Climbing Coach

So yet another video on using a peg board. I am trying to get a good few training and technique videos together over the coming weeks. You can subscribe to my youtube channel to get the latest videos first. I will post them here but it may take a week or so.

This video is on basic training, in particular warming up for a bouldering session.

Some more climbing fundamentals this one on foot swapping.

James McHaffie is running a couple of foundation coach award training courses. One is coming up real soon and the other is next month. If you are interested then visit james mchaffie dot com.

The first training course is on Monday 27th January at 10am at the Indy Climbing Wall in Llanfari PG.

The second is on Saturday the 8th Feb at 10am at the Beacon Climbing Centre.

Visit James website to get more details and to find out the pre-requisites.

 

 

The next video is on the accurate and precise use of you feet. This extends the first lesson into the climbing fundamentals.

I have decided to try and make a few coaching videos this years, rather than writing about coaching. I will of course be linking these to the performance profiling tool on iCoach climbing online app. The first video is on the Boot, Body and Balance, three fundamental components of good technique.

All the videos are being made on my iPad, so don’t be expecting speilberg here. They will show the skills much better than a photo and words can.

So I am taking some time to try and promote my work as a rock climbing instructor and coach based in North Wales. I doing so I have been trying to work out what are my unique selling points that may well help me stand out from what is a very crowded market place in North Wales.

First off, I do like to think of myself as a climber, I don’t know how else I can express that other than point out that I am the author of two guides to the climbing in North Wales. The impressive new North Wales Climbs by Rockfax, which I was one of the key authors of and my own North Wales Rock App with theSend. What this means is that you are basically being taught by a walking, talking guidebook, with a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the crags in North Wales. Practically it means I will be closing the best crags for the weather and the best routes for you the clients.

Being a climber doesn’t ipso facto make me a good coach and instructor. But again I have taken my time to develop those skills to the maximum. Having qualified as a Mountaineering Instructor I have not rest on my laurels instead I have dedicated my to professional development in the form of coaching. This resulted in me gaining a Master’s Degree in Applied Sports Science with Effective Coaching, Performance Physiology and Sport Psychology. Again I then took all that knowledge and condensed it into a book called How To Climb Harder.

As such I have both a superb working knowledge of North Wales Climbing and exceptional understanding of climbing performance. Literally writing books in both areas that I believe are crucial to helping anyone I coach get the very best out of north wales climbing and the utmost out of themselves when it comes to climbing performance.

So if you want to come on a climbing course with me then pay a visit to Snowdonia Mountain Guides where I showcase all the climbing coaching and instructional courses I offer.

I tend to buy website from time to time and see what I can do with them, it is as much about the fun of programming as it is creating useful sites. It is why i bought icoachclimbing.com and northwalesrock.com. I can’t deny the end goal is to make sites that return me some money. Most just about pay for themselves from advertising with google ads.

So anyway, I found that climbingcoaches.co.uk was free, so bought it for next to nothing. I finally got round to developing the site. At present there is a database of all the climbing walls in the UK. There is also a way for coaches to register and login to the site and set up a profile. In that profile you can say which climbing walls you work at in a single geographic area. That way when someone searches for a climbing wall they will be able to see at a glance who offers independent coaching at those walls.

The cost is free, although if it gets out of hand as I need to see people certificates or read an email to see if they are qualified by experience. So I might charge a few pounds a year. In return you’ll get some link backs to your website, Facebook page, twitter account and blog.

I will also start to write some articles on coaching in general and if you as a coach wants to contribute to that then we can link back to your site from the articles. I hope it can be a kind of linked in for coaches, but with the added benefit of focusing on indoor climbing coaches.

Before I code up the searching of coaches I need a few coaches to sign up to check the code at my end. So if you are a coach and like sound of it dive in, sign up and write your own profile.

I have recently been putting together a few webpages for James McHaffie who is providing the new Coaching awards for the MT. He is going to run his first training course on Saturday 7th December at the Indy Climbing Wall. There are full details over on his website on the foundation coach award training page.

If you are going on one of these awards and would like a great book and/or ebook that covers much of the coaching process and movement coaching aspects of the awards the I recommend How to Climb Harder or Effective Coaching: The Coaching Process for Climbign Instructors.

Ever wonder how fear might be effecting your performance, if you do then I can recommend trying to get hold of June’s Climber Magazine. As it had an article that explained all about it and a test you could take to see how you were effected.

I had digitized the test before it was published but wanted to give the print version some form of shelf life, so kept it under wraps until now. So if you are a member iCoach, it is free to register and use the site if not, you will find the fear test on your profile page. There is some info here as well if not.