Development Coach Assessment at Spire Roxx

Its great to see another new climbing wall in Scotland. Last night I was in Elgin at Spire Roxx assessing 2 candidates at the end of a long journey to successfully become Mountain Training Development Coaches. We got a warm welcome from the staff and its always nice to climb somewhere new.
Both Sandy and Ibrahim are already MICs and hold teacher qualifications and have brought that knowledge to the Award. Coaching, Instruction and Teaching are all facets of the process of experienced and knowledgable people helping develop others and they are all subtly different in focus. The Development coach is seen as:
"This stage of the Coaching Scheme focuses on the development of climbers over a series of sessions. as a coach you will add to your existing coaching skills and learn how to deliver 'climber centred coaching' to individuals as part of a group. It is ideal for independent autonomous coaches who prepare for, and deliver, structured progression to climbers involved in regular participation (for example climbing clubs, schools and youth groups)."
Both of last nights candidates have put a huge amount of work into thinking about how they structure learning experiences for climbers, exploring new techniques, absorbing ideas from other sports and perhaps most importantly reflecting on their own performance in an open and self aware manner. The last is one of the most important traits of a coach. They never 'know it all' and both these guys have been constantly changing, tweaking and shaping their coaching in response to their students and their own reflection. Well done guys!

 Spire Roxx

 Creative use of tools/games to help students get the message

 Students developing the ideas for themselves instead of being spoon fed

 Appropriate coaching footwear??

 Use of technology to assist observation and review

 Coaches briefing each other on student sessions

 Sandy feeling the heat at Assessment?

 Exercises to help students think about rotation

 Routemapping

 Did it go as planned?

 Spire Roxx is for small children too!

The wall end on

 Twisting