allow a single shadow of “poor me” or other such negative thinking to have a place in the moment.

I love this quote by Jean-Pierre De Caussade (1675-1751), a French Jesuit priest who wrote the work “The Sacrament of the Present Moment” also known as, “Abandonment to Divine Providence.”

To observe the “discipline of living in the present moment” is to accept one’s present situation and find satisfaction and peace in the now. This is distinguished from attitudes of restlessness and dissatisfaction, worry about the future or discouragement and regret about the past. By trusting in God now and allowing the present to be enjoyed, greater happiness and peace is possible.

Research has shown that there has, in fact, been an increase in the levels of UK job satisfaction in the past year – perhaps something to do with people just being happy to have a job at the moment. But it seems that there is still a long way to go if we want to be the best – and why wouldn’t we want that?! Happier workers mean better employee engagement, productivity and profitability for the company.

Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from the Danes. What is it they do differently that makes them the best?

One argument is that they have a much healthier attitude towards work-life balance. They make a strong separation between work life and home life and tend to only work their contracted hours.

Now how many of us Brits can say we do that?

It’s so easy to succumb to just staying that extra hour or so to finish something off. And given that now pretty much all forms of communication are available at all times across multiple platforms – it’s so easy to quickly check your emails on your day off and then spend half the day responding to them!

The longer we work the less engaged and productive we are likely to become.

So how can we combat this?

It’s about making sure that you manage your time effectively so that you are as productive as possible in your working day. Try:

• Developing a High Performing Week – a visual representation of all your jobs for the week and where they will fit in
• Prioritising every day
• Getting regular amounts of sleep each night
• Eating better

And don’t allow yourself to see your home life as extended work life. Get a hobby that makes it impossible for you to work late.

I’m now learning Spanish – I don’t have the time to take my work home with me. What will you do?

By Emma Webb

You can allow the nightmares of the past to dominate your thoughts, discourage, depress you, and fill you with regret. Or, you can choose to approach the past in a healthier way.

Some things to do with the past:

• Reflect but don’t dwell. Reflection on the past is one way adults learn. Enjoy the treasures of the past. Appreciate the “nightmares” as opportunities. Do not dwell on either of these experiences of the past.   Do not ignore them either.
• Use the past productively. You can allow the past to rob you of the present and impede your progress in the future. Invest no more time in the past than is required to learn what you may do differently for present and future. Sometimes it does take a painful experience to make us change our ways (Prov. 20:30).
• Use the past to benefit others. When appropriate, you can give others a chance to learn vicariously from your experience. “Appropriate” means the telling will ultimately be uplifting and helpful to others, it will not hurt anyone else, you feel safe in the telling, and you can count on others not to exploit your story in irresponsible ways. You can tell the story and recount your reflections but you cannot control whether or not the hearer learns from it.
• Use recurring memories to remind you of what you have learned and how far you have come.   Memories will surface of both the good and the bad.   Use them as reminders of progress and opportunities to learn more.

What are you doing with your past?

What Did Penn State’s Football Coach Say During Saturday’s Post-Game ESPN Interview?

Lessons About “Slips of the Tongue” for Youth League Players, Coaches and Parents

By Doug Abrams

This past Saturday, the Penn State football team closed out a tumultuous season with a stirring 24-21 overtime home field victory against Wisconsin.  The win left the Nittany Lions with an 8-4 record (6-2 in the Big Ten).  It was quite a comeback for a team that stared the NCAA’s Death Penalty in the face last summer on the heels of a child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and the coaches and university officials accused of covering it up. 

In a live, nationally televised sideline interview with ESPN2’s Jessica Mendoza moments after the final whistle on Saturday, first-year Penn State Coach Bill O’Brien praised his players as “a bunch of f***ers” who “fight hard.  They’re a bunch of great kids.”

Did the coach really drop the F-Bomb, or (as some of his supporters have argued) did he say “a bunch of fighters”?  Or did he mean to say “fighters” and simply choose the wrong word in the heat of the moment?  Watch this 25-second clip, and you can decide for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPNAXxpZJAc To my eyes and ears, the coach did indeed say “f***ers” and then tried to correct himself. 

One way or the other, I would not take him to task.  From my years coaching youth hockey, I know how coaches’ emotions can run high moments after winning or losing a tough game.  Emotion is precisely why many youth sports programs have a “24-hour rule,” which forbids parents to discuss a complaint with the coach immediately after a game.  Without time to wind down for a day or so, coaches sometimes suffer slips of the tongue.

If pressures that volunteer youth league coaches face are any indication, the pressures that collegiate and pro coaches face must be overpowering at times.  Yet these coaches talk to national audiences in televised post-game interviews on the field and in the press room before many fans have even reached the exits.  Most collegiate and pro coaches speak well, but occasionally they let down their guard and say the wrong thing. 

Because we are human and nobody is perfect, I would cut some slack for coaches who spontaneously say something off-color on television that they later wish they could take back.  But I also watch collegiate and the pro games for lessons that would be helpful in youth leagues.  I think that Coach O’Brien did swear on national television, and it looked to me like he wished almost immediately that he had said something different.  That wish is Saturday’s lesson for youth league coaches, players and parents.

Removing Profanity From the Team Culture

In the youth hockey programs where I have coached, players’ swearing was not a major concern on teams below the age of about 12.  On teams for middle schoolers and high schoolers, however, off-color language can easily infect the locker room and the bench area during practices and games. 

Beginning during the preseason period, our youth hockey coaches forbade foul language and enforced the rule where necessary.  The coaches told the players that we weren’t prudes, and we assured them that we had spent enough time in locker rooms to hear just about anything the players might say now.  But we also told the players that we had two good reasons for the no-profanity rule. 

The first reason related simply to citizenship.  We told the players that they would soon begin spending their personal and professional lives with other people, and that most listeners do not think much of profanity for very long.  We asked the players, for example, how long they would hold respect for a pro whom they heard swearing during an autograph session or personal appearance.

The coaches’ second reason for banning foul language — the reason relevant to Saturday’s ESPN interview — concerned the scoreboard. Players and coaches accustomed to using profanity among their teammates are more likely to slip and say the wrong thing at the wrong time in the heat of a game.  Plenty of youth league players and coaches have suffered ejection or penalty for using profanity to an official or opposing player.  Sometimes the profanity is inadvertent, and sometimes it is not.  One way or the other, players and coaches can hurt themselves on the scoreboard once profanity becomes an accepted or tolerated part of the team’s culture.

Banning profanity requires restraint from more than just the players themselves.  Players are less likely to respect the ban when they hear swearing from the coach during practices or games, or from their own parents discussing the team at home.  Like anyone else, children have little patience with authority figures who instruct them to “do as I say, not as I do.”  Children pay attention to what is happening around them, and they learn what they watch.        

Avoiding Slips of the Tongue

I do not know Coach O’Brien and I am not privy to what he or some of his players might say, or might not say, in the Penn State locker room or on the sidelines when only the team is listening.  But I do know that slips of the tongue during games are much more likely when a team tolerates foul language as acceptable.  Regardless of what the coach said on national television last Saturday in Happy Valley, the importance of commonsense rules that instill citizenship and minimize the likelihood of verbal slips provides an important lesson for youth league teams.

Get to know the game

It’s important to know the game that you’ll soon be teaching to youngsters. If you have played lacrosse before then you are one step ahead of the game, as you’ll be able to pull from your experiences as a player in order to coach. If you are not a former player or its been some years since you have been involved with the game, then there are online training programs available through the U.S. Lacrosse Foundation, the governing body of lacrosse in the United States.

Find a lacrosse program in your area

Once you have gotten an idea about the game and come to the decision that coaching is the right move for you, the next step is to get out in the community and find a program to offer your services to. A quick Google search for community and high school lacrosse programs should prove a good starting point.

Put together a game plan

Before you set foot on the field, I would recommend that you have a basic plan of how you want your practices to flow and which drills you will have your players focus on in preparation for the season. For a good example I’ve attached a great PDF put out by the Northport NY Lacrosse program .

Have fun and inspire

The most important aspect of coaching is the impact that you will leave on your players. More than just playing the game, it is important to make a positive impact on your players by helping them to see the valuable lessons that can be taken from teamwork and dedication to a cause, in this case, aiming for a winning season. No matter your age, your players will look up to you. A positive attitude and a mentality of fun and learning will go a long way in leaving a lasting positive impression.

Has anyone coached before in any other sport that can share their experience for fellow readers?

Giving a pre-game talk during my tenure as coach of the Mandarin High School Mustangs lacrosse team. 2009.

Lax on my friends!

By Ken Baldwin.

Last month’s edition of Active Education magazine saw the power of play highlighted as its cover story. The article underlined how important it is for both educators and parents to help the children in their lives be happy and healthy. My article in this issue takes this notion one step further by highlighting the benefits of sport in creating healthy and happy children from a PE perspective.

Physical Education teachers have seen many changes to the school curriculum over the years, and there now seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel with the implementation of a National Curriculum. This, however, is still some way away and there are many issues that will continue to frustrate us until it
is implemented.

The main issue that confronts educators is the amount of activity that our students should have. What is even worse is that the amount of activity being carried out is continually being reduced and replaced by other things in the curriculum. Why on earth is PE seen to be the poor cousin of other activities, and always the first to be cut?

Some secondary schools now have PE as an elective after Year 9, which means some students will not undertake any physical activity at school. In other schools, PE is seasonal, with half the year being based on activity and the other half on more theory-based activities.

In Queensland, many schools have implemented a policy that 30 minutes of the school day must include some sort of activity. But in many cases, pressure is still mounted on school principals to achieve academic outcomes, and resources are so stretched that the time simply cannot be spared. Sometimes even though 30 minutes of activity has been allocated, children are just left to sit under the trees and not necessarily be active. Other primary schools across the country have cut inter-school sport due to the cost of the transport and other facilities required, which means children are again left without any sport or play time. Instead, many schools are opting for quarterly ‘fun afternoons’ where they hold an event within the school grounds.

The purpose of this article is not to lay blame on anyone or on the national school curriculum, but to highlight some of the problems that teachers face. So rather than take a negative approach to a huge problem, let’s look at why our students should be active, and the real benefits that come from playing sport.

We often address results that we can physically see before taking a look at other peripherals. These benefits are listed in no particular order but we know for a fact that playing sport has a major influence on all of them.

Health Problems

With lack of exercise and physical movement comes an increase in obesity, diabetes and bones that are chalky and easily broken. Active kids also stop the spread of germs that cause colds and flus. Higher activity levels mean students will spend less time away from school due to these conditions.

Physical Improvements

Part of everyday life is growing, and we want our bodies to be healthy and strong. Playing sport assists this growth by aiding the development of strong bones and muscles. Sport mimics everyday life with the same movement patterns of stop, start and change of direction. The body and mind needs to continually perform these movements to challenge and grow so that when it is required to perform under stressful situations it can draw on its previous experiences. This is one of the fundamentals of physiological and neurological adaptation. If we don’t move our muscles, they will shrink through lack of use. Other physical improvements that come from playing sport include:

• Injury prevention – the ability of our body to be able to perform complex movements without doing damage.
• Coordination – having the fundamentals of foundational movement patterns such as balance, pushing, pulling, catching and throwing. More importantly this also includes the ability to develop spacial awareness, which is knowing where your body is in space and being able to move through it comfortably and efficiently without getting injured.
• Skill development – everything we do in life comes from a set of basic skills that
• we have learnt as children and that we modify and refine as we grow older. Sport provides these skills and helps us to develop learning patterns.
• Joint reactivity – learning to get the muscles and bones working together to make movement fluent and non-jerky.
• Agility – moving at speed and coordinating the mind and muscles through a skill recognition and repetitive learning process.
• Decelerate – the ability to stop very powerful movements without injury.
• Create force – when the body is in dynamic motion it is constantly in and out of balance, but needs to produce force at the same time.
• Standing strength – the ability to stand tall with good posture and be able to hold a strong upright position.
• Body composition – sport requires multiple muscles at many levels to activate and the more muscles we activate, the more calories we burn.

These are some of the measurable benefits of active children, and compared with non-active children, the levels of development are much higher.

Sport is also used as a release of built-up tension and aggression, and a way to channel misspent or unused energy. Ask any parent or teacher who deals with problematic children on a regular basis and they will tell you that children are more relaxed and calmer after they have run around and played and released some of this energy. This then allows them to be integrated back into the classroom sooner where they will be less disruptive and distracted.

Set Of Skills

Playing sport gives children a set of skills they cannot learn elsewhere. It sets them up on a directional path with goals that they can learn both individually and as a group, and gives them something to aim for. Here are some of the social skills that are not as easy to measure but if we look deeper over a period of time we will see that without sport, many children would not develop these skills:

• Sharing – sport teaches children to share and to work together to achieve a goal.
• Follow instructions – through sport children learn to take direction without being forced; they can see a goal and will work towards it.
• Taking turns – sport teaches children to take turns and wait for their time to use their skills.
• Problem-solving – through sport children are able to look at things as they are, analyse what will happen and read different situations, which is early development for leadership roles.
• Neurological development – neural stimulation is the mind and body connection and this is stimulated through sport. It maps things out in a logical order and challenges them to improve where they are at.

Classroom And Social Skills

Sport fosters a group atmosphere that is filled with continual interaction. It prepares us for life and gives us the ability to better socialise and live together rather than in isolation. There are many studies showing that if children are physically engaged, they have a greater attention span in the classroom and are far less disruptive. One of the biggest areas – which is also one the hardest to measure – is the increase in self-esteem levels of kids when they play sport. It prepares them socially to interact with other people, speak more confidently and have much more self-belief. This means that they will be more likely to try something unfamiliar and go out and seek challenges in various parts of their lives. In the long-term, this means less problems and better integration to the work and social environment.

So when you look at all the benefits that playing sport gives children, both physically and mentally, there should be no reason at all why PE should be compromised in our school curriculum. Playing sport can increase educational outcomes, should always be part of the curriculum and will always aid in the development of our children. The sooner we have a national curriculum for PE, the better. We cannot put a price on our PE teachers and sport.

Youth Module 3 Award Exploring 1v1 Moves Session

Please feel free to follow or contact me on ross.brooks@coerver.co.uk or on Twitter @CoerverRoss

Many thanks,
Ross Brooks.

Brighton Hove Albion – Practises

Please feel free to follow or contact me on ross.brooks@coerver.co.uk or on Twitter @CoerverRoss

Many thanks,
Ross Brooks.