For the last few weeks I have had the absolute pleasure of being one of the coaches on the sport and exercise residentials for Leeds Beckett University. This has involved me delivered paddlesport coaching sessions to students studying sports coaching, exercise and health and also sports science. This was a great few weeks not only to perform as best as I could as a coach, but to also explain the methods and goals behind why I do what I do.
The first week kicked off for me by giving a lecture on how to keep motivation in sport and how to sustain interest over a prolonged period of time. I tried my best to give an honest and frank account of the highs and lows of living, working and growing in my sports, trying to take all the students on a whisltlestop tour of the last 15 years of my life. The students seemed to engage in this massively and seemed to get a lot from the explanations of times when I felt like I had made a mistake or made a wrong decision and how I had grown as a coach because of that.
The following weeks consisted of deliver sessions based around, coaching, participation in sport and also biomechanics. It was great to feel stretched and like I had pushed myself to deliver the best coaching that I possibly could, breaking down forwards paddling into a two hour session has never been so much fun!
All of this is fantastic preparation as I look to the future, with the intention that at some point I will be delivering on the UKCC based qualifications within paddlesport and hopefully positively influencing others much in the way that I was when I first started out in my kayak so many years ago.