Accepted to go to Total Immersion Coaching Certification

I have just finished my Triathlon clinic and started the week with kids home sick and off school due to semester break.  I wasn't prepared for this, I was planning to get my application ready to submit to the selection person to try to get in.  Yesterday I managed with my Mom's help, she watched the kids I went to get my video done.  I submitted it all last night and received word I am in.  My first job is to now discuss what I have to fix with my swim and what drills I need to do for those corrections.

I have really enjoyed self teaching myself, but I am so looking forward to getting some time to improve under some careful scrutiny.  I am very excited to be doing this.  It is in March from the 5-11, in San Diego, California.  It sounds like a hardship, but I will have to make the sacrifice.  I will be the second TI Coach in Alberta.  I like the sounds of that.

Here is the link to the swim video I submitted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZT9KHshKo

Looking after your back

Okay I started in a gym when I was 16 years old, I did massive crunches, leg raises twists with a bar to get a really awesome 6 pack, okay I starved alot to see what they looked like.  Right now as a fitness instructor and coach I keep up to date with training information and what seems to have been a great idea before is now not so much.  Stuart McGill of Waterloo University has researched that the flexion of the spine is a limited supply.  Flexion of the spine puts wear on your back that can't be undone.  So revamp your core workouts, no more are you going to be doing crunches and sit ups, try some plank, try some core stability work.  I am going to post his link to my site so you can easily check it out.  When you know better, do better.

Restructure may be a blessing

The next couple weeks I may actually begin doing what I wanted to, getting organized.   Giving up the extra classes is finding me the time I need to get my restructuring started.  My goals for the business is to get online officially, a better book keeping and athlete tracking system.  More one on one time for the athletes a little less in the class situation.   I am excited about the prospects this year.  Everyone is very motivated right now and that makes my job easier.  I have been revamping some of the computrainer workouts and having experience with programming, I should have fun writing the workouts to run on the computrainer to give my athletes their specific goals, very exciting.  I have a few athletes with computrainers, I have 2 myself.  I will probably start testing some of them on mine to get some stats on where they are and how to best proceed, for those who have one already, it is like being able to test once per week.  Getting the athletes used to logging useful information and relaying it back to me is in the works.  A workout stat sheet with details I need I think is going to be built this week.  I am getting some fitness pursuit program plans coming in as well.  It makes me work harder to keep the interest into the workouts as the race is no longer the measuring tool, it is how interesting the workout if they want to keep doing it. 

Technical Difficulties

Some days feel like you are swimming upstream, this week I think I was trying to swim up Niagra Falls.  Seriously on the business side of things, sticky situations are to be expected but this was crazy glue sticky.  To try to rent facility space it seems that it was late happening, I had a very helpful booking agent, unfortunately she wasn't the first in command, getting things done and okayed took longer than expected, to find out 3 weeks before the classes were due to start what classes you could run is too late.   The existing clients I had aborted mission and signed up for the facility run classes to protect their interests and saved a few days for me to fill for them.  If they had asked I would have suggested aborting a specific day due to lack of interest.  Hind sight, the gross advertising costs, it being over Christmas when the ad hit, or shall I say missed, I came up with one person to sign up, and one more for the Triathlon Clinic.  My classes that I was trying to fill didn't, the advertising budget was money thrown away, the classes that were going to run are now paying for that learning experience. 

My advertisement did get some higher up attention in the facility and I think the message they may have received was that they shouldn't be renting to me, they should be filling those times with their classes if it is possible.  I feel a little pushed out, but I can't argue I see the logic, my life requires me to just accept it and move on.  I guess with every door closing a window opens, this window allows me more time to work on program plans.

No run class, hard to be a triathlon coach without the running coaching, but it isn't impossible.  I think this year will be better for me to free up the time for the shoulder surgery, the total immersion coaching if that works out.  I guess I should solicit a few other facilities in the Edmonton Area to find out if Lane Rentals are a possibility if it turns out that I lose the pool rental space as well.  Hate to go through the hoops to certify to find out I won't have a place to instruct.

Anyone know of a facility in Edmonton or surrounding area looking for a Triathlon Coach.

Time to Total Immersion Certify?

One of my choices is to follow Total Immersion coaching as part of my overall Triathlon Coaching Package.  This is a perfect platform for age groupers challenged by the swim, it is a quick way to improve speed in the water and it has a huge benefit in easy to teach techniques that work.  Swimming explained to non-swimmers in simple english, in small pieces and suddenly the penny drops and they are on their way across the pool with ease.  I am excited by the changes I see in everyone that it is by far the most motivating class to teach.  I as yet am not a TI coach, I just study his teaching and instruct from the pool edge.  Not  a Total Immersion plan really, but we do not have a shallow lane to do hands on, I would love this to be done this year.

Plans may happen for March, looks like my MRI will have to be rescheduled, hopefully this won't affect my racing in 2012, I would love to do Ironman Canada our group has so many going that it would be a huge event to all be there.  I don't want to miss it.  Shoulder surgery takes some recovery time, so I need to make sure it is all timed perfectly.

Triathlon Clinic was advertised and now it is a wait and see if people sign up.  The hope is that it runs, but I am now diverted into preparing myself for the TI application process as well.  I see sleep as an option over the next couple weeks.  At least I am excited about it, so it is time to move on to planning for the future again.

Communication

Knowing the right move to make means you must communicate, lately there are texts, emails, phones, etc, too many ways and people are becoming harder to get good communication with.  Before you venture forward you need to make sure everyone understands what is happening.  Sometimes we word things ambiguously and that leaves room for misinterpretation.  A person needs to carefully plan their purpose and get it concise before proceeding.  This is something I am focusing on for this year.  To be clear and concise with my messages.  I have run things somewhat loosely disorganized always hoping people would have understanding of my busy schedule, but sloppy is sloppy.  Time to put the polish on the package.  Time to restructure.  I am starting from the ground up to get my format done correctly the first time every time this year.  I have a reason to be organized, I do my work from home and my kids inhabit my office.  It is hard to focus on what needs to be done with all the distractions of the kids let alone a disorganized approach to the business side. 

I am communicating through advertising about my classes, to try to get new interest, timing is everything and I may have waited too long on this.  I also have been realizing I am communicating to a large list of people no doubt tired of the emails, so sublists for special interests is one of the ways I plan to fix this.  Keep people up to date on what interests them, not on everything.  I am going to try to create a better method, let us hope it works.  If you have organized yourself already and have some ways to share getting the office, the files and such in order, give me a shout.