Practical personal coaching
Almost a lifetime ago when I was 12 years old I wanted to learn judo. There was a well a established judo club in the city I lived in and quite soon I was attending my first lesson in my white judogi uniform and white belt.
I was part of an intake group, we were all novices so we all knew an equal amount of nothing about judo. It was fun and noisy, I was six foot tall at the age of 12, the tallest in the class, so I was alway used as the example by the adult black belt judo teacher who would show the rest of the class a technique. That got a bit tiresome! I’d became covered in bruises, but I was learning from the punishment. I could feel how the teacher used his hips and shifted his weight to throw me.
By the end of the year, I knew I was at the top of this intake class and to verify this I was awarded 2 red bands to sew onto my belt, it wasn’t a ‘dan’ ranking, that would have been a yellow belt, but it was a recognition that meant a lot to me as a boy. Then came the summer break, there was an opportunity to attend a summer workshop, but my parents although supportive had other plans during this time and it just wasn’t going to happen.
In the autumn, the class resumed and I was keen to get back to it. But there had been a curious shift in skill sets during this short period of time and a rather chubby boy that I used to be able to throw around like a rag doll had miraculously become ‘the boss’, he had also earnt a yellow belt and he was now the teacher’s example and favourite student.
What had happened?
Well, Mark, the chubby boy had been coached by the teacher who was a former UK judo champ for 4 sessions a week, for the past 6 weeks during summer holidays.
He had accelerated his skill set exponentially.
He went on to represent the UK at the Olympics.
I have no regrets, I didn’t have the drive or foresight at that age to achieve the same standards as Mark. Never the less, it was a humbling and enlightening lesson in what one can attain from getting help from a coach.
It doesn’t matter what age we are, we will hopefully have goals that we want to succeed in. We can be proud of being independent, or are we stubborn? Or maybe we just don’t know, that to seek help or assistance to achieve our goals is the smart way to go forward.
Personal Coaching can help people in any and every field of achievement.
I met Mark years later in my mid-twenties, he’d given up judo due to damaged knees from all the training he’d done. By that time, he was a successful entrepreneur with prospering business. Success is a mindset, it’s also hard work and commitment too. Coaching accelerates our results.
We can all use a coach to help us push through our limitations and to find our unknown potential.