Challenges and tricks of the coach
Hello fellow archers and Nerf warriors! It’s time for this week’s Blog post and this week is all about *drum roll* the challenges of being a coach! Being a coach of any kind or leading groups of people through an “experience” has its own special skill sets and challenges whether its leading archery games or Nerf wars so allow me to share some of the valuable skills and techniques we use every day to make our guests archery games experience top-notch.
Kids = energy. Whether they’re segregated alone or a part of a group, their energy levels are legendary and coveted by every one over 30 years old. Using some of these techniques will have you gripping these little lightning bolts and have you feeling like Zeus in no time. We are also starting a video series on Instagram to show you some of the practical uses for these techniques which will no doubt serve you in one way or another.
Gathering groups of kids. This technique is invaluable when it comes to starting off a big group session. Talking to children that are scattered about is whistling in the wind and it’s simply not effective! The technique that we like to deploy is the “meetup timer”. We announce the trainer is about to talk in 12 seconds and you need your hands empty and on the pool table to show us you’re ready. Counting out loud is an amazing tool because it reminds the kids why they are doing what they are doing so make sure that countdown is loud. With this simple tool, I have personally gotten 20+ kids battling each other with foam swords and armour to put away their toys and huddle around one spot in silence in 12 seconds ready to learn about archery games. No, that is not a typo. 12 seconds.
Learning to direct the flow of a child’s energy has proven itself to be infinitely more effective than trying to stop the flow itself. The river of energy may seem impossible for a child to stop and that’s okay, all we need to do is point the energy where we want it and where we want it is directed towards learning archery games.
Empty hands, Open mind. This is an easy technique that has helped immeasurably with our archery games and all you need is the child’s hands to be empty while you’re communicating with them. In my personal experience, children are creative, energetic and fascinated by all things and having a new toy in their hands ignites their little minds into a whirlwind of excitement so to help keep their energy on track, we like to make sure to hand them their Nerf guns or bows last. As a last resort, if they already have their equipment, we will ask them to put their gear on the floor in front of them (hands off) so we can communicate more effectively.
This is the first of our crowd control tricks that we’ll be sharing through the next few weeks! I hope it proves useful for yourselves in the future.
As always, thank you for reading and may the wind be forever at your back.
Mr. Aimazing (Kyle)