You’re just clueless Sliver.

: )

I’ve been coaching the Youth Team at the Edge Climbing Centre in North Vancouver for the last 5 years or so. I’d say it’s success is mostly due to the dedication of head coach Andrew Wilson. The point about having a dedicated coach is definitely important. There needs to be continuity in any youth program that gets started. The kids need someone to look up to and someone they can get to know. If there is a new coach every season or every 5 months, there won’t be any relationship between the athlete and the coach.

My commitment isn’t huge. I coach for 3 hours twice a week. Our team has about 6 part time coaches, but a team that is just getting started would probably only need two. I also don’t get paid much. It’s like /hour or something like that (plus free climbing ). I don’t do it for the money.

I think what you need to do is create an agreement with your local gym. Kids that join the program would pay something on top of their annual pass. That money would go to you and the gym. I don’t think the concept of Tryouts is a good idea. You don’t create a team from all the existing good climbers, you create good climbers from your team. All you need are kids that are eager to learn and who love to climb.

Your new team needs to start off as something fun. Just a kids program. Nothing to do with competing or anything. You meet regularly twice a week. You teach them technique, how to lead, what the hell a redpoint means, and a few life lessons. The kids build friendships with you and with each other - they want to keep coming because they’re having a ton of fun. Climbing kicks ass.

At some point there will be a local competition. You get all your kids to register, but emphasize that it’s mostly about the good time and not about the results. As time goes on you’ll form a cohesive group that you can begin to mold into a competitive team. There will be the ones that become instantly hooked to competition the ones who just want to climb for fun and the ones who maintain a healthy balance. That’s how it goes.

A few years later there will be other youth teams at other gyms in your area. They will all be inspired by yours. The local gyms will host more competitions because parents and other members will be demanding them.

There won’t be competitions in your area if there is no demand for them (no teams). It’s up to the coaches and parents to lobby for youth events to be hosted in your area.

That’s about all I can think of for now. Hopefully Andrew Wilson, Mike Doyle or some of the other experienced coaches from out west can contribute here and give you some tips on how to get started. We coaches out west constantly talk about the lack of young talent coming from out east. We know it’s mostly to do with the limited number of youth programs and the lack of youth competitions in eastern Canada. Hearing interest in forming a team out east is motivating and exciting. So go get to work!

Jamie Chong.

Jamie - great response, seems to cover a lot of important points!

My offer stands to all Ontario climbing gyms to help organize sanctioned youth events - I’m more than happy to do most of the leg-work, we just need willing hosts.  I have contacted all of the gyms in Ontario (that I know of) by email, and a few of them in person, and I’ll give it another go again shortly.

We are having another youth event on the 25th of May (non-sanctioned) at Peaks in St. Catharines for climbers in the under 20 age group. 

It is my hope that by then I will have secured the next comp/event location, even if it is in the fall next season.  Suggestions are welcome!

Andrew McBurney

Eastern Youth Climbing Rep

CEC

Just to expand on Jamie’s post a bit I agree that holding tryouts is not the way to go. The more important thing is the personality of the kids than the ability. Kids will get strong and become better climbers by getting to the gym and it’s the coaches job to create the system, the environment that makes the kids want to be there.

Once you start to see the different abilities and levels of desire/dedication of the kids then you can start to coach them differently. You don’t want someone who’s content to climb 5.8 and just wants to fool around to affect another kid who wants to get better and is psyched to train.

Knowing how to set up/explain and teach a training program is important but not right away. You’ll lose kids by making them do boring exercises unless they are already hooked on climbing and understand that it is a necessary step to becoming a better climber.

I asked a coach in Austria what made his team so successful (the most successful in the world) and he said creating an environment where the kids want to be. Getting the kids in there, they’ll push each other and all become better climbers. That’s something that Andrew Wilson has excelled at as the head coach of the Edge, and the head coach of the Canadian national team.

One last thing I’ll say is this. While creating a fun environment is important, especially at the beginning, you’ll be doing the kids a disservice if you only let them come in and have fun without pushing them to get better. Once you’ve established your team as a competitive climbing team you need to step it up. This will depend on the climber and you’ll have to approach each climber a little differently but it is important to understand how badly some of them want to get better and want to win. You really have to empathize with them, feel their pain. If they have a bad competition it’s not enough to say Don’t worry, it’s just one competition or Don’t worry, it’s only indoor climbing. The love of climbing and the love of competition are different. When you see a kid crying because they have been training hard for months or years and they didn’t achieve their goal you will have wished you had pushed them a little harder. Be careful though, it’s easy to push too hard. Make sure you keep up lots of dialog with each climber.

Oh, and if they do really well, remember, you had nothing to do with it. It was all them.