In this episode of the Coaching Podcast your new host, Emma Love, and Jenna Sanders chat about the Performance Coach Pathway, what good coaching is and all its complexities. Plus, we explore what steps we can take to invest in our coaching practise so that we become really good at what we do. Jenna has been working in paddlesports for about 20 years, starting out as a freelance instructor, working up to centre manager, before deciding to become self-employed. At the end of 2018, she decided to go it alone and start up Flying Gecko, to concentrate more on what she really enjoys - being out on the water with paddlers, leaders and coaches, helping them to achieve their paddling goals, and trying to make sure they have a great time doing so. Jenna is a performance coach in both advanced open water canoe, and open water SUP, as well as an advanced white water canoe coach, a BCU level 3 white water kayak coach, and a SUP coastal leader. Jenna is a provider of many Paddle UK qualifications and awards in personal performance, leadership, coaching and safety, mainly across the multi-craft, SUP and canoe disciplines. She is also really proud to be a part of Paddles Up Training's National Trainer team, helping to train, moderate and sign-off providers of the Coach Award, as well as several leadership, safety and instructor awards. Jenna is a member of the Touring Technical Group, and Chair of the Canoe Technical Group, and really loves being able to play a small part to help shape the content and awards that BCAB develops. Whether she’s coaching, running courses, assessing or working with new providers, she works hard to create a friendly and enjoyable learning environment, where experimentation is encouraged and making mistakes is valued and embraced for the learning that it provides. Her aim is to help paddlers, leaders and coaches develop into independent learners with the ability to problem solve, be creative, and to analyse their own performance. She wants everyone to leave her courses feeling more capable and fired up then they started. Jenna's aim with everyone that she works with is to be a small part of their long term enjoyment of the sport. She is also committed to her own ongoing learning, development and curiosity about paddling and coaching. She has recently completed an MSc in coach development at Leeds Beckett University, and is really enjoying putting all that new learning into practice, in everything that she does. To download the transcript for this episode click here.
