ארכיון Debriefs - Kinetix AI

Three Tactics for Coaches to Teach Sailors New Skills

Anne Popolizio — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 19:59:35 +0000

When you’re teaching a sailor new skills—there is a lot of information that has to get from the coach’s brain to the sailor’s brain. It’s a challenging task for any coach.

You can try telling the sailors everything you know, but let’s be honest, we’ve all sat through that class where we’ve been talked at for 40 minutes and felt overwhelmed by the tsunami of information. It might have been fascinating information you really wanted to know, but by the end of that class, your brain was mush and your retention was low. Maybe you remember a few interesting nuggets, but you couldn’t necessarily explain it back to anyone.

Your goal as a coach is knowledge acquisition and skills development, not overwhelm. So how do you find the right balance?

Here are three tactics we use in our own coaching to help sailors, from beginner to experienced, learn new skills without the overwhelm.

1. Use questions to guide them to make their own observations.

This tactic works on sailors of all levels. Even if it’s a sailor’s very first sailing class, you actually don’t need to impart information on them to start developing their sailing skills. Instead, you use questions to guide their attention, make observations, and articulate those observations in their own words.

Use It in a Lesson

Here’s how this tactic looks in a basic sailing lesson: how to read the water.

Have the sailors look at the water and ask them, how would you describe the texture of the water in your own words.
Don’t worry if they’re not giving the right answers yet. You’re just asking questions and they’re making observations.
Then point them to a different section of the water and ask them, what differences do you see between the two. How is this section different than the other?
You can use questions to feed them the vocabulary we use in sailing: would you describe that section of water as glassy, scaly, wavy?
How would you describe the color? How does the color of this patch of water compare to that patch? Is this patch lighter or darker.
Now that they’re starting to accurately describe what they see, ask them, which patch do you think has more wind? The lighter patch or the darker patch? The glassy patch or the scaly patch?
Even if the student couldn’t make accurate observations about the first patch of water, when they compare it to a different patch and you feed them vocabulary options, they’ll start to be able to make accurate observations and articulate their observations with the right words.
Summarize the lesson by asking, so what are the two elements we use to read the water? Answer: color and texture.

Why It Helps

By using this technique, you have successfully taught the sailors the observation skills they need to read the water, the vocabulary they need to describe the water, and you’re helping them build a tangible relationship with the wind. All without a lecture.

2. Use their existing knowledge to layer on new knowledge.

Every sailor has existing knowledge. The sailor on day 1 has at least felt the wind before. A sailor that’s been sailing a few times knows what luffing is and that it’s bad. A sailor that’s completed the basic sailing course knows what telltales are and that they should be streaming back.

As a coach, you can use a sailor’s existing knowledge to introduce a new concept, for example, you can use a basic sailor’s knowledge of luffing and telltales to teach twist and how to adjust it.

Use It in a Lesson

Here’s a sample exercise (if you’re coaching dinghies, you might want to do this on land with just the jib up. If you’re on the water, make sure the driver can hold a steady course):

Pull the jib car all the way back.
Have the sailors look at the jib sail and ask them, what do you see? Is the sail luffing? Is only part of the sail luffing? How does the top of the sail compare to the bottom of the sail?
Have them look at the different sets of telltales up the sail. Are the telltales breaking the same top to bottom? Say to them, knowing what you know about telltales, what would you do to correct the telltales at the top of the sail?
Then, have them look at the leech of the sail. Does that look twisted or not twisted to you?
At this point, don’t worry about correcting their answer or imparting information. Your objective is just to get them to observe and put their observations into words. You are a neutral guide.
Now comes the fun part. Move the car forward 2/3 of the way.
Have the students make their observations again.
- How does your sail look top to bottom now? Is there any luffing or leeching?
- Are the telltales breaking evenly top to bottom?
- Did the twist of the leech change? How? Does it look more or less twisted to you?

Why It Helps

In this lesson, sailors already have an understanding of luffing vs. not luffing and what corrections they need to make to their trim if their telltales are breaking. You use their existing knowledge to introduce the concept of twist, how to see that twist in the sail, and how adjustments to the car position affect the twist of the sail.

You could try explaining it all to them in a lecture—it’s going to go in one ear and out the other. By using this teaching technique, the sailors stay fully engaged in the lesson and will have a better understanding of the material than if you had tried to just explain it all to them in the classroom.

3. Use video to show them what good looks like.

This is an important tactic for teaching sailors complex multi-step maneuvers, and thanks to the plethora of content on YouTube, one you can incorporate pretty easily into your coaching.

Let’s say you’re helping sailors transition from the Opti to the Laser. These kids know how to sail, but the challenge is helping them adjust to the nuances of the boat.

Use It in a Lesson

Here’s how you can use video to teach sailors the nuances of tacking in a Laser:

Before you go sailing, have them watch videos of experienced Laser sailors doing tacks. Share clips from different camera angles if you can—camera at the bow, camera at the stern, camera on the coach boat.
Have the sailors make their own observations. What do you see? How far does the tiller go over? How long does he wait to move? How far forward or aft does she sit? How windy is it in this video? What does she do with her mainsheet?
Again, don’t worry at this point about “teaching” them how to sail the Laser. Just let them make their own observations. If there are important points you want to make sure they get, ask questions that bring their attention to that element of the maneuver, but you don’t necessarily need to “teach” yet. Give them enough information to keep them safe, but otherwise keep your “teaching” to a minimum at this point.

On the Water

Now it’s time to go sailing.

Give each sailor a GoPro to put on their boat so they can record their maneuvers. (If you don’t have a camera per sailor, don’t stress. You can rotate the cameras during practice so each sailor gets a handful of tacks recorded).

When you get back to shore, upload the video to the KINETIX ai software so you can quickly zero in on the maneuvers and avoid wasting time fast-forwarding through a 2-hour training session. (You can collect the cameras and upload the footage while the sailors are putting their boats away).

Side Note

When you record your sailing sessions, it actually takes the pressure off the debrief. You can have the debrief right away, you can save it for the top of the next session, or you can debrief over Zoom. Recording your sessions gives you choices.

The Debrief

Here’s how you structure the conversation for the post-sailing debrief:

At the beginning of the debrief, rewatch some of the experienced sailor footage.
Once again, have the sailors articulate their observations. Now that they have experience on the boat doing the same maneuvers, their observations will likely be more insightful and specific. They’ll notice things they didn’t notice before.
Then have them watch their own footage.
Ask them what they notice about their own maneuvers.
- What felt awkward or uncomfortable to you? What felt smooth?
- Where are you sitting? How far over do you push your tiller? When do you bring it back towards center? How is your flow crossing the boat?
Go back and forth between the experienced footage and their footage and have them compare what they see.
If there is an important element of their maneuver that they’re not noticing, bring their attention to that particular spot. Ask them to watch how they’re doing it and how the experienced sailor does it. Then have them articulate the differences they observe.

At this point, you can supplement with additional information that the sailor needs to know to make the necessary corrections.

Slow Down to Go Fast

Using this sailor-led teaching technique might feel slower than simply telling the sailors what they need to know (goodness, we just took two debriefs and a sailing session to teach them when you could have told them in 40 minutes).

But think back to how you felt when you were inundated with that tsunami of information.

This technique slows the teaching own, but the sailors are actively engaged the entire time. You’re helping them build essential observation skills and consequently the judgment skills they will need to make corrections without building dependency on you, their coach. You’re also helping them understand the material on a much deeper, more physical level, so they can actually retain the information. As a result, even though the lesson takes longer to teach, your sailors’ learning will be faster.

Step Up Your Coaching Game

Want to level up your coaching with technology? Schedule an appointment to learn more about Kinetix AI.

הפוסט Three Tactics for Coaches to Teach Sailors New Skills הופיע לראשונה ב-Kinetix AI.

The Problem with Debriefs in Sailing

Anne Popolizio — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 18:19:07 +0000

It’s Not the Bow’s Fault!

Here’s the scenario: you’re a Farr 40 with a crew of 8. You go into a gybe, the bow person takes too long to get the new guy in the jaws of the pole. The gybe ends up being too slow, the boat decelerates and your competition pulls a boat length ahead of you.

What happens next?

Likely some yelling.

The skipper yells from the back of the boat that the bow person needs to move faster to get the pole attached. (It’s always the bow’s fault!)

The bow person gets frustrated and yells back that something was stuck. (It’s fantasy land’s fault!)

Two hours later, when you’re back at the dock, you’re sitting around the cockpit discussing the gybe, trying to remember exactly what happened and why.

The bow person had too much resistance and couldn’t get the guy into the jaws, but where did that resistance come from? Was someone standing on the guy? Did the guy trimmer pull it in too soon? Did the bow person just not pull enough slack forward before the maneuver?

So much happened that day, and now you’re trying to piece together the sequence of events from two hours earlier with 8 different points of view. The bow person feels put on the spot and gets defensive. Everyone’s just a little frustrated and the skipper wants to keep the peace, so you say screw it and go into the club for a drink.

Feedback is Essential

Ultimately, the issue for the team is not whether someone pulled a line too soon or too late. The issue is how the team gave feedback to each other.

Feedback is an essential part of sailing training and coaching. Without it, you can’t improve. But how we give and get feedback determines how well the information is received, understood and implemented. It also plays a major role in how motivated a sailor stays long-term.

There are a few ways that sailors get feedback. If you’re part of a structured team with a coach, you’re (hopefully) getting a proper chalk talk that involves some video, a white board, little magnetized boats, and a lot of bar karate.

But for the rest of the sailing world, feedback–if you get it at all–comes usually in one of two forms:

In-the-moment feedback (often in the form of yelling over the chaos)
Round-robin debriefs

If you’ve sailed long enough, you’ve experienced both of these methods, and you know they have some limitations.

In the scenario above, the skipper yelling from the back of the boat doesn’t take into account what the bow person was actually dealing with in that particular moment or what caused them to be delayed. Stakes are high, and things are moving fast. Which means emotions run high. The bow person feels attacked, and we end up with the perpetual blame game between the front of the boat and the back of the boat.

Round-robin debriefs are certainly calmer, but they rely on memory, which could be fuzzy an hour or two after that gybe. Round-robin debriefs also risk turning into finger-pointing sessions, and when people’s defenses go up, they’re not open to receiving feedback.

When someone’s viewpoint is limited, their feedback is inherently biased.

If you want to take the blame game out of your debriefs and have feedback sessions that actually improve team cohesion, you need to use an unbiased source–video.

Video gives you facts. Video doesn’t rely on memory. Video can be watched when you’re warm, fed and emotions are calm.

Combine video with boat data and GPS tracking, and you suddenly have a powerful tool that tells you not just what happened, but why it happened. It helps sailors understand why their role matters and how their role fits into the system as a whole. It shows you the impact of even tiny mistakes and helps you identify where to focus your training. And–wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles–it could even unite the bow and fantasy land.

But we’ll never give up the bar karate.

Data-Driven Sailing

You can learn more about how to take the bias out of your sailing training in these interviews with some of our favorite coaches and analysts. We learned a ton!

Want a tool that will help you use video and data easily? Schedule an appointment to learn more about Kinetix AI.

הפוסט The Problem with Debriefs in Sailing הופיע לראשונה ב-Kinetix AI.