Why Do We Need a Coach/Teacher

Why Do We Need a Coach/Teacher
By Dr. Romanov, January 23, 2007.
From http://www.posetech.com/training/archives/000424.html
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How do we learn everything? Obviously, in everyday life there are lots of things we can learn by - books, manuals, instructions, and sometimes just by common sense. It refers to learning to work on a computer, cooking food, assembling some simple gadgets at home, using some machinery, etc. Even exercises could be learnt by video/book instructions.

Last several decades saw the development of ideas in health and wellness by using exercise and fitness which are now accepted as a part of everyday life. Sport education materials are produced on a high business level. It almost eliminated the necessity of having a teacher or a coach in our learning of exercises. Is it indeed so?

Could these wonderful books and videos produced by these teaches/coaches completely substitute hands-on work? What value does the teacher bring which is impossible to substitute? After working in the educational field for more than 40 years and studying the science of teaching and learning, I can attest that the question of the necessity of a teacher/coach for learning something important in your life is not really a question, but a well-accepted reality.

Indeed, why genius Plato was a student of Socrates, and then genius Aristotle became a student of Plato? I guess there was something important that could be taught only by a teacher. Something imperceptible which comes only from the teacher's knowledge, something coming from the heart and soul, which we sometimes couldn't even express in words, something that gives everything a personal touch.

Certainly, we can progress far with our skill of writing and will be able to build visual and logical meaning of what we would like to teach, but something will always be missing there and require your teacher's presence. This "something" is a translation of multi-dimensional possibility of movement into a clear visible, perceptible and performable personal reality of movement.

The teacher is a translator and guide of your movement, who knows the road map to your goal, who is with you in "the car" during your driving, correcting your smallest deviations from the right direction before you get deep into unknown field. The teacher is someone who is with you, when you got into a dark area and lost your understanding of right and wrong, and who gives you a personal emotional and mental support through all your hard times.

Your teacher is someone who shares the moment of excitement when you reach your goal and someone who takes your psycho-emotional pain when you fail, and help you to get your hope back and keep moving forward.

The teacher is your friend and healer, your support and knowledge provider, your inspiration and consolation, your adviser and corrector to whom you can complain not only about your errors in movement and pain in your body, but also about why life is not fair. I do understand that it may take time to find the teacher who will fit your expectations, but he/she is out there waiting for you to help you make your dream come true.