Sport and birth

I had a revelation Saturday while watching the Girl's soccer game: coaching a sport and midwifing a birthing mom use, in many ways, the same skill set. Both involve instilling self-confidence in one's body and its ability to perform the necessary tasks, looking for and praising said physical prowess, and carefully watching the athlete/mom while they are working to find ways to help them improve.

Now this may not be the revelation to some that it was to me. "Duh, woman, that's why they call it labor coaching!" Understand that I was praised more for mental gymnastics than physical ones. My mom deemed me "klutzy" and tried to enroll me in ballet so I would become more graceful. (It wasn't a good selling point, so I refused.) And my experience with team sports and coaches was the 'win at any cost' philosophy until middle school, but by then I hadn't acquired the physical education/body awareness/interest to enable me to make the cut for team sports. (It took my experiences with IMPACT for me to develop any real body awareness.)

But my kids have been more fortunate. They have experienced several true coaches, of the type about which Pat Conroy waxes lyrical in most of his books. There's Bob, of 256 fame, who coaches 4&5 year olds in the Tiny Tot soccer league at the Rec. Center. These are kids who are in no way developmentally ready for team sports, who spend most of their on-field time picking dandelions, pulling their shirts over their heads or spinning around and around. (That was the Boy's favorite thing to do.) But Bob and his cohorts manage to get these kids through an hour of practice and an hour game each week, with wicked, fey humor, love, respect, deep understanding of a child's mind, and wily tricks as part of their coaching toolbox. AND he's been doing it every year for the past 5; he started with his oldest child and as the older ones age into the next league, the younger ones are ready for Tiny Tots.

Then there's the Girl's soccer coach, Dave C. He got the privilege of being her first soccer coach. It was, perhaps, a dubious privilege, since most of the other kids had been playing soccer for 3 yrs. already, and she had never played it, or any team sport, before. The learning curve was fierce, sometimes accompanied by tears, but Dave, his crew and the Girl perservered, gently but firmly. I still recall the light in her face when he gave her the trophy and award for 'most improved player'. She aged out of the team last year, but is back in this year. It was Dave's observation at the Girl's soccer game that inspired this entry. He also coached the Boy, with all his spinning glory, last year and seems almost recovered.

Finally there's our beloved Coach Q, aka Chris, who runs The Homeschool Gym:. He sees both kids, every week in our homeschool gym class. It's probably the highlight of their week; I only come in first when there's a sweet treat cooking project in history class. :wink: I could wax rhapsodic about all the wonderful things Chris does with the kids at booklength, indeed, he coached me through my first jitters about homeschooling the Girl.

But here's the most recent example of his tremendous skill: Yesterday, waaaaay after gym class, even after French class, when we had taken the kids out for ice cream, the Boy, from out of the blue, says, "Did you know that Chris played 24 soccer games and lost them all?" I followed up to try to find out from whence that synaptic leap came. So, the Boy told me that Chris had coaxed him out from under the bleachers in the gym with that story, since he had retreated there to cry after his team had lost the game they were playing. The Boy was still thinking about that 5 hours later, enough to talk about it, else I would never had known it had happened. (I'm usually busy talking with the other homeschool moms while the kids are having gym.)

With examples like these, do you wonder why I equate coaching with midwifery?