Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - [Being a coach!]
SUUUPPP.
Final day yo. Actually sorta day and a half because it's a night flight tomorrow. Anywayz, final skating class in couple hours so I'll write a little post about being a coach! First of all I'm definitely not the best coach around. I'm not flawless in techniques. I can teach it and spot mistakes but I'm really bad at executing certain moves.
When I started a couple years back I was horrid. I could only stand but Glenn just roped me in and said you'll learn on the job. Thanks Glenn :D ! But still I'm far inferior to other coaches probably because majority of them did put in time and effort to learn while they were young meanwhile I was off ballroom and street dancing.
Soooo.. I've learnt that I can't be a pushover and a nicey-nice coach to the students all the time. In fact I actually made a little girl cry yesterday HAH. Am quite proud of myself for that really XD
The job is usually a 8-10week course at a school so by the 3rd or 4th lesson you can remember all their faces and spot the "special" children. I personally enjoy teaching primary school kids more. Firstly they're not shy and they'll be very excited to learn. It's easy to give incentives to them like "10minutes of free-skating" means the world to them.
Meanwhile secondary school kids are like "Why do I have to do this?" and most of them are little vainpots who don't want to wear the gears and complain about how ridiculous they look at etc. Teenagers are also far more afraid to fall and sometimes refuse to stand up completely. They hold on to their friends and scream alot more. The 7-10 year olds are pretty brave and eager and just forcefully stand up and try to move in but using all sorts of wrong techniques :P
However, I would say its really hard to control primary schoolers. Sometimes I wonder if they can understand me, and they have short attention spans. You tell them to sit down and gather in rows. One special pupil will try to get up and roll away and the rest will follow. But secondary school students yell at each other "HEY COME BACK HERE" .
Of course the older students learn much faster (for those who are willing to learn) so it feels rewarding for me to see the results and it's obviously much more fun when they can keep up with the coaches. :3 But then the primary school kids are sooooo cute and chubby. D:
Okay I don't really feel like talking about skating anymore :x But I shall tell you how I made that student cry. First of all it was a tiny class of about 20 girls, aged 7-8, was a girls school.
Cheryl (let's call her that) was much tinier than her friends so she was given the shiny blue skates (there were only 2 of those, the rest were red, black and grey). Cheryl's best friend started crying first because she wanted the blue skates and she refused to budge. Cheryl laughed at her friend at left her sitting there. So while the 19girls were nicely geared up and ready only that one girl was still sulking in the corner.
I grabbed a pair of red skates and told her "It's alright, blue is a boys colour, wear the red pair, for pretty princesses like you" She was pretty good-looking without the tears. Also the shiny blue skates are actually slower models and the red black and grey ones were much more comfortable and would go faster. I found out later after she stopped crying that she was actually good at skating.
Meanwhile Cheryl after boasting for having the shiny blue ones left the class to sit down in the shade whining that her legs hurt. After 5 minutes I went to check on her and she was pouring water on the ground in little puddles and using twigs to spread the water puddles. I told her to stop and rejoin the class but shook her head vigorously and continued to pour more water out.
So I confiscated the bottle and told her very sternly that water isn't free and that her parents have paid alot of money for her to learn to skate. This is a school where you come to learn, you're not here to play with water.
That's when she curled into a ball and started crying. I said your entire class is learning and having fun while you sit here by yourself. I hope you'll decide to not be such a baby and join them.
I rolled away to keep her bottle far from her (where she'd have to get up and skate over to get it)
My plan backfired because she started rolling on the floor and her friends from across the court saw her and came over "Cheryl ! What's wrong!" something something.. then I saw 4 of them skate to retrieve their bottles and start pouring water puddles around her.
KIDS! -________-
That's when I stopped trying to deal with the difficult children. I just joined the group that was waiting to learn and spent the rest of the session with them. It's harsh but instead of letting the kid bully me and waste my time like 2years back I simply tell the school Phys Ed teacher:
"I will not teach those who don't want to learn, I'm not here to discipline your students, so you handle the stubborn ones and send them to me when they're ready". I guess it sounds really rude but I honestly did walk away from several groups of uncooperative students and their helpless looking teacher.
In one of the secondary schools, the teacher gave up too and decided to wear a pair of skates and join the class rather than persuade the lazy ones to get off the benches (shaded area) and into the sun.
Anywayz, happy to teach friends who want to learn basics of Inline Skating :D like standing, falling safely, heel-braking, picking up speed, parallel turns, transitions, T-braking and simple backward skating :3
Yay for final lesson, yay for manicure after, yay for mahjong after, then a nap maybe then yay for family dinner and yay for flight-time ~
Final day yo. Actually sorta day and a half because it's a night flight tomorrow. Anywayz, final skating class in couple hours so I'll write a little post about being a coach! First of all I'm definitely not the best coach around. I'm not flawless in techniques. I can teach it and spot mistakes but I'm really bad at executing certain moves.
When I started a couple years back I was horrid. I could only stand but Glenn just roped me in and said you'll learn on the job. Thanks Glenn :D ! But still I'm far inferior to other coaches probably because majority of them did put in time and effort to learn while they were young meanwhile I was off ballroom and street dancing.
Soooo.. I've learnt that I can't be a pushover and a nicey-nice coach to the students all the time. In fact I actually made a little girl cry yesterday HAH. Am quite proud of myself for that really XD
The job is usually a 8-10week course at a school so by the 3rd or 4th lesson you can remember all their faces and spot the "special" children. I personally enjoy teaching primary school kids more. Firstly they're not shy and they'll be very excited to learn. It's easy to give incentives to them like "10minutes of free-skating" means the world to them.
Meanwhile secondary school kids are like "Why do I have to do this?" and most of them are little vainpots who don't want to wear the gears and complain about how ridiculous they look at etc. Teenagers are also far more afraid to fall and sometimes refuse to stand up completely. They hold on to their friends and scream alot more. The 7-10 year olds are pretty brave and eager and just forcefully stand up and try to move in but using all sorts of wrong techniques :P
However, I would say its really hard to control primary schoolers. Sometimes I wonder if they can understand me, and they have short attention spans. You tell them to sit down and gather in rows. One special pupil will try to get up and roll away and the rest will follow. But secondary school students yell at each other "HEY COME BACK HERE" .
Of course the older students learn much faster (for those who are willing to learn) so it feels rewarding for me to see the results and it's obviously much more fun when they can keep up with the coaches. :3 But then the primary school kids are sooooo cute and chubby. D:
Okay I don't really feel like talking about skating anymore :x But I shall tell you how I made that student cry. First of all it was a tiny class of about 20 girls, aged 7-8, was a girls school.
Cheryl (let's call her that) was much tinier than her friends so she was given the shiny blue skates (there were only 2 of those, the rest were red, black and grey). Cheryl's best friend started crying first because she wanted the blue skates and she refused to budge. Cheryl laughed at her friend at left her sitting there. So while the 19girls were nicely geared up and ready only that one girl was still sulking in the corner.
I grabbed a pair of red skates and told her "It's alright, blue is a boys colour, wear the red pair, for pretty princesses like you" She was pretty good-looking without the tears. Also the shiny blue skates are actually slower models and the red black and grey ones were much more comfortable and would go faster. I found out later after she stopped crying that she was actually good at skating.
Meanwhile Cheryl after boasting for having the shiny blue ones left the class to sit down in the shade whining that her legs hurt. After 5 minutes I went to check on her and she was pouring water on the ground in little puddles and using twigs to spread the water puddles. I told her to stop and rejoin the class but shook her head vigorously and continued to pour more water out.
So I confiscated the bottle and told her very sternly that water isn't free and that her parents have paid alot of money for her to learn to skate. This is a school where you come to learn, you're not here to play with water.
That's when she curled into a ball and started crying. I said your entire class is learning and having fun while you sit here by yourself. I hope you'll decide to not be such a baby and join them.
I rolled away to keep her bottle far from her (where she'd have to get up and skate over to get it)
My plan backfired because she started rolling on the floor and her friends from across the court saw her and came over "Cheryl ! What's wrong!" something something.. then I saw 4 of them skate to retrieve their bottles and start pouring water puddles around her.
KIDS! -________-
That's when I stopped trying to deal with the difficult children. I just joined the group that was waiting to learn and spent the rest of the session with them. It's harsh but instead of letting the kid bully me and waste my time like 2years back I simply tell the school Phys Ed teacher:
"I will not teach those who don't want to learn, I'm not here to discipline your students, so you handle the stubborn ones and send them to me when they're ready". I guess it sounds really rude but I honestly did walk away from several groups of uncooperative students and their helpless looking teacher.
In one of the secondary schools, the teacher gave up too and decided to wear a pair of skates and join the class rather than persuade the lazy ones to get off the benches (shaded area) and into the sun.
Anywayz, happy to teach friends who want to learn basics of Inline Skating :D like standing, falling safely, heel-braking, picking up speed, parallel turns, transitions, T-braking and simple backward skating :3
Yay for final lesson, yay for manicure after, yay for mahjong after, then a nap maybe then yay for family dinner and yay for flight-time ~
Labels: coach, discipline, inline, primary, schools, secondary, skating, techniques
bits of me revealed at ..
11:37 AM.
