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| Children grow into beautiful adults. Coaches need to see the long term perspective. |
Texas Acro Coaching Philosophy
by Alex Douglas
It is natural as coaches to want to pick the kids that have all the obvious advantages in making champions: right body type, great sense of balance and spatial awareness, good working personalities, and, if possible, with enough family income to afford the sport.
Every child and athlete that signs up for our program come with a variety of gifts and talents. Not all will have the gifting for acro. But we should be sensitive and caring enough to develop all that they can achieve. Self esteem in children and youth can be a fragile thing.
It is the work of coaching and parenting to draw out of each child all the beauty and grace that performance training can give. As coaches we are to see our athletes as stewardships for the parents and for the children. We need to remember that they can be coming from marred backgrounds: broken homes, abuse, and any number of other problems.
In the Bible there is the story of David who became a fugitive from King Saul. Lonely undesirable people gathered around David. Later, when he became king, those same undesirables had become mighty men. David used those men and developed their abilities. Likewise, we should receive the athletes that we have, building on their strengths to transform them into champions. We are all in a state of change. A child that may seem undesirable now, has the potential to excel in time. If we regard them as champions now, then that will accelerate the change.
Another biblical story that applies is illustrated in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah went to the potter’s house where he saw the pottery marred in the Potter's hand, so the Potter refashioned it into a new vessel.
In other words, we can takes damaged goods and recreate them into something beautiful. In deed, the damage determines the direction of the new object. If we understand their background, their weaknesses can be the center piece of something beautiful in their routines.
If we look beyond the obvious in acro training, we can be used to change ordinary kids into natural champions. If we value the athletes as people first in our programs, then they will give 100% effort, and their parents will remain loyal to the program for the long run.
The children should never feel less than a winner if they give their best effort. They may not win the meet, but they should finish with the sense that they overcame the challenges in training. Ultimately, as coaches, we should always remember that we are not training acrobatics: we are training people in acrobatics. And these people should leave the sport one day with a strong character derived from the sport to face any challenge they come across as adults.