26/11/2025
Communication of What We Do and Why
Experienced coaches likely have deeply held beliefs or theories about the learner and the learning process that they are engaging in through their coaching methodologies.
I’m on court working with a player. I’ve designed a practice. She’s hitting forehands with her non-dominant hand. I’ve selected it because the two handed backhand leads to more ‘messy’ information for the athlete to navigate both haptic and inertial due to the contact with two hands rather than one.
A 285g racket also provides significant resistance the player using their wrist and forearm to create spin thus hopefully developing her action capacity within the relevant muscles.
Inside, one of the other coaches is engaged in conversation with a parent of another player I work with. ‘John teaches him good technique and Dan makes it fun and helps them love the game’.
On being told about this conversation I recognised that I rarely communicate why I do what I do with the parents. I’ll talk about their development, planning etc. but I rarely give them insight into why I design particular practices.
At the recent coaching symposium that question was posed - do athletes need to know what we are doing and why?
I also wrote an essay on my coaching philosophy at university, it was academically well received but one piece of feedback stood out - ‘how do you communicate this to parents players and coaches in a way that it connects.’
I think the marker was highlighting that talking about epistemological chains, ontology, axiology and informing them of decades of research into ecological dynamics, CLA and skill acquisition might not land with parents…
So I’m going to try actively commit to communicating more openly with parents about what I do for the rest of this block and perhaps beyond.
I’m open to ideas though. How do you tell parents about how you work? Presentations? Individual conversations? In the contracting when you commit to a new project (which could be a player)?
