Knowing My Athletes
The Mana Enhancing Coach
What is your Team Culture?
What is team culture?
By the most basic definition, a team culture is made up of the values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors shared by a team. It's how people work together towards a common goal and how they treat each other.
Why is it important?
The key elements of a team are communication, vision, and trust. These elements form the team culture and act as the glue that keeps the members together. Behind every success, there is a team of highly motivated and engaged people who are responsible for what they do, not because they have to but because they want to.
Six Ways to Build Great Team Culture
1. Create a bigger vision around great team culture. An important part of developing a strong team is having a group of individuals who are focused on a collective effort greater than themselves
2. Meet regularly
3. Create leaders, not managers
4. Get to know your team
5. Provide feedback
6. Promote a culture of learning
An important part of developing team culture is by providing an inclusive environment. An inclusive environment is one that values individual differences, and makes people feel welcome and accepted.
Inclusive environments (when practiced well) are very important because: All individuals are able to be part of the group and develop a sense of belonging and become better prepared for life. It provides better opportunities for understanding.
What is good communication?
Athletes value coaches who can communicate effectively; it means they are able to listen to others, as well as successfully relay their own ideas and opinions. While listening and speaking are important in effective communication, there are other skills that are vital to good communication on the sports field.
Here are 10 good communication skills you absolutely must know:
Body language. Your body language speaks volumes before you ever open your mouth
Active listening
Conflict resolution
Authenticity
Emotional intelligence
Articulation and tone of voice
Mirroring
Ask great questions
What is Physical Literacy?
Physical literacy is “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding required by participants that allows them to value and take responsibility for engaging in physical activity and sport for life”.
Sport NZ’s Physical Literacy Approach is relevant across all ages, recognising and responding to the needs of a participant as they change throughout life.
Babies, children, young people, adults and seniors can all be participating in physical activity and sport in a variety of ways and in a variety of places.
NZFUNdamentalsQuickGuide.pdfSport NZ has produced the following resource to help guide coaches and those involved with teaching sport.
As you read through the resource try and answer the following online quiz to help summarise your findings and consolidate some ideas of how you might start to use the knowledge next time you have your athletes in front of you.
Fundamental Movement Skills
Back to the BASICS
As sport has become more and more accessible, in some form or another to younger children, many of the building blocks that allow children to perform well are being forgotten. Time needs to be spent developing basic coordination, through running, jumping, hopping, landing, falling, skipping, catching and kicking
Fundamental movement skills are important to the motor development of players physical, cognitive, and social growth. There are four categories in which the fundamental skills fit: Stability and Balance, Manipulative, Locomotor, and Movement/Body Awareness.
The poster to the left identifies the 12 fundamental movement skills that should be developed to enhance physical literacy.
Fundamental movement skills are basic movements such as throwing, kicking,running, jumping, hopping and catching.
Fundamental sport skills are these movement skills applied to a sport situation: for example, kicking a soccer ball, running a sprint, jumping up for a basketball rebound, catching a baseball.