# Required Mental Management Training For Coaches



## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

Yep, it is a great idea in theory, but it starts to get expensive to volunteer your time. What is the next add-on that will be required? I got a deal on Basshams set on here, and it is interesting stuff, but truly not stuff I haven't picked up through years of trial and error and free reading. Mental Management is like anything else. Reading/Hearing and even Knowing the material is one thing. Being able to implement it and pass it on is a whole different beast.


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

It seems to me that we are up against a bunch of countries with professional coaches, and things like this probably reflect the reality, that USAA sees a need to develop our own corps of professionals. That means professional certification in various areas. Those normally involve fees.

Nobody is stopping you from volunteering your time as a level 1 or 2 instructor, our sport needs volunteers at these levels to get people off to some kind of proper start. 

But, if you're a USAA level 1 or 2 instructor (remember, these are not Coach titled levels) and aspire to be a titled coach within the USAA system, you need to follow the certifications required by the system, like any other "profession".

The alternative is to make yourself available as a coach, using your experience and reputation, but outside the current system. There are several noteworthy and successful coaches who have taken this approach.

As far as being able to "implement and pass on" information, that applies no matter what level you aspire to. I've seen evidence that some Level 4's have assimilated all of the material but still can't teach their students out of a wet paper bag. Some people are better at this stuff than others.


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## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

Well stated. I don't object to the fees per se, only to the premise that a self directed online presentation will be effective. But I suppose you have to start somewhere. No indication was given about the 101 course and what it entails.


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## Arsi (May 14, 2011)

Very cool. Look forward to talking to more coaches about mental management techniques.


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## spangler (Feb 2, 2007)

I think it is a great thing to throw more barriers to entry to archery for aspiring archers, especially those without a lot of extra cash to spare. Lets face it, we only want archery students who can afford 30-150 dollars an hour for coaching in our pool anyhow.

Goodness knows no talent comes from anywhere except the top caste. 

How about instead of sweetheart deals for third parties, we simply STOP CERTIFYING PEOPLE IN A SYSTEM WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND OR CAN'T TEACH THE SYSTEM?!?!?! How about we also have a way to REVOKE the certification for the L3 and L4 coaches that consistently produce BAD coaches from their classes?

The problem with the L3 and L4 coach ranks isn't that they haven't wasted another 150 dollars on this, it is that they think if they pay their money, they get a cert.

I'll probably be letting my cert lapse due to this, and honestly USA Archery probably wont miss me.


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

Most "professions" get paid. So I guess there in lies the rub. In many professions the certifications and qualifications are paid by the employer, some you foot the bill for future increase in pay. 

And while yes, I could charge the kids more because I am a level 3, double zero is still zero. 

The difference is that USAA does have "professional" coaches and then relies on the rest of us to bolster its numbers, toe its line, and pay its fees, all while training kids to hopefully eventually fall under those professional coaches. We make the organization look good, and do in fact get a little out of it, but without the enormous pool of volunteer instructors and coaches, USAA would essentially collapse. 

Even the coaching symposium is so expensive that I ended up opting out this year, and I am local. That would be an awesome opportunity to "give a little back" but instead they price it out of reach for many, especially those that need to travel to attend. If you want to improve and baseline your coaches, then this would be the forum to do it, instead of just making it available to a select few.

I just can't keep sinking as much money and time into it as I have so far. 

Anyhow just my 2 cents.


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## tkaap (Nov 30, 2009)

bobnikon said:


> Most "professions" get paid.


I did a quick 30 second search through the Little League and Pop Warner sites to see if there were coaching certifications there, as those are also volunteer organizations. I found some training videos, and links to plenty of education courses, but few if any required certifications outside of things like safe sport.

The flip side of the situation is USA Gymnastics, which has dozens of courses (including the Mental Management courses), costing thousands of dollars in total. And those coaches run the gamut from volunteer to full professional.

USA Archery has 7-8? So this is somewhat of a middle ground.

But I think that any extension of the list of "requirements" should be balanced. I have no problem with USA Archery developing programs, and covering their costs for the materials development. I have no problem for them offering fee-based certifications as a partnership of disseminating information and lending their stamp of approval to professional coaches. But it does leave veteran volunteer coaches in a bit of a lurch. 

I would be in favor of a fee discount for purely volunteer coaches. If you take the vow of poverty, then you should have some benefits for that.

-Tony


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## spangler (Feb 2, 2007)

>--gt--> said:


> It seems to me that we are up against a bunch of countries with professional coaches, and things like this probably reflect the reality, that USAA sees a need to develop our own corps of professionals. That means professional certification in various areas. Those normally involve fees.


How many professional coaches are in the country? Who aren't retired and make their living, or their profession is, just coaching? Adding more fees doesn't help this.

We already have fees for attaining the certifications, what we have is a broken certification process. One which this doesn't address and doesn't fix. This is a third party sweetheart deal which results in a forced customer base for information which is....to be frank...not exactly groundbreaking. It certainly isn't worth another $150 in fees for a bunch of rehashed feelgood info.



> As far as being able to "implement and pass on" information, that applies no matter what level you aspire to. I've seen evidence that some Level 4's have assimilated all of the material but still can't teach their students out of a wet paper bag. Some people are better at this stuff than others.


Then they shouldn't be certified as Level 4 coaches. Making them pay an additional $150 doesn't help at all.


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

My post was partly in response to the concept that USAA is building its cadre of professional coaches. Highly qualified, even experienced sure. Profession is a pretty specific word. By taking this course we are not becoming professionals, we are receiving another certification that may or may not lead to great coaching ability, and are paying more money for something we, in the case of the requirement for re-cert, already have.

And I really think this would be a great thing to *mentor * coaches in, not just throw an online course at, especially at... i don't know, a symposium that was designed to truly increase the calibre of the coaches in the organization, not just those who can afford to attend. 

I hate the guys who pull out the dictionary to prove a point, but it is appropriate here.

pro·fes·sion·al.

ADJECTIVE

1.of, relating to, or connected with a profession: 
"young professional people" · 
synonyms: white-collar · nonmanual

2.(of a person) engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime: 
"a professional boxer"
synonyms: paid · salaried


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

bobnikon said:


> My post was partly in response to the concept that USAA is building its cadre of professional coaches. Highly qualified, even experienced sure. Profession is a pretty specific word. By taking this course we are not becoming professionals, we are receiving another certification that may or may not lead to great coaching ability, and are paying more money for something we, in the case of the requirement for re-cert, already have.
> 
> And I really think this would be a great thing to *mentor * coaches in, not just throw an online course at, especially at... i don't know, a symposium that was designed to truly increase the calibre of the coaches in the organization, not just those who can afford to attend.
> 
> ...



It seems I didn't make my point clear enough.

We are up against countries that have dozens, to literally, hundreds of professional (paid) coaches, that is, people making their living from coaching, and getting results, in countries like Korea, and perhaps a half-dozen others.

One may well argue that we also need to create a path for archery coaching to be a paid profession in our country, as a long-term goal. Certification is a part of that path.

Should this come to pass, it means people who are really good at this stuff can, dare I say it, make a decent living at it. Just as in several other countries. 

Our sport is important enough to rate that kind of development.

Those coaches who are good at it and earn their pay will prosper, and the tide will lift more of our shooters to higher levels.


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

>--gt--> said:


> It seems I didn't make my point clear enough.
> 
> We are up against countries that have dozens, to literally, hundreds of professional (paid) coaches, that is, people making their living from coaching, and getting results, in countries like Korea, and perhaps a half-dozen others.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the clarification. I don't see it happening in the near future, but I like the future you propose.


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

bobnikon said:


> Thanks for the clarification. I don't see it happening in the near future, but I like the future you propose.


I sometimes feel like the American archery coach community is kind of like a bucket of crabs, with those beneath constantly pulling down those who try to rise up to the top. I hope that can change in the future.


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## spangler (Feb 2, 2007)

>--gt--> said:


> It seems I didn't make my point clear enough.
> 
> We are up against countries that have dozens, to literally, hundreds of professional (paid) coaches, that is, people making their living from coaching, and getting results, in countries like Korea, and perhaps a half-dozen others.
> 
> ...


Yes, by all means. Lets create an ever smaller group of people with the required knowledge by making it even more onerous to obtain the knowledge. Then that small subsection of people who can both afford it and have the drive will go 1800 miles across the country for coaching by the select few and the TIDE SHALL LIFT! The USA is pretty much the same size as most of those other countries. We only need 3 or so across the country to cover it.

Nobody is arguing certification. The issue is another chunk of money which doesn't improve the certification which is going to a third party.


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

You have an interesting attitude. Good luck with that.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

> We are up against countries that have dozens, to literally, hundreds of professional (paid) coaches, that is, people making their living from coaching, and getting results, in countries like Korea, and perhaps a half-dozen others.


That's one way to view the problem alright. 

One could also look back to which country won the men's team gold in London, and wonder why they are so consistently successful. 

Plenty of ways to view this issue. The medalists are a diverse group from a varied backgrounds with everything from 100's of professional coaches to just a few, in their home country. 

Until we begin to successfully recruit top ATHLETES into our sport, we can have the best coaching staff in the world and it won't matter. All our nation's best athletes are playing other sports. Even the best coach cannot turn a anemic, sickly kid with a poor work ethic into a world champion, but that doesn't stop us from trying again and again.

I've told my students for years that given the same amount of work, the best athletes will always rise to the top. Pity we don't have many, if any, in our sport.

There should be at least as much attention given to recruiting world class athletes to our sport as there is to training them. One cannot harvest many bushels from poor seed.

Why coach Lee is not a regular fixture in college athletic programs across this country is beyond me. He should be the best recruiter we have ever seen, finding talented athletes who have an Olympic dream but for one reason or another, cannot fulfill it in their current sport. College swimmers, basketball players, softball players, even college golfers - already have demonstrated a tremendous work ethic, mental toughness and ability to respond to coaching that MANY of our young archers lack because they do not have experience in other sports. They do not know what it means to be pushed, or to perform in order to keep from being benched. 

Until our sport has a way to sit archers, we will never get the full potential from our athletes because our coaches lack some of the most critical tools in the coaching toolbox.

So we continue to work with so many kids who don't know what sweat is, and whose parents won't allow them to be pushed. This is a not an issue when we view this sport as a recreational pastime, but if we are really talking about taking on the nations who are loaded with professionals, this is what we need to be talking about, because it is our limiting factor. Not some new coaching requirement.


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## tkaap (Nov 30, 2009)

limbwalker said:


> Why coach Lee is not a regular fixture in college athletic programs across this country is beyond me. He should be the best recruiter we have ever seen, finding talented athletes who have an Olympic dream but for one reason or another, cannot fulfill it in their current sport. College swimmers, basketball players, softball players, even college golfers - already have demonstrated a tremendous work ethic, mental toughness and ability to respond to coaching that MANY of our young archers lack because they do not have experience in other sports. They do not know what it means to be pushed, or to perform in order to keep from being benched.


Do we have a organization member available for college recruiting and scouting? I'm sure there's a better marketing term for it than "headhunting", but that's a pretty accurate word for it. Volleyball does this -- recruiting from the basketball ranks. Rugby recruits from football. 

-T


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

tkaap said:


> Do we have a organization member available for college recruiting and scouting? I'm sure there's a better marketing term for it than "headhunting", but that's a pretty accurate word for it. Volleyball does this -- recruiting from the basketball ranks. Rugby recruits from football.
> 
> -T


Given the dire economics of being an Olympic Archer in the US, what does a headhunter have to offer top athletes in other sports to draw them into archery?


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## montigre (Oct 13, 2008)

So I already own and use this and now have to pay for a duplicative service from the same people that created the 5 CD set in order to renew or advance my coaching certification??? That does not sound very equitable.....


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## StarDog (Feb 17, 2007)

Look. I have studied this stuff for years. There is absolutely no need to take an expensive course or read a ton of books. Most "mental management books" or "self help books" say the same thing. Heck, you could read Napoleon Hills "Think and Grow Rich" and realize ah ha! all I have to do is get my brain together. 

Seriously. Not kidding. I have a box of these books including Lannie Basham's (nothing against Lannie because he was my first exposure to this stuff). I have tossed out at least half of what the library used to be.

Brief visit to library. Just replace the "money" part with "shooting sports" part. Watch the "Secret" etc etc. So not kidding. This taking a class thing is utter bollocks. I even attended T Harve Eckert Millionaire Mindset (it was free because they want you to buy cd's and books etc). 


They all say the same thing.

Get over yourself. Figure out what you want. How to take the steps to get there. Practice those endlessly and correctly And get over yourself.

There. I just taught you mental management


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

My take on this...

1) I've always said that in every profession that has some sort of certification track, you want the certification, you have to do the classes needed to get the certification. 

2) Certifications change. Just like in the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer classes, you have some stuff change (Windows XP to 7 to 8 to 10), whereas some stuff really doesn't change (TCP/IP and Networking Basics hasn't changed, much...) 

3) There are some of us who are L3/L4 that wants to take people on a National and International level. I, for one, have it as a personal goal to get my Level 5, and I'm currently working through the political minefield plus the paperwork/real work side to make it happen. Some want their L3/L4 to be resume fodder.

Truth to tell, I've encountered some L3/L4 coaches that can't coach their way out of a paper bag. Some L3's can wind their way through the class, but some L4's I have absolutely NO idea how the hell they passed. I'm a bit mixed as to whether or not those coaches should even have their certifications to begin with.

I truly feel that this is a method to eventually wean the L3/L4 ranks of those who want the title as a bragging right. I really do believe that if you have your L3, you're coaching kids to or in National or USAT level events on an occasional timeframe. If you're L4, you're consistently taking kids to National/USAT events every year.

4) I do believe that MMS has lost their way slightly. They used to be one of the premier *shooting sport* mental management methods out there. If you read "With Winning in Mind", you can see a clear modification of the book from it's first edition (mostly shooting) to it's current (3rd, I think) edition where it's got a crapton of golf in it. Golf is what pays MMS's bills, but we are involved in a shooting sport. 

Anyhow, I was planning on taking these courses anyways as part of my road to my Level 5. It's now pushed up a bit on my timeframe.

-Steve


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

I still have a problem, as Montigre above I have the dvd set, and Stardog I have the book. Other than a piece of paper, that I will have to print off, what will this $50 1.5 hr course give me?

The only weaning out this does is of the people who wont pay. I wonder how many lvl 3s will drop off next year. It will be an interesting metric.

As I said, I am all for professional certifications if they lead to something for me, ie money, but as I volunteer my coaching time, I may be an instructor in 2017, instead of a coach. Oh well, wont change what I do.


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

As I understand it, in the upcoming years we will all have the following _mandatory_ opportunities

2017 Easton arrow maintenance module 
2018 Hoyt bow tuning module. 
2019 Doinker stabilization module
2020 Pilla light management module

Each will be required to renew your certification, but will provide further Professional credentials.


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## tkaap (Nov 30, 2009)

Warbow said:


> Given the dire economics of being an Olympic Archer in the US, what does a headhunter have to offer top athletes in other sports to draw them into archery?


Not a lot at the moment. But we need both sides in order to grow. Track & Field has a similar situation -- limited exposure, with higher payments for parts of the event that have a broader public participation (marathon) or a focused cultural interest.

It will grow slowly from there, as more niches are developed into the combination of entertainment and participation that tie people to an activity. But for a competitive athlete who is seeing doors close in front of then, showing them an open door could be a big deal.

For all that televised darts is mentioned here, darts has money because it's accessible to play at the local level and because an engaging televised format was developed by an eccentric millionaire who decided he wanted to make even more money. It came from active, explicit work to create events that people wanted to attend and watch, and developing excellent players to compete. And some people screamed and yelled. And some broke off and formed their own organizations. And they've had their own successes, too. And that's fine.

Will the headhunting help? Will the Mental Management for coaches help? I think that's going to be a resounding "maybe". But treating some elements of archery as a business rather than a hobby could be a positive move... The hobby/business partnership for NASP has certainly worked well for them.

-T


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## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

bobnikon said:


> As I understand it, in the upcoming years we will all have the following _mandatory_ opportunities
> 
> 2017 Easton arrow maintenance module
> 2018 Hoyt bow tuning module.
> ...


I know it was said in jest, but a bow tuning module would be valuable. 

Putting together a comprehensive certification should be a fundamental part of what USAA does . Experts could cover form, tuning and the psychological aspects of archery. USAA should be gathering the materials and paying experts for their input. A competent coach should have a good grasp of all three areas. 

Level 3 coaches who do not come from an archery background are cast adrift with little knowledge of bow mechanics. That ignorance is likely carried forward to level 4. 

See where an offhand comment can lead?


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

Beastmaster said:


> I truly feel that this is a method to eventually wean the L3/L4 ranks of those who want the title as a bragging right.


I would say it may have the exact opposite effect. This is a paper certification, earned online, the kind of cert that people with no archery, coaching or other experience can earn for $$. Yet it's an extra burden on people who do actually have archery coaching skills and experience.

Or, to put it another way, I'm 100% certain that I can easily earn this, yet I consider my archery teaching skills to still firmly in the instructor camp, not in the coaching camp.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

I've said it 100 times (or more) but until there is a merit-based, performance-based element to our certifications, on the archery field, they are worth about as much as the paper they are printed on. 

Why has there always been a dismissal or even resistance to the idea of merit-based elements to our higher level cert's? Hmmm?


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## gonehuntin (Dec 2, 2004)

wow.... yet another expense..... and definitely not on the list of affordable business expenses.....the list of mandatory expenses via USAA demands grows and grows and grows and grows....with no end to this very disturbing trend in site in our foreseeable future...and so unfair to those of us that have over the years proven our selves to be quite capable of continuing our coaching education without forced expenses that truly seem to simply line the pockets of the "favored few"..

I have been (and still am) an active student of sport mental management courses since 1994...I always have and continue to this day, to research and compare numerous sources of professional mental management for sports, the people and and their theories, ..... In Lanny Bassham's teachings I have not found the material to be any more insightful then any others....nor does any of it provide any different or more helpful techniques, resources, or material then any of the other resources that I have used over the last 20 yrs... there is nothing new or exclusive to his teaching that would make these additional expenses justified... 

USAA should put forth the effort to develop a more thorough knowledge of its ENTIRE upper level coach community... to assertain which ones should be offered opportunity for have credit applied for experience, for all the work, expenses,, successes, and resources that they have acquired over ALL their years of coaching.... USAA Just might be pleasantly surprised at the exceptional job that some of them have been doing for 20 plus years.....a nice bonus for them would be discovering that there are many highly experienced and very capable coaches that could be just as helpful to the success of USAA as those "chosen few" that dominate that tiny weeny small group at the tippy top of the coaching community.

I have been a successful Level 4 coach for more than 21 years...have produced many fine athletes... numerous national champions...and have had a huge part in creating successful JOAD programs that also have produced champions.... 

at this stage of my career.... not only do I not need to be told how to continue to upkeep a sharp edge on maintaining ongoing, updated, cutting edge knowledge of how I do my job.... I have certainly earned the right to decide for myself who I will give my hard earned dollars to in order to continue this method of how I conduct my business 

will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.....


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## Jim C (Oct 15, 2002)

>--gt--> said:


> It seems I didn't make my point clear enough.
> 
> We are up against countries that have dozens, to literally, hundreds of professional (paid) coaches, that is, people making their living from coaching, and getting results, in countries like Korea, and perhaps a half-dozen others.
> 
> ...


At the club I belong to, there are three squash professionals. One is a former touring pro from England who was at one time, the best player in the USA and has top credentials. The #2 was very good college player but not pro level. The third was the top girl in the country until a serious injury put an end to her playing in college

These three make pretty good money. The head pro-who works 6 months a year full time and then does some coaching on the off season, has a Porsche. now there is no real pro tour in the USA and the money isn't very good. But guess what? being good at squash will help you get into very difficult schools to get into like Harvard. My niece plays for Williams-not a top squash power but a school that is as hard to get into as Yale. She had very good grades, but because of squash she was told two months before the Early application decision level she was going to be accepted. 


Now, because of this fact, thousands of parents pony up big bucks to get their kids national rankings in a sport that isn't even in the Olympics, is almost never on TV and would be a pay decrease for most of the people who graduate from the schools that really stress squash.

what I am saying is UNTIL archery is going to lead to kids getting into Say Stanford, Cornell or Duke to shoot archery, we aren't going to have a demand for lots of professional coaches. I have nothing but good things to say about Basham, he was one of the coaches when I was a jr shooter and lots of top shooters really respect the guy. But the attempt to try to pretend US archery coaches are going to be like say, the head squash pro at my club (who I can safely say makes more than any of the archery coaches I have met in the USA) is a bit far fetched. 

and USA A constantly making people spend more and more to become certified or stay certified is not particularly beneficial IMHO. I remember when we all went through the BEST stuff and then a couple years later it was no longer sufficient. Yet when my wife came home from level IV, it sure sounded a lot like the stuff I heard from a guy who turned out some pretty good archers 40 years ago


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## lizard (Jul 4, 2003)

1). ALL other countries are government funded. THE USA OLYMPIC TEAM IS PRIVATELY FUNDED BY PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME. The other countries choose their athletes from a very early age and train them up in that sport. I have never heard of ANY citizen of the USA being told you I will compete in whatever sport, and the government funds your way! We are able to CHOOSE what we desire as our sport/discipline. Do what you love and love what you do, is a motto of the company LIFE IS GOOD. It is a better t hing to be able to choose what you like it do sports wise, because then you are driven to be the best at something YOU chose. 
2) just having spent $550 for certification plus another two months of research and reading to pass my certification, I can say I probably know that shot cycle better than most who went through the the class with me. 33 pages later, I Passed! Very gratifying. 
3) I am teaching a girl this right now, and im not sure she really wants to be an archer, but we shall see.
4) I mentioned in a survey that I thought the mental aspect should be more focused in the actual level 4 NTS CLASSROOMS! Form has not changed since I took L3NTS! My paper had to be über detailed, and it was exhausting at times! But I did it, and I understand the shot and why it has to be the way it does.
5) I don't think that there should be an additional charges for this as it should be a part of the classroom portion of Level 4 NTS, and included in the fee for the L4 class. If we are expected to bring onto the National and International tournament scene, the mental aspect needs to be taught to the coaches by PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN THERE. We have the ultimate resource in our club, one who has been on the top of the podium at the Olympics. EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER! One who has been to the top has AMAZING points of interest they are willing to pass on to the next generation of archer.
6) I see a lot of coaches wearing COACH on their backs at tournaments, but the shirt I love best says, "BELIEVE AND ACHIEVE". I've been saying that to a couple of our kids who are at the OTC, FOR YEARS, as has another coach in their life, and you know what? Once they believed in themselves, they started climbing to the top, and are hopful for our USA Olympic team. 
7) I have spoken to the MMS people have all their stuff, but the best book is the ORIGINAL "WITH WINNING IN MIND." Best chapter I think is 7 where Lanny Basham says that Darrell had the utmost confidence that he would win, and kept asking where his gold medal was...now THAT is confidence, and believing in yourself and your ability.

So, as a newly born L4NTS coach I will say the road is not easy, and it shouldn't be. The archer's form has not changed from the days when Darrell Pace and Rick McKinney were rivals, or from what Charlie and Mildred Pierson taught to Darrell all those years ago. Terminology has changed, but form is still body alignment. Form learned in L3NTS is no different than L4NTS. L4 should be more about the mental side of archery, because L3 coaches are already bringing archers to National level shoots.

I'll tell you something else about me and AT and this discussion...I don't get on here very much because of all the bitterness and nit pickiness. AT should be about this community coming together to share information about archery techniques, and equipment to help each other out. YES, I am guilty of being involved in the bitterness, and nit pickiness of this forum, but then I realize it and back away FOR MONTHS, correct the errs of my voice, and move on.

Something else, is support TEAM USA, this is an Olympic Year!
Support The Easton Center of Archery Excellence, it is an incredible place out in Chula Vista, unbelievable technology to analyse!
Support the athletes, they should have training accounts you can donate to.
NEVER STOP LEARNING!
Let's see if we can figure out a way to test out of the MMS thing?
USA a archery does monitor this, and they do hear us...


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

limbwalker said:


> That's one way to view the problem alright.
> 
> One could also look back to which country won the men's team gold in London, and wonder why they are so consistently successful.
> 
> ...


The 'way' is through seeding colleges with archery scholarship funding. I wonder if USA Archery is humping colleges, promoting 'varsity status and scholarship monies' for archery. They should be. College scholarships will attract schoolboy athletes and junior high/high schools.

I have a vague symmetry in my memory that back in the 70's and 80's the US had a decent number of colleges who offered varsity status and athletic scholarships for archery, and 'coincidentally' the US was the world king of the archery hill in the 70's and 80's. Title IX busted out a lot of small spectator sports in the 80's, including archery. No more varsity status, no more scholarships, and some short number of years later, no more US dominance. Is my chronology off?


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

Your chronology is pretty spot on.


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

For the record, last summer I asked Denise if she had intentions on visiting colleges in an attempt to raise the profile of college archery. In a very short but polite discussion the answer was no. John, you bring up a good point about having Coach Lee do this footwork. The concept is sound, but I don't think he's the one to do it. I would prefer to see Denise or Greg Easton. It needs people with a plan and access to money. In the vast majority of sports, college is the path to the Olympics. We will not attract the high level athletes, until that path is established. We will not establish the path until USA Archery or someone other organization, publically gets behind the concept that education is important. To be clear, I refer to the Jr./Sr. High School ages as well as the college students.


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## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

Casualfoto said:


> For the record, last summer I asked Denise if she had intentions on visiting colleges in an attempt to raise the profile of college archery. In a very short but polite discussion the answer was no. John, you bring up a good point about having Coach Lee do this footwork. The concept is sound, but I don't think he's the one to do it. I would prefer to see Denise or Greg Easton. It needs people with a plan and access to money. In the vast majority of sports, college is the path to the Olympics. We will not attract the high level athletes, until that path is established. We will not establish the path until USA Archery or someone other organization, publically gets behind the concept that education is important. To be clear, I refer to the Jr./Sr. High School ages as well as the college students.


There has to be something to offer. So Denise's response doesn't surprise me. Get the money behind you and then make a push. Have prominent alums take the point. Follow up and be persistent. It has to be a well choreographed effort.


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## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

There are a couple of different discussions happening in the thread. That's fine. There is consternation about how coaches are developed and vetted. That's a valid concern. There is also discussion about what materials should be in training manuals. 

I'd like to posit that continuing to upgrade knowledge is necessary in any profession. USAA has fallen down a bit by not conducting adequate continuing education opportunities. So an MD, nurse, coach, should want to spend some sum on a yearly basis to get up to speed on the latest techniques and thoughts in their field. In fact, this is done routinely in many professions. 

The base training materials to become a coach should change regularly and reflect new knowledge. Sort of like the encyclopedia add ons from an era gone by. 

So what has happened is that the base training materials have not changed. There has been inadequate continuing education. All of that is fixable.


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

You're right, and I agree that there is no surprise in the answer that Denise gave. But I don't believe that this can be effectively done by me or you on a one school at time basis. It needs a 'national initiative' with blocks of targeted schools.

My apologies for the digression.


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## erose (Aug 12, 2014)

I don't have an issue with continuing education offered, if it is focused upon the sport of archery. I haven't done either of these modules as of yet, and wont try to do them until later this year. In the last 6 months I've already spent over $1,000 to get myself more education on this sport. So I got to back off a little on my archery expenses for a little while. Anyway if they are going to start doing this, they really need to provide a greater variety of modules, and more opportunities for us volunteer coaches to get more education, in various aspects of our sport; because all of us as coaches have strengths and weaknesses in our knowledge of the sport, that we can look at and say hey I would like to know more about "x". 

For a lot of Lvl3 coaches the primary reason we get our certification is for more knowledge to bring back to our areas; also in my case I also did it so that I can train level 2s in Louisiana so that hopefully we can grow JOAD in my state. So I can understand why people have issues with this, and to a certain point I really don't care for the mental management crap anyway. 

Like someone said earlier in this thread, everything I've read on mental management is really common sense stuff, and I usually coming away after reading the stuff saying: "Well no s##t." Of course I've been coaching kids in various sports for over 15 years, and when you spend enough time coaching, you have to gain the knack of pushing the right buttons, or you don't coach for long. How many of you have been coaching for...well forever? If I was just getting into coaching, these modules would be beneficial to me; but like several have wrote, these modules aren't going to benefit everyone, so why force everyone to go through them.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

Recruiting top athletes into this sport is a job for the National Head Coach. Period. 

This is no different than a great College coach going to visit the home of a top HS prospect. They will be impressed if the National Head Coach comes to visit their school, or visit them in their home. Not so much if an administrator or financial supporter comes. As a former serious HS athlete, this is my perspective. I wouldn't have cared less if the CEO of the USTA came to see me. But if John Newcombe came calling, I couldn't have gotten ready fast enough. These young men and women respond to COACHES. They have been trained to. It's what they do - unlike so many of our young archers these days who are just the opposite and frankly, are uncoachable and who don't know the meaning of serious physical training.

Lee could make use of the RA program by traveling to a number of major colleges every year that don't currently have an active program or well-qualified coach, shooting demonstrations, and then sitting down with the students and AD's. 

So long as the RA program is going to continue to offer all the perks that it does (free housing/training facilities at the OTC, free meals, free travel and registrations to events), it will attract some very good college athletes. 

Give them a 1-year probationary period. Call it a world class athlete "retooling" program, or whatever. If after a year of training with Lee at the OTC, they don't show promise, cut them loose. What have they lost? Nothing. Most of them can't find a job right now anyway. I know their parents would love it since they won't be home living in their basement, eating their food and leaving their laundry all over the house. LOL.

A few former RA's fit this mold, one in particular having been a former college crew (rowing) member who then switched to archery specifically in an attempt to make the Olympic Team. Didn't work out for her, but she came very close and was quickly shooting in the top 8 or 10 in the US because of her athleticism and work ethic.

One thing I would tell these prospects is that archery has more opportunity right now for self-promotion than most other sports. A young person who works hard and performs well can make a name for themselves in this sport much more easily than in bigger sports. Given the right business background (i.e. business or marketing degree), someone who trains at the OTC for a year could parlay that into a career in the sport MUCH more easily than they could in say, basketball or tennis or golf. 

I know this is way off-topic, but IMO it gets much more to the heart of the issue that gt raised, in how we compete with professional archers and coaches in other countries. Again, the best coaches can only work with what raw material they have. And most of our college athletes know more about performing under stress than MOST of our current young achers ever will. They have had to 100's of times just to make it to the college level in their sport.


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

I think it is ironic that to a certain extent the training for coaches doesn't follow the methodologies it teaches. Weekend, or even week long, seminars are not optimal for teaching skills or for good retention. Would anyone here take on coaching an _archer_ by giving them a weekend of instruction and to come back in 3 years? Anyone?


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

How secured is KSL? Because one concern I'd have about hyper specific education oriented to the coach (NTS, specific mental programs) is what if he's gone end of contract. It makes more sense to me to have most coaches studying techniques (plural) and then hit the highest certified, being groomed to help the NT coach, in more specific indoctrination.

Comparison I would make is baseball, a coach generally needs to understand the sport, some concepts of subbing and how to handle a lineup or a set of field players in situations, etc. A specific team might have unorthodox ideas of when to swing and run, where to deploy fielders, etc. Most GMs would need to know how to handle a budget and how to scout talent. Increasingly they are stats-minded also. A particular franchise might be Moneyball minded and unorthodox. Do the Yankees need Moneyball? Not so much. It might be useful but they can overpay for talent fine.

So I understand teach archery technique and perhaps generally mental management. But required NTS (exclusive?) and a specific mental seminar? That sounds a bit specific or at worst fad-oriented. OK, this coach decides he's had enough fun. You hire someone else. He doesn't like NTS or that particular mental seminar. We gonna reconfigure it all in some other direction every time the coach changes? I could get we will teach technique including NTS (I'd like coaches to understand different ways, people might benefit from that), and mental management including this seminar. That wouldn't blow with the wind as much.

Having played sports up through college, I tend to find the general mental management stuff not very helpful, it's stuff you either already know or learn after a couple tournaments (in a form oriented sport, beating up on yourself only makes it worse, for example.....where an angry football or soccer player who made a mistake can go hit someone and get it out.....). I find more useful the practical nuggets. Here is how you handle x. That is usually not part of a technical or tuning education but can help you in tournament situations. That is what people from my background need.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

Warbow said:


> I think it is ironic that to a certain extent the training for coaches doesn't follow the methodologies it teaches. Weekend, or even week long, seminars are not optimal for teaching skills or for good retention. Would anyone here take on coaching an _archer_ by giving them a weekend of instruction and to come back in 3 years? Anyone?


Good point. We also have scores that help us evaluate how well an archery student is applying what they have learned. Don't have those for coaches either, which is why I continue to view the cert. process as a paper exercise.


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

Re athlete recruitment, replicating the A&M approach -- and funding it accordingly -- would go a ways. If there was an archery class in all sorts of colleges, then maybe you can get some people in the sport at that level, including people who "dropped sports" at the end of HS. If there is a club, those attracted can begin pursuing it in a situation that allows them to dedicate. There is some amount of this, but my alma mater has no program and I never heard the word archery there in four years. Some of that is getting colleges interested and motivated but some of this might be outside donations. My college magically took up football after a donor waved money in front of the school with the idea part had to be ticketed to a new football team.

You see where a chunk of the national teams is A&M people, having those sorts of more serious teams also provides space where people can pursue both archery and academics within the school setting. That helps with retention.

I don't know how you'd find and attract them -- because the whole point is they're dispersed back into normal life -- but there is a similar contingent of post-college athletes looking for their next step. I got interested in this when I was too beat up to play soccer anymore. I am mediocre at it but it fulfills similar drives.

I also agree that it might be useful to target elite athletes for re-training, on some level. US bobsled goes out and gets football players and track runners to push sleds. My suggestion then would be target specific sports likely to translate, and/or maybe keep a list of talented people nominally "retired" to pursue college or some other sport, but are done with it. That kid you lost to football who went to college but whose career is done, might be open to coming back. And then it might benefit from more than, try this, more like, we are gonna take 20 of you to Chula Vista or whatever, for a month, train like pros, and see what emerges. One of the better local RW is a converted tennis player who took a highly dedicated approach to her re-boot. I wonder if that turns out the same or as quickly if it's not an everyday thing.


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## Arsi (May 14, 2011)

limbwalker said:


> Most of them can't find a job right now anyway. I know their parents would love it since they won't be home living in their basement, eating their food and leaving their laundry all over the house. LOL.


Too real HAHA!


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

Ok, then lets get rid of all developmental efforts and programs across the board, and focus on recruiting high performance NCAA athletes with Olympic dreams of their own. Dreams which by the way do not include Archery. Then if by chance we do still have young high performing archers in the pipeline, lets tell them that there is no room in the RA program for because some former weight lifter has been convinced that he / she can be an archery RA.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Azzurri said:


> Re athlete recruitment, replicating the A&M approach -- and funding it accordingly -- would go a ways. If there was an archery class in all sorts of colleges, then maybe you can get some people in the sport at that level, including people who "dropped sports" at the end of HS. If there is a club, those attracted can begin pursuing it in a situation that allows them to dedicate. There is some amount of this, but my alma mater has no program and I never heard the word archery there in four years. Some of that is getting colleges interested and motivated but some of this might be outside donations. My college magically took up football after a donor waved money in front of the school with the idea part had to be ticketed to a new football team.
> 
> You see where a chunk of the national teams is A&M people, having those sorts of more serious teams also provides space where people can pursue both archery and academics within the school setting. That helps with retention.
> 
> ...


Some specific sports likely to translate .... wrestlers, gymnasts, ballet dancers (great spatial awareness); baseball, tennis (good hand to eye, throwing/hitting (focused with their eye) to a specific spot while their body provides a smooth consistent delivery of power.

Scenario: 
- Easton provides $1million dollars (or whatever) across 8 colleges to start up varsity archery programs complete with scholarships. 
- Part of the coach's responsibility is teaching archery classes to general student body as an elective, thus helping to fund the program.
- Private middle and high schools then start up archery programs to bolster their students' resumes, making them more attractive to these colleges. 
- The demand for qualified coaches ramps up. 
- College Y starts up an archery varsity program in response to their rival College X starting one and getting the inside track on landing some students that both were competing for from private high school Z.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

Casualfoto said:


> Ok, then lets get rid of all developmental efforts and programs across the board, and focus on recruiting high performance NCAA athletes with Olympic dreams of their own. Dreams which by the way do not include Archery. Then if by chance we do still have young high performing archers in the pipeline, lets tell them that there is no room in the RA program for because some former weight lifter has been convinced that he / she can be an archery RA.


What's wrong with that? I think if we follow gt's logic, we have to produce world class archers to compete with the professional archers in (a few) countries. So if a kid can't get into the RA program because they are not athletic enough, too bad, so sad. I mean, it's the Olympic Training Center for pete's sake. Not some summer camp for kids who earned all their merit badges and whose parents can afford the tuition.

From a pure athlete's point of view, we have been too soft on our archers in the past 20 years and that's why we haven't been able to keep up with some of the other countries. Don't believe me? Just ask a group of JOAD students to go for a 2-mile run and see how that works out for you.

Hell, even my own daughter sees JOAD as a "break" from her REAL athletics (swimming, cross country, volleyball). It's a big reason we have as many JOAD archers as we do in this country, because it's a safe haven for non-athletes who want to compete without breaking a sweat.


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

With all due respect I think there's everything wrong with it. At the very least it relies on finding and recruiting that one individual that can be developed into a champion. Very risky over time. I prefer to see a strong program with a pipeline of young and college aged developing athletes. But the issue with this is that the college program is very weak. Many young developing archers never compete in college and the ones that do face little support and too many obstacles while in college. *Iksseven* thoughts above are more in line with I believe needs to be done. 

Just to keep the thread intact.............building a strong college program is possibly the quickest way to producing opportunities for Professional Coaches.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

limbwalker said:


> What's wrong with that? I think if we follow gt's logic, we have to produce world class archers to compete with the professional archers in (a few) countries. So if a kid can't get into the RA program because they are not athletic enough, too bad, so sad. I mean, it's the Olympic Training Center for pete's sake. Not some summer camp for kids who earned all their merit badges and whose parents can afford the tuition.
> 
> From a pure athlete's point of view, we have been too soft on our archers in the past 20 years and that's why we haven't been able to keep up with some of the other countries. Don't believe me? Just ask a group of JOAD students to go for a 2-mile run and see how that works out for you.
> 
> Hell, even my own daughter sees JOAD as a "break" from her REAL athletics (swimming, cross country, volleyball). It's a big reason we have as many JOAD archers as we do in this country, because it's a safe haven for non-athletes who want to compete without breaking a sweat.


So true. The percentage of JOAD archers (or just archers in general) who truly want to commit, and push themselves, and test themselves, is depressingly small. For most of them, it's just a small step above going bowling.

I truly believe that 'college scholarships' is the nexus that pulls the level of target archery talent/skill in this country up to where it used to be, and returns a level of legitimacy to the sport that hasn't been there since Title IX cuts its legs out from under it. 

But I also agree with John that the USA should be being smart about trying to reach out to accomplished athletes in other sports whose talents are just a smidgen below their amibition in their given sport, or athletes who've blown out a knee and can no longer pursue their 'first sport' dream, but still have the heart of a warrior and the dream of an Olympian. I want the USA kicking a&& on the world stage, and it doesn't matter to me if it's a former ballerina Jenny Hardy (grown too tall as a teenager for a dance career) who turns to archery as a fallback, or it's a short petite girl with an Olympic-sized dream and heart for whom archery was the end-all from her childhood onward (Miranda Leek). On the ultimate stage, I want our highest performing representatives in that sport, no matter what road they took to get there.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

> I prefer to see a strong program with a pipeline of young and college aged developing athletes. But the issue with this is that the college program is very weak. Many young developing archers never compete in college and the ones that do face little support and too many obstacles while in college.


You just provided a good argument against using the current college structure. I am suggesting a parallel program. What we currently have in our college programs is more of a intramural activity. I'm suggesting that the National Head Coach go into colleges and specifically recruit serious college athletes who have an interest in archery and who have an interest in making an Olympic team, but who have spent their time training in other sports besides archery. 

Let's face it, if our coaching is as good as we say it is, we should be able to take a world-class college athlete and have them shooting pretty damn good scores in a year. If they don't, then no harm, no foul - go back to what you were doing... But if they do have an aptitude for archery, the experience they already have in SERIOUS physical training, competing at a high level, and being coached at a high level, will really pay off when they pick up a bow. 

Finding athletes who have come through the grind of high level high school and college athletic programs may be the best kind of "mental management" program we can utilize. 

When I suggest to even my highest level JOAD archers that we are going on a 2-mile run and all I get back is moaning and groaning and whining, to me, that's a mental weakness, not necessarily a physical one. Most of them could run the 2 miles. They just don't want to because like Larry says, they see archery as one step above bowling in the "physical demands" department and they are there for a break, if they were ever athletes to begin with.

On the "mental management" side, our JOAD kids compete in how many competitions a year, versus their highly athletic counterparts who are playing other sports? A kid who has had to compete for a starting spot on a HS team, or compete for scholarships on a college team, will have a LOT of competitive experience and will have developed the ability to manage their mental game when times get tough. The reason we have problems in this area with our JOAD kids is because as a group, they don't have enough high-level competitive athletic experience.


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

Tell that to Oh.


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## erose (Aug 12, 2014)

If want them to sweat, just have them shoot outdoors in the summer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

One thing I think is missing in archery is the state and regional Olympic development apparatus. You have local teams and a national team/JDT. There is nothing I see in between where one represents a state or a region and receives higher level training in a team environment. In soccer ODP there are local, state, regional, and national levels. Each level you have scouted/tryout pools that build into a chosen team. That is then the pool for the next level. But while the soccer age group national pools/teams might be similar to JDT/USAT, you have some layers beneath missing in archery where people can be developed in a selective environment where quality coaching is offered, short of being The Elect already. You then have local coaches who may be high quality, but there is nothing systemic to it between there and national team level.

People are talking about motivation, a bench to sit people on, access to training....you could do that with JOADs if there were leagues with x number spots, but above that level, state and regional teams. Soccer has regional and national tournaments specific to ODP. South Texas vs. North Texas. Or SoCal or whatever. It's then, South Texas has 3 on a team perhaps, only the best and most coachable with potential to the next level get them. A marginal shooter with bad attitude maybe gets beat by someone similar with the right work ethic. Short of rarefied NT settings, the desire for a certain sort of archer can be conveyed, and the archers developed, and you get a deeper national pool.


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## Last_Bastion (Dec 5, 2013)

limbwalker said:


> You just provided a good argument against using the current college structure. I am suggesting a parallel program. What we currently have in our college programs is more of a intramural activity. I'm suggesting that the National Head Coach go into colleges and specifically recruit serious college athletes who have an interest in archery and who have an interest in making an Olympic team, but who have spent their time training in other sports besides archery.
> 
> Let's face it, if our coaching is as good as we say it is, we should be able to take a world-class college athlete and have them shooting pretty damn good scores in a year. If they don't, then no harm, no foul - go back to what you were doing... But if they do have an aptitude for archery, the experience they already have in SERIOUS physical training, competing at a high level, and being coached at a high level, will really pay off when they pick up a bow.
> 
> ...


See, this is why I've been working on getting my CPT in conjunction with being certified through USAA.

Doing parallel training and conditioning outside of the range to increase muscle performance and mental fortitude. Being able to fire off 300+ arrows a day, and doing it well, is one thing (and not to be diminished, don't get me wrong) but trying to get to that point by only spending time with that is a longer road than it needs to be. 

I get so many odd looks from people when they ask me how to get to the next level, and I suggest weight/endurance training or, even, rock climbing. They think I'm out of my tree!


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

Last_Bastion said:


> See, this is why I've been working on getting my CPT in conjunction with being certified through USAA.
> 
> Doing parallel training and conditioning outside of the range to increase muscle performance and mental fortitude. Being able to fire off 300+ arrows a day, and doing it well, is one thing (and not to be diminished, don't get me wrong) but trying to get to that point by only spending time with that is a longer road than it needs to be.
> 
> I get so many odd looks from people when they ask me how to get to the next level, and I suggest weight/endurance training or, even, rock climbing. They think I'm out of my tree!


Rock climbing is also how a number of archers I've met have torn their roator cuff - so there is a trade off in risk/reward in terms of Archery. (But, I have no way to actually calculate that ratio  )


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## Last_Bastion (Dec 5, 2013)

True, but there is a risk/reward evaluation for any serious sport. How many football and soccer players have torn an ACL?


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

Last_Bastion said:


> True, but there is a risk/reward evaluation for any serious sport. How many football and soccer players have torn an ACL?


Dunno, but the most dangerous sport may be competative cheerleading - lots of injuries. Either way, it would be nice to have data on comparative injuries, between sports, and between different archery systems. If we're going to use mental management systems to motivate archers to give their all for the sport we need to legitimately know what the consequences of that can be.


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## Last_Bastion (Dec 5, 2013)

Warbow said:


> If we're going to use mental management systems to motivate archers to give their all for the sport we need to legitimately know what the consequences of that can be.


I absolutely agree!

My only point was that for anyone that wants to pursue a sport as anything more serious than a hobby, knows that there is a risk of injury and that factor alone, doesn't keep people from participating in a sport (or any physical activity, for that matter). Whenever I see the stats of how low the risk of injury with archery is, I always wonder how much of that has to do with it being seen as more of a "hobby" than a legitimate sport.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Casualfoto said:


> Tell that to Oh.


Apologies, but I don't follow ... could you expound?


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Azzurri said:


> One thing I think is missing in archery is the state and regional Olympic development apparatus. You have local teams and a national team/JDT. There is nothing I see in between where one represents a state or a region and receives higher level training in a team environment. In soccer ODP there are local, state, regional, and national levels. Each level you have scouted/tryout pools that build into a chosen team. That is then the pool for the next level. But while the soccer age group national pools/teams might be similar to JDT/USAT, you have some layers beneath missing in archery where people can be developed in a selective environment where quality coaching is offered, short of being The Elect already. You then have local coaches who may be high quality, but there is nothing systemic to it between there and national team level.
> 
> People are talking about motivation, a bench to sit people on, access to training....you could do that with JOADs if there were leagues with x number spots, but above that level, state and regional teams. Soccer has regional and national tournaments specific to ODP. South Texas vs. North Texas. Or SoCal or whatever. It's then, South Texas has 3 on a team perhaps, only the best and most coachable with potential to the next level get them. A marginal shooter with bad attitude maybe gets beat by someone similar with the right work ethic. Short of rarefied NT settings, the desire for a certain sort of archer can be conveyed, and the archers developed, and you get a deeper national pool.


Just a side comment about soccer that ties in with the college scholarships angle of this thread (tenuously attached to the OP's thread posit) - the soccer infrastructure in this country exists almost solely because of college scholarships. Remove college scholarship possibilities and youth soccer would face plant. Soccer players on competitive soccer teams spend between $4k and $7k a year in fees, dues, registrations, and travel expenses. A LOT of those parents would not put up with it for 10 more minutes without the hope/possibility that Johnny or Mary might get scholarship money for college.


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

lksseven said:


> Apologies, but I don't follow ... could you expound?


He's responding to someone's contention that you need to be "athletic" (run 2 miles, etc) to be a good archer. 

Mind you, that same person was, ironically enough, extolling the virtues of the Italian men's team in London a few paragraphs earlier. 

Now, considering what they had for lunch that day in London, how many packs a day they smoke between the three of them, and what would happen if you asked two of those guys in particular to run two miles, (better pack an AED unit!) I would say we can safely ignore that pronouncement.

(Though to be sure, I think we did lose something when we got away from the 12-minute test for USAT.)


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

Lunch for the Italian men's team ???
Wish I was there ??? :smile:


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

lksseven said:


> Just a side comment about soccer that ties in with the college scholarships angle of this thread (tenuously attached to the OP's thread posit) - the soccer infrastructure in this country exists almost solely because of college scholarships. Remove college scholarship possibilities and youth soccer would face plant. Soccer players on competitive soccer teams spend between $4k and $7k a year in fees, dues, registrations, and travel expenses. A LOT of those parents would not put up with it for 10 more minutes without the hope/possibility that Johnny or Mary might get scholarship money for college.


Maybe when I was going to college. The domestic leagues paid minor league pay when I was in HS and the goal was to play college soccer and perhaps if you were exceptional for the US. But you now have a domestic league that sometimes pays six or seven figure salaries, and HS-aged kids, some not even graduated, being signed to pro deals, by teams here and abroad. An argument rages within soccer circles over whether pro teams' youth systems are displacing club and college as the place to be. I think that's oversold based on how many rookies of the year in MLS are fresh from at least some college, but I digress. Point is the pro system is sufficiently developed and aware one can end run college straight to the pros as in other major league sports. Kids now have to choose do I play traditional club and favor a college outcome, or play for a pro academy team and favor a pro outcome.

The archery comparison would be some compound shooters in series where enough money gets thrown around you can risk no school. I grant that there is only so much of a magnet with limited college programs, and was arguing increase that to improve the pool and retention. But as it is that limited pool is an incubator for a chunk of the national team already. [I was telling a friend the other day that the direct pipeline probably reflects attrition in RW. In soccer there's been one player in 20 years, playing right now, who plays senior NT straight from college. It used to be the norm but has become an exception as the pool professionalized. I assume it's not in RW because you have people quitting to start families and such, creating openings for those in college who might otherwise usually be in a tougher spot in the pecking order.......]


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

Casualfoto said:


> Lunch for the Italian men's team ???
> Wish I was there ??? :smile:


Vittorio swore me to secrecy, but the statute of limitations must be up by now.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Azzurri said:


> Maybe when I was going to college. The domestic leagues paid minor league pay when I was in HS and the goal was to play college soccer and perhaps if you were exceptional for the US. But you now have a domestic league that sometimes pays six or seven figure salaries, and HS-aged kids, some not even graduated, being signed to pro deals, by teams here and abroad. An argument rages within soccer circles over whether pro teams' youth systems are displacing club and college as the place to be. I think that's oversold based on how many rookies of the year in MLS are fresh from at least some college, but I digress. Point is the pro system is sufficiently developed and aware one can end run college straight to the pros as in other major league sports. Kids now have to choose do I play traditional club and favor a college outcome, or play for a pro academy team and favor a pro outcome.
> 
> The archery comparison would be some compound shooters in series where enough money gets thrown around you can risk no school. I grant that there is only so much of a magnet with limited college programs, and was arguing increase that to improve the pool and retention. But as it is that limited pool is an incubator for a chunk of the national team already. [I was telling a friend the other day that the direct pipeline probably reflects attrition in RW. In soccer there's been one player in 20 years, playing right now, who plays senior NT straight from college. It used to be the norm but has become an exception as the pool professionalized. I assume it's not in RW because you have people quitting to start families and such, creating openings for those in college who might otherwise usually be in a tougher spot in the pecking order.......]


Ok, I'm happy to get this knowledge (truly) about the current soccer backdrop (all I have to go on, really, is the anecdotal observations of many of my daughter's peers and the children of my friends and acquaintances). But you're kind of making my larger point that soccer offers some degree of a financial carrot that allures. For archery, college scholarships seem like the most likely stand-in


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

>--gt--> said:


> He's responding to someone's contention that* you need to be "athletic" (run 2 miles, etc) to be a good archer. *


Wrong again.

Once again, you are so busy going after the person, you miss their point. Some things never change.

College athletes who play at a high level have overcome more mental hurdles than 99.9% of all archers ever will. This thread is about training archer's minds. We have a whole group of highly conditioned athletes in this country whose minds are already trained. They may not shoot bows - yet - but they know how to prepare and how to compete.

It is very short-sighted to not recognize this and continue to try to make silk purses out of sow's ears.


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## iArch (Apr 17, 2015)

We don't see other sports having to recruit already-mentally-trained athletes to form their elite talent pool. A sport naturally 'develops' the athlete it needs. The athletes who rise to the top in a sport demonstrate the physical and mental capabilities needed to succeed in that sport. I agree a better local competitive structure (like USTA, select club teams, etc) would actually contribute to solving the problem instead of going out and patching it up with recruits. I'm not sure if archery really has the base participation to start implementing more competitive/exclusive structures - like USTA, players have to qualify/earn the ability to enter a lot of sanctioned tournaments. Archers can just walk up to a big national (or even world!) event and shoot it regardless of qualification - good and bad. I wonder if open entry tournaments are normal for other Archery NGBs around the world..


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## midwayarcherywi (Sep 24, 2006)

iArch makes a very valid point about self selection. Every sport demands different mental and physical skills. Michael Jordan was elite at basketball and below average at baseball. There is the rare athlete who is elite at multiple disciplines, but there are very few Bo Jackson's out there. Lanny Bassham searched for a sport which fit his aptitude, found it and worked his way to a gold medal. In his book, he admitted he was not much of an athlete in the traditional definition. So while you can develop very good archers from other sports, I'm not sure the elite would emerge. Archery's elite, Pace, Mckinney, Wunderle, Wilde, Berger, Frangilli, Oh and many other elite shooters, probably would not have even had the opportunity to be a bench warmer in many sports. Yet archery's unique demands fit their aptitudes and they developed skills. 

It is more than a little demeaning to call those who currently ply archery skills, 'sows ears'. I know you didn't mean to run down our JOAD kids, but that is how it came off John.

Now it is more than worth while to enlarge the pool of athletic archers. Recruiting at universities should be something the sport should endeavor. 

Ok, a question has been unanswered. Do we as coaches want and expect to be continually educated in the sport? What is a reasonable cost? How frequent should we updated? It is something USAA is very weak in doing at this point. Aside from spending a lot of time and a lot of money for travel to a KSL seminar, what about filming the seminar and making it available to the coaching community? Should there be addenda to current training materials? Do the current manuals adequately train coaches? If not, where do they fall down?


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

limbwalker said:


> Wrong again.
> 
> Once again, you are so busy going after the person, you miss their point. Some things never change.
> 
> ...


Agree. that sooooo many youth archers (JOAD and otherwise) in the USA are completely lacking in mental toughness, and are not the types to 'push themselves hard or tolerate being pushed hard'. Sure, there are some archers who figure out the mental toughness aspect on their own, or are willing to be nurtured/pushed to acquire it, but they are the exceptions. Athletes in other sports who have demonstrated an ability to withstand and even thrive under pressure and stress have at least that question answered - why not appeal to some of them to join the fun on the shooting line?


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

iArch said:


> We don't see other sports having to recruit already-mentally-trained athletes to form their elite talent pool. A sport naturally 'develops' the athlete it needs. The athletes who rise to the top in a sport demonstrate the physical and mental capabilities needed to succeed in that sport. I agree a better local competitive structure (like USTA, select club teams, etc) would actually contribute to solving the problem instead of going out and patching it up with recruits. I'm not sure if archery really has the base participation to start implementing more competitive/exclusive structures - like USTA, players have to qualify/earn the ability to enter a lot of sanctioned tournaments. Archers can just walk up to a big national (or even world!) event and shoot it regardless of qualification - good and bad. I wonder if open entry tournaments are normal for other Archery NGBs around the world..


It doesn't. Archery has a bunch of people who have a barebow or crossbow in the closet, next to their dusty bowling ball. Most of those shoot 'now and then'; some of those may even shoot regularly - but they're not 'training', they're just being active (there are a zillion people going to the gym twice a week, to watch TV while they pedal on the stationary bike or walk/run on the treadmill for 20 minutes, and then lift a few weights for 15 minutes while talking to friends and taking 5 minutes between their 3 sets ... but that's not training - there aren't any Tour de France or Olympic weightlifting champions coming out of that pool of "gym go'ers". The number of archers is depressing small, in my observation, who are willing to actually test themselves with thoughtful, dedicated training multiple days a week, and truly submit themselves to the pushing/pulling/instruction of a coach. Even the majority of JOAD kids can't in any way be considered to be serious or interested in training/progressing ... showing up once a week to shoot arrows for an hour and a half isn't training, it's just an activity.

And really, where's the structure that encourages dedication to the pursuit of excellence? Most other sports have clearly defined/developed structures within which athletes can submit/work/progress/thrive - they can SEE the pathway forward, and there are visible carrots dangling for effort and achievement. Many - probably most - archery families can't afford the financial commitment to the kind of dedicated attention/effort that produces high achievement (regularly paying coaches for training, instruction, competition prepping), making/buying practice time multiple times a week, etc); and of the archery families that can afford the finances, they don't see the structured pathway and carrots along the way that allow them to justify the time/$$. "My son can't do archery this Fall because of Football or track; my daughter can't do archery this winter because of basketball; etc" ... why is it so rarely "my kid can't do soccer this Spring because it interferes with his archery training"? There's no structure, there's no inherent authority vested in the coach to authorize him/her to insist on the kids [lifting weights, doing aerobics, shooting X number of arrows/X number of days per week in practice, and failure to do so incurs consequences.].

'Mental training' certification requirements for coaches is fine. But if there isn't a structure in place that gives coaches authority over the archers to insist on requisite levels of training and effort and performance, then the coach can't engage in 'teaching mental toughness' - all he/she's doing is coaxing the archer to 'please' do some of this ... that's not an environment from which world level ***** kickers spring.


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

Interspersed,

-Steve



iArch said:


> We don't see other sports having to recruit already-mentally-trained athletes to form their elite talent pool. A sport naturally 'develops' the athlete it needs. The athletes who rise to the top in a sport demonstrate the physical and mental capabilities needed to succeed in that sport.


I totally agree. My time coaching with other sports has shown that.



> I agree a better local competitive structure (like USTA, select club teams, etc) would actually contribute to solving the problem instead of going out and patching it up with recruits. I'm not sure if archery really has the base participation to start implementing more competitive/exclusive structures (snip)


It has the base participation. It's just not organized enough to provide a clear structure of progression. Using NASP as an example, you are stuck in that "macrocosm" and that's it. Very few (like the Bee's) have crossed boundaries between NASP, World Archery, and other forms of archery.

This is where the proposal for the "regional" Junior Dream Teams have come into play. Regional JDT's feed into the National JDT structure.



> (snip)- like USTA, players have to qualify/earn the ability to enter a lot of sanctioned tournaments. Archers can just walk up to a big national (or even world!) event and shoot it regardless of qualification - good and bad. I wonder if open entry tournaments are normal for other Archery NGBs around the world..


Depends on the tournament. Using World Archery's own structure and Indoor World Cups as an example - a lot of the Indoor World Cups are open entry tournaments. Marrakesh, for example, is one of the open tournaments where you see a lot of US Archers compete as a self funded shooter.

USA Archery has to pretty much declare (I think due to the Ted Stevens act and former litigation against USA Archery and the USOC) which tournaments are open, which tournaments are restricted to top 8 USAT or (in the youth category for Cadet/Junior) Recurve/Compound JDT, and which ones you're able to fill open slots if USAT or JDT doesn't take them.


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

Interspersed (and with some trimming)...

-Steve



lksseven said:


> It doesn't. Archery has a bunch of people who have a barebow or crossbow in the closet, next to their dusty bowling ball. Most of those shoot 'now and then'; some of those may even shoot regularly - but they're not 'training', they're just being active (there are a zillion people going to the gym twice a week, to watch TV while they pedal on the stationary bike or walk/run on the treadmill for 20 minutes, and then lift a few weights for 15 minutes while talking to friends and taking 5 minutes between their 3 sets ... but that's not training - (snip)


Just like in Archery, there are those who use the gym for social hour and keeping a minimum skill set of "fitness". The rare ones are those who want to win in it. You don't find them at your local 24 Hour Fitness or other major chain.



> (snip) there aren't any Tour de France or Olympic weightlifting champions coming out of that pool of "gym go'ers".


And you won't. Those who are dedicated to the sport they are training for aren't going to go to a large chain gym to do it. They go specialized.

Just like in Archery - you find a coach that can take you to a higher level. Your run of the mill trainers at the majority of gyms aren't going to have it in them to get you there.



> The number of archers is depressing small, in my observation, who are willing to actually test themselves with thoughtful, dedicated training multiple days a week, and truly submit themselves to the pushing/pulling/instruction of a coach. Even the majority of JOAD kids can't in any way be considered to be serious or interested in training/progressing ... showing up once a week to shoot arrows for an hour and a half isn't training, it's just an activity.


TheAncentOne here on AT borrowed some JDT logs of my son and some of my students for a Level 3 class he was teaching with RedElan10 in 2015. The Level 3 students were shocked at the amount of hours and shots that were put in *just to maintain proficiency*. To see marginal gains, there was a LOT more work that had to be put in. That's excluding the actual physical fitness training that was done.



> And really, where's the structure that encourages dedication to the pursuit of excellence? Most other sports have clearly defined/developed structures within which athletes can submit/work/progress/thrive - they can SEE the pathway forward, and there are visible carrots dangling for effort and achievement.


We don't. We do have a theoretical progression from JOAD to JDT to RA (recurve) or JOAD to JDT to Pro (compound). Most don't see that progression. And until we get some sort of standardized commitment of training from JDT students and their personal coaches, you're going to see (and continue to see) a few nuggets of greatness within JDT, and a ton of flash in the pans that get swept out after getting burned and recycled with new ones.



> Many - probably most - archery families can't afford the financial commitment to the kind of dedicated attention/effort that produces high achievement (regularly paying coaches for training, instruction, competition prepping), making/buying practice time multiple times a week, etc); and of the archery families that can afford the finances, they don't see the structured pathway and carrots along the way that allow them to justify the time/$$.


There are other sports that have huge financial commitments. Baseball and softball have progressed to where it used to be that you could get away with a simple club team or with being in your high school to Junior College team to get visibility. Now, if you're not on a constant travel ball team, you're not getting anywhere.

Ice Skating - an Olympic sport, high visibility on the Olympic level, with lots of hours of work, very little return - and LOTS of money sunk into it. A Reidell Figure Skate Boot (just the boot, no skate underneath) is $350-380. The skate blade? $500 bucks. So just the boot/skate combination is about the cost of a high end recurve or compound target bow.

I won't get into the coaching side of Ice Skating either. You get charged for everything from music editing and arranging, to costume, to whatever. And you pay for the coach to travel to your competition too. Think archery is painful? Archery is CHEAP compared to some other sports.



> "My son can't do archery this Fall because of Football or track; my daughter can't do archery this winter because of basketball; etc" ... why is it so rarely "my kid can't do soccer this Spring because it interferes with his archery training"? There's no structure, there's no inherent authority vested in the coach to authorize him/her to insist on the kids [lifting weights, doing aerobics, shooting X number of arrows/X number of days per week in practice, and failure to do so incurs consequences.].
> 
> 'Mental training' certification requirements for coaches is fine. But if there isn't a structure in place that gives coaches authority over the archers to insist on requisite levels of training and effort and performance, then the coach can't engage in 'teaching mental toughness' - all he/she's doing is coaxing the archer to 'please' do some of this ... that's not an environment from which world level ***** kickers spring.


This is where the coach building a track record is key. We all know that to be successful in a sport, you have to work at it. And, frankly, you have to work at that one sport and only that one sport.

I'll pick on one other ice based sport. Hockey.

Retired NHL player Patrick O'Sullivan detailed in a very recent article on the amount of abuse his dad gave him while he was growing up. Outside of the abuse, his time on the rink and on the ice allowed him not only a safe space away from dad's beatings, it gave him the opportunity to work on his future profession. Quoting from his own words...



> You know why I made it to the NHL?
> 
> Because on the weekends, I’d get as far away from him as I could. I would stay out of the house all day by myself, with nothing but a hockey stick and a ball. Deking, deking, deking. Shooting, shooting, shooting. Over and over and over until the stick became an extension of my body.
> 
> That’s it. That’s why I made it.


You didn't see Patrick O'Sullivan play other sports. You saw him do only one thing. Hockey. 

And this is why cross training is "nice", but knowing and training for the sport you love and want to be in is key. Yeah, I know GT jokes about the Italian team needing a medical crew to follow them if they had to run a lap, but being in physical shape isn't the same as being in Archery shape.

Now, back to the track record thing - this is where the coach's track record makes them ABLE to demand (in a good way) the type of work ethic that the coach needs. If the coach has the track record, they can show what is needed to get there, and if the student wants to achieve that same level of goal, they need to grind down and do it. There's no coddling. You work with the student's ability, refine it, and show them how they can get to their goals.

The coach has the authority - the student must be willing to work with the coach to achieve those goals, with the parent's reinforcement. Otherwise, it's a useless exercise.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Beastmaster said:


> Interspersed (and with some trimming)...
> 
> -Steve
> 
> ...


I think we're in 99% agreement (maybe 100%). Maybe on a couple of counts, I place more emphasis on X, while you place it on Y. USA Archery 'corporate' should be providing a clearly delineated blueprint that normal people can see and understand the pathway.

My point about 'the gym' is that bandying about gross statistics of how many people claim to participate in 'archery' is completely irrelevant to the discussion of the pool of archers available to be 'coached'. But a clear cut pathway matrix or diagram or whatever - as delineated by USA Archery - would certainly be helpful to encourage sporting families to take a look at archery and make an informed choice instead of a blind choice. But, ultimately, money talks. Money and recognition is the honey that helps pull people in, and then for some of them their internal fires get stoked and burn brightly enough to sustain them forward. I see the allure of college scholarships as the best most visible carrot to attract the attention of high schools and families.


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## Last_Bastion (Dec 5, 2013)

Speaking of scholarships, is that even a current thing?

I've done some searching for it and can't find any info on scholarship opportunities for archery.


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## iArch (Apr 17, 2015)

lksseven said:


> There's no structure, there's no inherent authority vested in the coach to authorize him/her to insist on the kids [lifting weights, doing aerobics, shooting X number of arrows/X number of days per week in practice, and failure to do so incurs consequences.].


Yeah the only inherent authority vested in any coach are from team sports - starting spots, making a team, being benched, getting play time, etc. Most of the time it's a more negative interpretation of a coach's authority. Fear of not making the cut may drive athletes to push themselves, but sometimes it doesn't empower them to excel beyond that. And what happens after you graduate HS or College and there's no more team to make? I think we haven't been fair in this thread for individual sport coaches. We should look at what individual sport coaches have to work with - the ability to be inspiring, to motivate, and empower their students to fight their demons, challenge their limits, and discover the best in themselves. It's not easy and not many coaches have this, but the lack of this quality shows more in individual sports. Team coaches can use their 'team authority' as a crutch for squeezing out performance and "dedication". 



Beastmaster said:


> Now, back to the track record thing - this is where the coach's track record makes them ABLE to demand (in a good way) the type of work ethic that the coach needs. If the coach has the track record, they can show what is needed to get there, and if the student wants to achieve that same level of goal, they need to grind down and do it. There's no coddling. You work with the student's ability, refine it, and show them how they can get to their goals.
> 
> The coach has the authority - the student must be willing to work with the coach to achieve those goals, with the parent's reinforcement. Otherwise, it's a useless exercise.


Agreed.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

iArch said:


> Yeah the only inherent authority vested in any coach are from team sports - starting spots, making a team, being benched, getting play time, etc. Most of the time it's a more negative interpretation of a coach's authority. Fear of not making the cut may drive athletes to push themselves, but sometimes it doesn't empower them to excel beyond that. And what happens after you graduate HS or College and there's no more team to make? I think we haven't been fair in this thread for individual sport coaches. We should look at what individual sport coaches have to work with - the ability to be inspiring, to motivate, and empower their students to fight their demons, challenge their limits, and discover the best in themselves. It's not easy and not many coaches have this, but the lack of this quality shows more in individual sports. Team coaches can use their 'team authority' as a crutch for squeezing out performance and "dedication".
> 
> 
> Agreed.


Not to be flippant, but after they graduate from college they should be fully formed enough person to keep shooting if they enjoy it, or at least they've gotten some great training for being in the workforce, where the motivations are both carrot and stick.

Well, the Olympic Trials uses the same crutch to squeeze out performance and dedication - either beat the guy next to you, or you don't get on the team. I don't see how that's a negative thing. 


Inspiring youth archers to see the beauty of the form and arrow flight, to see/feel the romance of the journey, to strive for their personal ceilings - these are things I wax poetic about every day with newbies and students (and those things are prominently on my website, actually). But my discussion about structure and carrots was aimed at the subject of youth archers (not adults) and obliquely attached to Mental Toughness training in efforts to produce USA archers who can hold their own on the world stage. Not sure how kids acquire mental toughness without doing some things that are tough. 

I'm just saying that having a structure and a path to commit to just makes it easier, in my view, for some kids to 'hang in there and push through with the discipline needed to advance to the next level".


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

Last_Bastion said:


> Speaking of scholarships, is that even a current thing?
> 
> I've done some searching for it and can't find any info on scholarship opportunities for archery.


Depends. Most scholarships that aren't Title IX schools are usually based out of smaller Christian colleges. William Carey, Emmanuel, and a smattering of others.

-Steve


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

Beastmaster said:


> Depends. Most scholarships that aren't Title IX schools are usually based out of smaller Christian colleges. William Carey, Emmanuel, and a smattering of others.
> 
> -Steve


Here is a link ... http://www.scholarshipstats.com/archery.html

And another one that lists schools with 'great programs in archery', although many aren't "varsity" programs ...
http://www.collegexpress.com/lists/list/colleges-with-strength-in-archery/492/


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

And this list form TSAA - I don't know how current it is, though ...
http://www.texasarchery.org/L1/Collegiate.htm#su


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## erose (Aug 12, 2014)

lksseven said:


> Agree. that sooooo many youth archers (JOAD and otherwise) in the USA are completely lacking in mental toughness, and are not the types to 'push themselves hard or tolerate being pushed hard'. Sure, there are some archers who figure out the mental toughness aspect on their own, or are willing to be nurtured/pushed to acquire it, but they are the exceptions. Athletes in other sports who have demonstrated an ability to withstand and even thrive under pressure and stress have at least that question answered - why not appeal to some of them to join the fun on the shooting line?


I think one cannot make the claim that kids in other sports are mentally tougher than the average archer. Quite honestly when you look at an average high school or college football team there are really only a few if any on that team, that has the mental toughness to step up their game when it counts. If you think that you are going to entice these rare few to switch camps and get involved in a sport that has even fewer top spots to aspire to, is really very unrealistic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## erose (Aug 12, 2014)

In 4-H in Louisiana, the setup is we have two regional shoots (north & south) and only a certain percentage make it to state. If you are looking for a culling process perhaps something similar should be tried.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

erose said:


> I think one cannot make the claim that kids in other sports are mentally tougher than the average archer. Quite honestly when you look at an average high school or college football team there are really only a few if any on that team, that has the mental toughness to step up their game when it counts. If you think that you are going to entice these rare few to switch camps and get involved in a sport that has even fewer top spots to aspire to, is really very unrealistic.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sorry, but any player on a football team that's been through two a days in the summer, and run wind sprints and stadium steps all year, is mentally tougher, imo, than the vast majority of youth archers. They (footballers) practice when it's hot, when it's cold, when they don't feel like practicing, when it's raining, when it's windy. A lot of young archers approach their sport the same way I approach the notion of playing golf ... "well, if it's between 65 and 73degrees, and not windy, and the course isn't very busy ... theeeeeennnnn sure, let's go play golf. Otherwise, let's wait till it's better weather, or we're not so busy with other stuff..." 

And John's notion isn't to entice full functioning studs from the football or baseball teams to switch sports, it's to reach out to formerly high performing athletes who can no longer perform in their first love sport due to injury, but still have the competitive fire in their belly and know how to train hard, how to push themselves, how to compete with some pressure on them. Or else players who haven't gotten hurt, but whose talent level is a cut below the top level in their chosen sport, but still want to excel and compete.
So you've got a kid who loves baseball and has great hand to eye coordination, but he's chunky and rides the bench every year as a pinch hitter because he's too slow to earn a spot in the field. Or a kid who's got great hand to eye and loves basketball, but he's 5'9" and rides the bench for a couple of years, then blows out a knee. Or 'and so on' ... These are kids with athletic ability, competitive fire, sticktoitiveness to endure practice and physical training drills and keep coming back for more, but have no realistic shot to 'get in the arena and compete'. Why wouldn't they be fertile soil to be 'demonstrated to' the joys and demands and competitive opportunities of target archery?


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

lksseven said:


> Sorry, but any player on a football team that's been through two a days in the summer, and run wind sprints and stadium steps all year, is mentally tougher, imo, than the vast majority of youth archers. They (footballers) practice when it's hot, when it's cold, when they don't feel like practicing, when it's raining, when it's windy. A lot of young archers approach their sport the same way I approach the notion of playing golf ... "well, if it's between 65 and 73degrees, and not windy, and the course isn't very busy ... theeeeeennnnn sure, let's go play golf. Otherwise, let's wait till it's better weather, or we're not so busy with other stuff..."
> 
> And John's notion isn't to entice full functioning studs from the football or baseball teams to switch sports, it's to reach out to formerly high performing athletes who can no longer perform in their first love sport due to injury, but still have the competitive fire in their belly and know how to train hard, how to push themselves, how to compete with some pressure on them. Or else players who haven't gotten hurt, but whose talent level is a cut below the top level in their chosen sport, but still want to excel and compete.
> So you've got a kid who loves baseball and has great hand to eye coordination, but he's chunky and rides the bench every year as a pinch hitter because he's too slow to earn a spot in the field. Or a kid who's got great hand to eye and loves basketball, but he's 5'9" and rides the bench for a couple of years, then blows out a knee. Or 'and so on' ... These are kids with athletic ability, competitive fire, sticktoitiveness to endure practice and physical training drills and keep coming back for more, but have no realistic shot to 'get in the arena and compete'. Why wouldn't they be fertile soil to be 'demonstrated to' the joys and demands and competitive opportunities of target archery?


If we do that, we'd better darn well have some idea of how to prevent similar career ending injuries in archery. At the moment, my confidence in the USAA system in doing that is less than perfect.


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## Mormegil (Jan 26, 2012)

lksseven said:


> Why wouldn't they be fertile soil to be 'demonstrated to' the joys and demands and competitive opportunities of target archery?


First indicator might be that they aren't already shooting? It's not like archery is some sort of secret club. This idea that there's a pile of athletes out there who have washed out of some other sport due to injury who will therefore make better archers than people who actually want to do archery seems a little far fetched to me.


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## >--gt--> (Jul 1, 2002)

Mormegil said:


> First indicator might be that they aren't already shooting? It's not like archery is some sort of secret club. This idea that there's a pile of athletes out there who have washed out of some other sport due to injury who will therefore make better archers than people who actually want to do archery seems a little far fetched to me.


I'm not sure the wheels are even still on the careening oxcart that this thread has become, but I will note, I know of at least one world champion in an individual sport (not archery) that was a total basket case at handling archery pressure. I'm talking, 58’s/90m in sighters, and completely unable to execute when the whistle blew.

Not everyone is wired to handle archery, even when they have reached the pinnacle of another individual execution-based sport. And, success in a team sport is no indicator of success in archery, either.


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## FiFi (Dec 4, 2002)

I see a lot of this as well, with the new drive to fitness, which isn't a bad thing , but it doesn't mean that being fit will guarantee you will be pounding 10's at 50/70m it certainly can't hurt but that mental toughness is a hard thing to quantify, I have always said there is physically fit and then there is archery fit


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## erose (Aug 12, 2014)

lksseven said:


> Sorry, but any player on a football team that's been through two a days in the summer, and run wind sprints and stadium steps all year, is mentally tougher, imo, than the vast majority of youth archers. They (footballers) practice when it's hot, when it's cold, when they don't feel like practicing, when it's raining, when it's windy. A lot of young archers approach their sport the same way I approach the notion of playing golf ... "well, if it's between 65 and 73degrees, and not windy, and the course isn't very busy ... theeeeeennnnn sure, let's go play golf. Otherwise, let's wait till it's better weather, or we're not so busy with other stuff..."
> 
> And John's notion isn't to entice full functioning studs from the football or baseball teams to switch sports, it's to reach out to formerly high performing athletes who can no longer perform in their first love sport due to injury, but still have the competitive fire in their belly and know how to train hard, how to push themselves, how to compete with some pressure on them. Or else players who haven't gotten hurt, but whose talent level is a cut below the top level in their chosen sport, but still want to excel and compete.
> So you've got a kid who loves baseball and has great hand to eye coordination, but he's chunky and rides the bench every year as a pinch hitter because he's too slow to earn a spot in the field. Or a kid who's got great hand to eye and loves basketball, but he's 5'9" and rides the bench for a couple of years, then blows out a knee. Or 'and so on' ... These are kids with athletic ability, competitive fire, sticktoitiveness to endure practice and physical training drills and keep coming back for more, but have no realistic shot to 'get in the arena and compete'. Why wouldn't they be fertile soil to be 'demonstrated to' the joys and demands and competitive opportunities of target archery?


Yeah, but you are comparing competitive football players to recreational archers. That is a big difference there. I get what you and John are saying, in that we don't have that many competitive archers in the sport, and the hope would be to steal some athletes from different sports to fill those ranks. Maybe it would work, but most probably not.

What you need is more professional level archer's positions, or greater fringe benefits (like scholarships) for a larger number of slots. You do that then parents are going to be pushing their kids and getting them better training.

Right now archery in this country just doesn't have enough to offer. Not many archers make a living off of the sport, as exclusively archers. Seriously how many archers in this country, can do very well as being an archer only? It would be interesting to learn what the average salary of a RA is. Do they get a salary? Just wondering.

But until that changes, we have to admit that our sport is a sport for recreation in this country, so I have no clue how you are going to get more people to become competitive archers, when there really isn't as much to compete for.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

>--gt--> said:


> I'm not sure the wheels are even still on the careening oxcart that this thread has become, but I will note, I know of at least one world champion in an individual sport (not archery) that was a total basket case at handling archery pressure. I'm talking, 58’s/90m in sighters, and completely unable to execute when the whistle blew.
> 
> Not everyone is wired to handle archery, even when they have reached the pinnacle of another individual execution-based sport. And, success in a team sport is no indicator of success in archery, either.


Ok, that sentence made me laugh out loud - great phraseology there!

Soooooo, therefore no effort should be made to market/recruit for more archery participants in areas largely heretofore ignored?

Of course this is true. So, no guarantees therefore no try?

True, but it's at least an indicator of one's ability to try hard, to endure, to push through (and tolerate being pushed through) sticking points. 

Nobody's arguing that the baseball player is a guaranteed lock to be a great archer. But re: this kind of low-temperature resistance to plowing in the 'good athletes in other sports fields'... why? A. We want to be more successful at developing high level archers - ultimately to field teams to win gold medals at world competitions, B. Let's not spend any efforts to recruit from the ranks of proven athleticism - instead, let's concentrate exclusively on the kids who've never shown any desire to be physically competitive, or never demonstrated an aptitude/willingness to push against something for more than a month, or who weren't athletic enough to have success at more traditional sports ... not that we shouldn't be recruiting all of the above kids - we should and we do. But why exclude demonstrated athleticism from the pool? If we're fishing, I don't get the resistance to throw a line and a hook into a different pond that's never been fished much before, if at all.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

erose said:


> Yeah, but you are comparing competitive football players to recreational archers. That is a big difference there. I get what you and John are saying, in that we don't have that many competitive archers in the sport, and the hope would be to steal some athletes from different sports to fill those ranks. Maybe it would work, but most probably not.
> 
> What you need is more professional level archer's positions, or greater fringe benefits (like scholarships) for a larger number of slots. You do that then parents are going to be pushing their kids and getting them better training.
> 
> ...


Well, there was a time in football and baseball and basketball when "professional" (NBA, NFL, MLB) wasn't the goal/allure of most schoolboy athletes - the goal was to be persevere and become a good enough player that you would be offered athletic scholarships to put you through college ... college education was the goal, and sports was a way to get it. I think the vast majority of soccer kids aren't thinking 'I'm going pro', but rather 'maybe I can excel and get some college scholarship money'. That's where I see the archery carrot - not in the pro archery ranks. I agree with you that is not going to be a significant factor in this country.

And we're not talking about "recreational archers" - we're talking about fielding kick***** archery teams to defeat the Koreans on the world stage. (actually, as >>gt>> so wittily pointed out, in this thread I guess we're talking about everything ).


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## StarDog (Feb 17, 2007)

Improving coaching is NOT THE ANSWER. Mathematics are against you.

Pareto principle. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 17% of kids who start high school (or some where around there) will finish college. If you take a % of kids starting JOAD, Pop Warner or chess, only a small percentage will excel no matter what. Period. Some will get very good, but not great. You can't beat the numbers and they can't beat you. People try to do that and fail utterly. Just got to learn to live with that.

They can require mental management, yoga or tiddlywinks to improve "coaching" and increase the number of world class archers. It is not going to happen.

Attracting larger number of players will find the cream, not trying to "improve coaching". Because no matter how good a coach you are, you're still playing with small numbers. That's how you increase your odds.

Get more people into the program. Period. Improving coaching is only a very small part of the issue. Get more horses into the race.

A good coach doesn't need mental management because they already have it. The course might give them some ideas or solidify old ones.

A coach without "mental management" can spend all they want and only a very FEW will get it and improve. Nice for USAA collecting the money.

I have studied success principles and this is just how it works. period. Across the board. Look at where you work -- who does the actual work, who doesn't. Same thing.


Khatuna Lorig said she took up archery as a way of getting out of school. That doesn't happen here unless you're in football, or you find a PE teacher willing to accept our archery hours as credit hours. Which is too bad frankly because yes, archery is way for the non football.baseball.basketball people to get really great at something.

There were also some pretty drastic training methods in Russia/Georgia which be considered child abuse by anybody's standards. I don't think we need shock treatment to teach focus. 

But my point is made. Attract more players and give them a reason to stay. Oh and by the way, the real winners will find a way. If they have a crappy coach, they'll get a new one. If they have a good coach who is wise enough, that coach will say, "I've done all I can. You've outgown me. call so and so."

The winners will win no matter what. Despite good coaching, bad coaching, daylight, rain, criticism, lack of funds etc. 

Just gotta find the "no matter what" people. 

Paying for "mental management course" isn't going to do it.


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

This whole argument is passé. First, any serious archer, (our RA's, USAT members, JDT members, and others seriously pursuing a national rank) should be insulted by the inference that they do not have the metal toughness necessary to make it in the competitive arena. They, their coaches, sponsors and parents take great pride in the effort put forth by the archers, young and old! Some of you owe them an apology.

Next, of course there is not an abundance of mentally tough high performing archers! It's simple statistics. With the hundreds of thousands of the kids playing football or basketball or soccer or..............etc., I would expect more "mentally tough" participants. The path forward for archery is not to import other athletes but to raise the profile of archery as a completive sport in this country. There has to be a brass ring. A path forward that entices, attracts, and inspires the young archers to work hard, and stay with the sport. Peer recognition in school and in the community, and scholarships are that path forward. Any way you slice it, that path forward is through school based programs at the secondary and collegiate levels. In virtually all Olympic sports, the path to the Olympics is through college. Long term meaningful stable growth is not going to happen on the heels of the Hunger Games frenzy or because of some washed out pro athlete that converted. It will only happen when the young people and their parent's are motivated to double down on their commitment / dedication.

CP


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## Casualfoto (Mar 10, 2009)

I need to go back and tie my above comments more closely to the thread. If you look at all those young kids who participate in youth sports and then look more closely at those who excel in amazing ways, how many of them do you think were coached by someone who had specialized training in sports psychology? My educated guess is almost none. So the point is, even without specialized mental management training some coaches are able to inspire their athlete's to greatness. It's in the coach not the textbook. As supplemental 'suggested' training mental management is a fine idea. It's motherhood. But as a mandatory program I fear that all those Level Three and Level Four coaches will feel compelled to push the rigors of an elite training program on their beginning and novice students. Lets be brutally honest, most of those Level Three and Level Four coaches today don't have any elite level students.


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

Interspersed with some trimming...

-Steve



Casualfoto said:


> I need to go back and tie my above comments more closely to the thread. If you look at all those young kids who participate in youth sports and then look more closely at those who excel in amazing ways, how many of them do you think were coached by someone who had specialized training in sports psychology? My educated guess is almost none. So the point is, even without specialized mental management training some coaches are able to inspire their athlete's to greatness. It's in the coach not the textbook.


I think the issue is this: Just like there are occasional nuggets of gold with finding high performing students in our current system, you're also going to find occasional nuggets of gold that are coaches.



> (snip) But as a mandatory program I fear that all those Level Three and Level Four coaches will feel compelled to push the rigors of an elite training program on their beginning and novice students.


Some coaches can pull an elite training program off. The reason why is because they have either the depth of a large program or they have the depth of a pool of potential students. I'm very lucky here in the Phoenix area that I have both a decent sized program and the area has the depth to create potential students. Statistically, the larger the student pool, the larger you could theoretically find diamonds in the rough to train and polish up.



> Lets be brutally honest, most of those Level Three and Level Four coaches today don't have any elite level students.


I'm going to approach this in two areas.

One, you're right. Very few people have the depth to draw from to create and form elite level students. Depth is ranging from students themselves to student's parents that can afford the travel.

Geographical location has it's benefits. Arizona is either close enough or has the depth of people in-state to where you can get challenge in shooting at all age groups and levels.

Two - on the flip side of the coin, this is exactly what USA Archery wants. They want to flood out the area with L3/L4's to identify and create archers to potentially move them into competitors that can hold their own nationally and internationally.

Now, I'm going to bring geography into play again. Two of my students in Arizona moved to other states. In Arizona, one of the archers placed generally in the top 1/3rd consistently in the Cadet Female Compound. She moved to another state, and she's dominating her state in the same division. Another (Cadet Male Compound) was being overshadowed by Cub and Cadet archers all the time. Moved to the Midwest, and now he's dominating his state.

So, geographic location has a LOT to do with whether or not that archer is "elite". In their new respective home states, they are now hugely dominant archers in their division. In Arizona, they were middle of the road.

We really need to define "elite" as well as define other things in this current day and age.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

> First, any serious archer, (our RA's, USAT members, JDT members, and others seriously pursuing a national rank) should be insulted by the inference that they do not have the metal toughness necessary to make it in the competitive arena. They, their coaches, sponsors and parents take great pride in the effort put forth by the archers, young and old! Some of you owe them an apology.


LOL. 

I know more than a few archers who've been given the opportunity to live and train for free at our finest facilities, and travel for free around the world, who owe USArchery and the USOC an apology for their lack of commitment and work ethic. But of course, it's not PC to say such things. 

And no matter how true it may be, the messenger will always be shot on this one.

My how soft and sensitive this country has become.


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## lksseven (Mar 21, 2010)

limbwalker said:


> LOL.
> 
> I know more than a few archers who've been given the opportunity to live and train for free at our finest facilities, and travel for free around the world, who owe USArchery and the USOC an apology for their lack of commitment and work ethic. But of course, it's not PC to say such things.
> 
> ...


Agree! There are a depressingly large number of schools that no longer have a varsity lettermen's jacket/letter program for varsity athletes because it was deemed to be hurting the feelings of the kids who aren't on varsity and don't have a letterman's jacket. "Soft and sensitive" doesn't scratch the surface of how ridiculous has become the PC culture in this country.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

So if we were to follow this "we need professionals to compete with the professionals" logic to it's end, what we would truly see would be NFL-style coaching, managers, athletes and yes, NFL-style WORK and discipline and consequences for the failure to perform. In other words, come back to your locker after a bad tournament only to see a red tag hanging in it, and all your $h!t packed. 

Maybe "hard knocks" will do an OTC archery segment someday. LOL.

Yea, we'll see that someday, when the juice is worth the squeeze. But in this country, I don't think that will ever happen in archery. Not when our nation's best athletes can pay their mortgage and their parent's mortgage off in one season in another pro sport. 

I guess it's fun to talk about it like it's some kind of real goal though. I mean, the insiders have to have something to dream about, right?


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## beefstew27 (Mar 18, 2008)

limbwalker said:


> So we continue to work with so many kids who don't know what sweat is, and whose parents won't allow them to be pushed.



I can't stand parents who coddle their child in this sport. Let your child be tired, let your child miss, let your child learn to fail. Without failure they'll never succeed. If we hold their hands the entire time (and this goes for parents who try to over-coach their archer while at tournament as well) they will never learn to function on their own as an athlete. 

As for the issue of getting a mental management certification, I'm all for it. For a Coach, I think it will be a useful tool in my toolbox. I just wish they had discounted it for those of us who already have a level 3.


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## toxoph (Mar 24, 2005)

Has anyone done the MM 101 online test yet? If so, are you able to pause, log out and come back to it later? It uses quizegg for testing and I dont think this can be done. I cant always devote a full 2 hours or so because of interuptions. Just curious if someone has done it and knows.


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## toxoph (Mar 24, 2005)

Nevermind, looks like you submit each question and you can pick up at that point if you log out and log back in.


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## Beastmaster (Jan 20, 2009)

From USA Archery in a just released FAQ...

-Steve
--------


> Mental Management FAQ
> 1. What is Mental Management®?
> Mental Management® is a recognized mental training program that is taught
> to and used by Olympic Champions throughout the world, and by design will
> ...


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## bobnikon (Jun 10, 2012)

Para 6 shows just how much of a money grab it is. You can not just opt to test out, you have to prove you have given money to the Basshams. Interesting...


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## Warbow (Apr 18, 2006)

bobnikon said:


> Para 6 shows just how much of a money grab it is. You can not just opt to test out, you have to prove you have given money to the Basshams. Interesting...


One wonders what the contract between USAA and MMS LLC looks like... It seems that either MMS LLC negotiated (or was just handed) a really sweetheart contract that guarantees income from every coach or USAA leadership is just such good buddies with MMS LLC that they have their back, no matter what.


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## limbwalker (Sep 26, 2003)

Well, I ponied up and paid last night. $150 for the required 101 and 102 courses.

Nothing significantly different than many things we covered in the JDT camps and again in L4 NTS course, but it was useful and entertaining to hear Lanny himself explain things, tell his stories, and share his analogies that bring the concept into focus. 

Lanny is of course a master at teaching. Unfortunately his son has "work to do" but I'm sure he knows that.

As much as I loathe paying for a product that USArchery helped produce (wondering the whole time if the RA's are being compensated for their roles), I do feel it was worth it, esp. if I had not received that information before in my training as an archery coach, or similar "mental management" training during law enforcement academy years ago.


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