In reply to Carlos the Jackal: We've had Neil Gresham and Johnny Dawes give coaching sessions at our local wall, Neil about 2 years ago & Johhny about 5 years ago. Who to choose depends on what you want..
We found that Neil had the more structured approach and was probably better for people without huge amounts of climbing experience, in that he can pass on techniques about training and climbing etc that would otherwise take years to accrue. I think that because I had been climbing for a number of years prior to his coaching session I had already worked out (or found out the hard way) an appreciable part of what he said. Nonetheless, I did get value from the session and he is a very nice and modest bloke.
Johnny's coaching was less structured and was very much about movement and visualizing how you would need to transition from one hard move to another, more cerebral based than practical based and in my opinion better suited for more experienced climbers..
A couple of my climbing partners have had very recent sessions with Dave McLeod and were very enthusiastic about those. A predominant theme for one of them was to practice falling indoors more when leading to improve her leading head and that has certainly seemed to bear fruit. They also found him to be a very nice modest bloke.
I think the main thing is to think about what you want from the coaching and then discuss it with your coaching shortlist so that you get what you want..
