As a bench coach, you give up the
right to have friends and frenemies in your league. What you get
instead, is an extended family. The ruleset changes. Everyone's
business becomes your business, you become accountable to everyone.
But what do you do when, unlike Annamiettinen, you have no prior experience
with dealing with sibling rivalry, twenty different personalities and
all the emotions in the world in one moment?
Jedi mind tricks.
Our travel team has been called the
dark horse of Finnish derby. What is a dark derby unicorn made of?
Common goals, determination, sweat, practice, practice, practice. One
important factor behind our league's development during the past year
has also been training our brain muscles and mental strenght.
As a bench coach, I try to provide
skaters with Jedi tools and to encourage them to pick their own
brain. I can tell you when to call the jam and give you a strategy
for winning the lead, but the commitment, the drive and the will have
to come from inside each and every skater. I can tell you to find
your own motivation, but I can't find it for you.
So what can I do as a bench coach,
besides trying to make myself obsolete? I can introduce new working
habits and improve the working environment together with our coaching
team. Due to the changes we have made the past two seasons, our
travel team Rollin' Hos has gone from showing up in the locker
room fifteen minutes late with half of their gear missing to
understanding that the game does not start when you step on the track
– it starts months, weeks, days and hours prior the first whistle.
In a family of sixteen plus people,
there are equally many ways of preparing for a bout. There are
however, many things we do together that help bring our team together
and into the right mindset. These are the things I like to call Jedi
mind tricks. Others might call it sports psychology.
Power
words. You have the power to choose your own hashtags, use
that power. Decide how to define your life events. A defeat can be a
#learningexperience, if you tag it with positive meanings. I will
always associate the season 2014 with #hyväjee (#goodygood) and
#herkkuapöydäntäydeltä (#platesfullofsugar). Also with #katoesa
(#lookatmeacid), but that's not really relevant here. Even at the
half point of this season I know this whole year will be full of
sugar, because our whole team is committed to making it #goodygood.
Power songs combined with power dances.
Trick your whole body into a happy mode with a simple and effective
choreography.
Happy place. Self reflection and
visualization are an under-appreciated art. Self reflection helps you
evolve faster than any feedback given by others. Visualization makes
you better at your craft. Take a minute before every bout to go to
your happy place and visualize a perfect performance. Do it after
bouts at home. Do it enough times and the perfect performance will
come.
Safe place. Where ever you are with
your team, make it a safe place. A place that is zen, calm, focused
and supportive. A place where everyone has the space and peace they
need to work on their own performance.
Power animals. We all have one. Some of
us even have multiple ones. Find yours. Get to know it. Introduce it
to your team. Bring it with you on the track.
Presence. Here, today, now. Focus on
the task at hand and remember what you communicate to others with
your presence – or the lack of it. When people begin to drift away,
bring them together with a love huddle or a power word or with your
own physical presence. Get handsy.
Feedback. Instant, long term,
encouraging, constructive, peer to peer. There are so many kinds, but
they're all good. And when there's no time for words, there's always
time to hold a hand, give a hug or hand a candy. We have three colour
coded candy jars at our bench at all of our games. One is to calm
your nerves, one is to pick you back up and one to get you energized.
Targets and goals. They help you focus.
They push you to try harder. We have a system of setting skaters
personal goals throughout the year and three common goals per each
bout. They relate to scores or they can focus on presence or mood.
The ones that work become our new policies.
Time out. This is a personal one, but
has to do with team spirit and team performance. Know your limits as
a skater, as a coach, as a team mate; accept them and know when to
take an official time out. If you can't give 100%, maybe it's better
to step back. Ask for a time out during a game, use it to go to your
happy place and use visualization and self reflection. Ask for it in
your league. Be vocal about your time out and others will respect it.
Use this time to rediscover your motivation. Find the hashtags that
work for you. And come back stronger.
As a bench coach with an extended
family, you will be constantly challenged by your league. There will
be set backs, failures, let downs. But you do it for the double
rainbows at the end of every game, the family holidays and the shared
successes. This family will repeatedly surprise you and outdo
themselves and you just have to see them grow and evolve. You don't
just share the same jerseys and the same bacteria, but also the same
goals. Life goals.
// Deeku
Photo: Jams on Film
