UKC

I'm interested in what experiences people have had of coaching courses.

What/When/Where/How much £/what benefit?

What things did you do, what did you learn or gain?

Feel free to mention names etc. I'm thinking of doing something but there are loads of people out there and I'm not sure exactly what I want, so I'm interested generally.

'Coaching' means different things to different people. In the traditional sense, coaching is an ongoing relationship, rather than a one-off 'master class' type of arrangement.

Ongoing coaching is likely beneficial to someone not used to training in a structured manner - learning how to train.

Master classes - albeit fun to take part in - are almost by definition unlikely to actually yield any real benefit: if climbing improvement was a matter of discovering a few secrets that can be passed on in an hour or two, then we'd all be Adam Ondras: there are no silver bullets, unfortunately.

Many 'rock & sun' coaching courses make bold promises of getting you to climb two (sport) grades harder, or your money back. If you're a typical UK trad weekend warrior, that's actually a safe bet - the reason being that you probably take a trad mentality to the sports crag - depending on how you view this, this is either great coaching, or money for old rope, as basic sport tactics can be summarised in a single paragraph

http://xpqz.blogspot.com/2009/09/come-on-coaching-holiday-for-few-days.html

My advice would be to start with reading a few books, like Dave Mac's "9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes". Cheaper, and if you take on board some of the lessons in it, almost certainly more likely to make a bigger difference to your climbing than any coaching trip to Kalymnos.

In reply to another_mark:
Are you looking for a course to become a coach or just a course to coach you in climbing.

In reply to another_mark: You may struggle to get an objective answer to this, people don't like to admit that they may have wasted money. A friend of mine had a weeks course on Kalymnos. It cost him well over £400 plus flights. He thought that it was marvelous as at the end of the week he onsighted a 7a. I pointed out to him that he and I had climbed 7a previously without coaching at a time when we were climbing well and that the route he did was a well known soft touch. He thought it was worth it but personally I would rather spend the money on the extra trips that it would have paid for.

Al

In reply to another_mark: Hi Mark

Adrian Berry was recommended when this was asked a while back:

http://www.positiveclimbing.com/climbing_coaching/climbing_coaching.html

In reply to Stefan Kruger: "Master classes - albeit fun to take part in - are almost by definition unlikely to actually yield any real benefit: if climbing improvement was a matter of discovering a few secrets that can be passed on in an hour or two, then we'd all be Adam Ondras"

I'm not so sure. If youre already climbing pretty well then maybe. But if youre making basic mistakes then someone looking at the way you climb and pointing out what youre doing wrong can help a lot. Even though it can be a blow to the ego to be told that your footwork is still sh1t, you know what you can work on afterwards! I went on an afternoon session organised by the leeds wall and felt I got a lot out of it. You dont have to do a full on coaching holiday, quite a lot of walls seem to do occasional coaching sessions , so it might be worth looking out for one of these. Or get together with a few mates and book an instructor directly for a day between you perhaps

In reply to another_mark:
Nearly every other sport in the world has coaching or lessons, it is a basic element of improving, climbing is no different to any other sport. People who think that good coaching wont improve their climbing are wrong.
I went to see Tom Randall and he was excellent, helping with both training and technique, it was well worth the money.
If i could go back in time i would have started having them from from day 1, you will improve quicker and you wont get stuck into bad habits.
Go get some.

In reply to another_mark:
Use your feet
Lose weight
Keep your hands low
Get strong
Climb as much as possible
Use your feet

Send cheque to sjc .....................

Thanks

ps Did I mention, use your feet.

In reply to another_mark:
Theres a list of decent coaches on this thread
http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,16421.0.html

In reply to pebbles:


That's the thing - ask an athlete what coaching means, it's typically an on-going relationship with a trainer. If you're at a stage where you're just starting out and can't already pinpoint your own strengths and weaknesses, then yeah, possibly a one-off masterclass might get you to open your eyes.

But really, I once asked a top individual in this game how he tailored his coaching session to the individual - his answer was basically that he saw no need, as most climbers benefit from the same advice.

Most climbers would benefit from an ongoing relationship with a coach, but I'm convinced though that an experienced climber would take very little lasting value from a one-off masterclass - apart from fun, of course.

In reply to another_mark:
Just to add my vote, Adrian Berry is excellent.