A look at the similarities and differences between coaches and instructors.
The labels ‘coach’ and ‘instructor’ are often used interchangeably and share many characteristics. What we need to understand and appreciate is that there is a fundamental difference between the two titles.
Similarities between coaching and instructing.
Both include the delivery of technical information that help an individual develop accurate and competent technique. Accompanying this will be the underlying physical and psychological preparation training programmes necessary to facilitate technical skill acquisition. This work will be the result of good planning and scheduling.
Clearly, in both cases, delivery is based on suitable and appropriate two-way communication between your students and you.
Differences between coaching and instructing.
The Professional Golf Association (PGA) of Canada professional Louis Melanson, summed it up well “Teaching or instruction is more technical, like a specialized skill set,” he says. “Coaching on the other hand, you oversee the entire development of a player rather than just a small part.”
At one end of the scale, instructing is about telling (or ordering) someone to do something, especially in a formal, official or specific way. It can be timebound, with set timescales in which to achieve an outcome. At its strictest, instructing can be seen as heavily regimented.
Coaching takes the instructing element one step further and encases it in other essential roles and responsibilities, taking a holistic approach, such as:
- Taking a longer-term perspective on the development of students.
- Appreciating the need to adapt the method of delivery to account for different styles of learning.
- Fully adopting a clear and effective ethical way of working, especially being inclusive and mindful of adaptations to the training programme to account for individual needs.
- Accepting and abiding by laws, regulations and recommendations designed to protect you and others (especially your students). Included in this is operating within clearly defined parameters for safeguarding.
What does this mean to me?
Whatever title you adopt or operate under, clearly it needs to represent the whole package.
Coach Education
Our aim is to support, develop and grow our club network, enabling clubs to offer quality products and services to their individual members.
We can work with you to support your club, train and develop new coaches & instructors, and grow participation in Taekwondo.
British Taekwondo Assistant Coach Award
Members of British Taekwondo are now able to complete the new Assistant Coach Award.
The Assistant Coach Award has been created to help all those assisting sessions gain invaluable knowledge and experience, whilst working alongside their club coach in a class setting as they progress through the award.
All current Assistant Coaches within British Taekwondo clubs or, members who are 16 years or older with a red belt or higher grade hoping to get into coaching, can sign up to take the British Taekwondo Assistant Coach Award.
Find out more here.
What’s your take on the subject? Let us know in the comments.
To find out more about our education development work, please contact Neil Burton, Education Officer via education@britishtaekwondo.org
From a Taekwondo context specifically, I entirely disagree with Louis Melanson’s characterisation. For me an Instructor is more all encompassing than a Coach. Instructing Taekwondo is teaching all of the martial art that Kukkiwon defines, along with the values it aims to teach and includes the sport side of Taekwondo too. There’s a whole “do” (or way of life) that is being taught. Whereas coaching is purely for the sport aspect, often with winning being more important than underlying principles (for example the crazy monkey kicks that are now banned but were done for a while because they scored, not because they are realistically useful).
Even poomsae that has both sports and traditional elements, while technically containing the same content are often done in different ways (IMO partially to do with ease of judging and partially to do with what looks aesthetically better, regardless of practicality or underlying martial arts principles).
I’m OK with whoever wants to identify with whichever term they choose, but I’ll always be an instructor for there is more to Taekwondo than just sports coaching.
I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this.
Having had this discussion recently with a “coach”, the conclusion was that a coach is more about creating a winning mindset and fine tuning, rather that having the instructor, who teaches everything the student needs.
Personally, I feel its important to emphasise that tkd isn’t JUST a sport. It is a very complete martial art which is a life long commitment for some of us.
What was written above almost belittles the importance of the instructor and hails the coach as the key to being successful in tkd. Maybe if you are solely sport oriented, but for some of us, that’s just a small proportion of what tkd is. An instructor makes the whole package, a coach tweaks and pushes the right buttons to help performance.
You make excellent reference to how the words we use to describe ourselves need to resonate with the activity we deliver.
The term ‘coach’ is a commonly used tag for those involved in the delivery of sports and wider still, physical activity. I agree that the perception of it gets associated more with the sport and competition side of things. However, instructing/coaching/delivering (whatever the title) isn’t all about producing winning outcomes. It is typical that sports (as defined by Sport England and UK Sport listings) include a vast majority of club members undertaking activity, in this case, Taekwondo, for reasons other than merely to compete. As you say, the outcome is more about health and a way of life. I couldn’t agree more with that.
A central point of the original article was to highlight, whatever the title we use, needs to encompass so much more than the delivery of technical preparation. Its about adopting a holistic approach.
Many thanks for your post.