ICCE Global Coaches House 2018

A little late with this but better late than never right?

I was at the Global Coaches House at Gold Coast Australia (9^th to 13^th April). The event was organized by the International Council of Coaching Excellence (ICCE), and featured lectures and workshops by experts in the field of sport coaching and performance.

There were several common themes which would serve as great reminders for all coaches – the need to be Athlete Centered #athletecentered, to focus on the process #processfocused, you can’t do it alone… #collaboration, Resilience #Resilience, and Humility/Continuous Learning #CoachAsLearner.

I will attempt to share some of the key messages from a few lectures and workshops through a brief description and/or quotes by the speakers together with the associated hash tags.

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“Just take the shot!” Sounds simple, except when it isn’t.

Decided to write this post to share how I would help a player develop a pre-shot routine, as I was reflecting on the time spent over the past couple of weeks reviewing the pre-throw routines of my Goalball players, and helping the boys at Raffles Rugby with their pre-kick and throw routines.

“A pre-routine should be customized to suit the athlete’s sport, personal preference and dominant learning style.”

Most coaches recognize the importance of pre-shot routines (especially for self-paced sports), but not many know how best to help their athletes develop one, especially one that integrates mental strategies. Before we go into the step-by steps, do follow this link to learn about what pre-shot routines are, and why they are important…

Presentation1

I make use of a somewhat contrived sounding acronym – PRE-FA (Prepare -> Rehearse -> Focus -> Allow) to facilitate the teaching of pre-shot routine.

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Goalball Exchange with World Youth Champions from Australia

AUSXSG_1 — Australian Brodie Smith In Action

Thanks to the Singapore Disability Sport Council (SDSC), we had the opportunity to have a world champ coach and team help us improve our game recently (11^th to 13^th of Feb).

Over the short span of three days, Coach Murray and his team have helped me see potential in the team beyond what I could imagine. This was clearly demonstrated by our women team’s progress between the two friendly games on the first and last day of the program.

“Having a mentor coach is perhaps one of the most powerful way for a coach to develop and improve.”

In Goalball, the game is ended as soon as one team wins by a ten goal margin. The SG women’s team lost 0-10 even before the first half on the first day. On the last day, our team lost 1-10, but managed to hold the Australian team up to the end of regulation time.

This was no easy feat for a Southeast Asian team, especially since the last time the women had a chance to compete in a friendly game was in 2016 (drew 10-10) against Malaysia, and they were up against a very disciplined team that recently beat Russia to win the world youth championship (view link).

Key Takeaways from the Exchange Program

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