Elizabeth (Beth) Wallis

I wanted to do the Performance Coach Award because I wanted to dig into the details of how and why we coach as we do and then to have space to use that information to shape what I do on the water - basically adding some more scaffolding around my coaching. I chose to go for White Water Canoe as it’s the discipline I felt I had a less good technical understanding of. I figured if I was learning, I may as well learn all the things.

Completing the Award has really given me a chance to live in my coaching philosophy and secure my technical knowledge. Because I’ve got better scaffolding I’m now much less worried about if I’m doing things ‘properly’ - whatever that even means. I’m much more comfortable coaching in ways that maybe aren’t my natural style if that’s what paddlers need. I’ve come out of it feeling like I've grown into my coaching but also like I’ve only just started getting to the good stuff!

Learning is a team game for me so it was good to have so many chances to be around other coaches in person and online. Regular mentor sessions meant I could remember learning and ask questions while they were still fresh in my mind. A few people from the cohort I started with also met up a few times to paddle and experiment coaching each other which was really fun and great to get different perspectives.

I had two goes at the assessment and I’m really glad about that.

The first day I was feeling entirely self-inflicted assessment pressure, from it all being a bit unknown. That was the only slight downside of the whole process being so open and holistic. It was hard to know and hold onto what I actually needed to do/show to meet the assessment criteria. It was fine enough as a coaching day but not a day that I’d feel pleased to pass with. However it was one of the best learning days about paddlesport coaching and working as an outdoor professional I could have asked for. Steve did an amazing job of patiently teasing some gold from a ‘meh’ kind of day.

The second day I’d switched off my assessment brain and just relaxed into enjoying paddling and coaching and being with people, which is what it's all about after all. I’d had bonus learning time in the weeks between too. It felt like much more of a reflection of the work that’d had gone into it. Importantly both days were very much normal coaching days. There were no weird set up scenarios or surprising awkward questions. Just days out coaching real people in real conditions.

Roddy McDowell

A career in education led me to believe that effective teachers never forget what it feels like to be a learner. So too it is in coaching. Having qualified as a BCU L4 Sea Kayak Coach some 20 years ago I felt the need to re-engage as a learner. To stress test my own understanding of what being a learner felt like I embarked on requalifying first as Sea Kayak Coach then as Performance Coach in 2023. In doing so I drew inspiration from others who were engaged in coach development and with whom I was, and am, privileged to learn and coach with.

That journey through the last two years reinforced an understanding that effective coaching is not built on theories of learning but on where theory meets practice. That is where the story of a learning journey is created. For me the Performance Coach qualification was not about the performance of the person the coach is working with (although a positive impact there is the desired outcome). It was about how I as a coach perform. How do I as a coach ground myself, who am I coaching for?

My mentor Gill Berrow was hugely supportive in encouraging me to challenge and refine my coaching philosophy. This in turn deepened an understanding that the tension created between coaching to build technical excellence, and solution- and outcome-focused coaching, is not a negative space but one where rapport, information gathering, goal setting and accessing resources can thrive.

Matt Haydock worked with me as coach developer, challenging and supporting me to demonstrate on the water how my aim of creating a safe and challenging space where students build their own learning journey is achieved. 

A quote from two students I was coaching towards the Coastal Sea Kayak Award and who volunteered to take part in my Performance Coach Assessment is insightful:

“We have paddled several times since that weekend and often talk about how we got it wrong and how the situation was allowed to unfold, under your watchful eyes. The learning came from having to sort it out, and understand how the circumstances could have been prevented.”

Prior to engaging with Performance Coach Award work I would have intervened to a greater extent thus interrupting the flow and effectiveness of these students' learning. I also think the fact that both they and I were working towards assessments created more of a community of learning rather than a ‘coach knows all’ ethos. The way Matt structured my final assessment over two days was integrated into my own learning journey ensuring that the end game was not so much a summative event but formative, one of development which continues. 

There were highpoints aplenty in my learning journey to Performance Coach. One stand out moment deserving special mention was the two day Community of Practice at Glenmore Lodge. It was an extremely powerful example of where enquiry and ‘being curious’ are placed at the heart of learning. The two days focused on putting the learner at the centre and enabling peer group interaction to thrive. This was modelled by the coach team of Lara Cooper, George Fell and Tom Sibbald who from the outset stated that there were not "six students and a coach team in the room but nine learners and nine coaches”. I would recommend that room called “Performance Coach” as one worth spending time in if coaching is your thing and you wonder what it might look like if it was even more effective. 

Andy McLaughlin

Congratulations to Andy McLaughlin as this year’s winner of the Geoff Good Coach of the Year  award, following his nomination after being named Coach of the Year at the 2023 SCA Recognition Awards. 

I have been coaching for over 45 years, everything from 3 A’s long jump coach, full time BASI skiing coach, Norwegian Cross Country Ski instructor to Senior Hangliding coach. I have also been coached at National level in two different sports. 

When I started kayaking (at 50) I did not plan to go down the coaching route. However a senior kayaking coach suggested I should get into kayak coaching. So I did. My hope at the time was that I could bring my years of coaching experience to the table but also that it would help me to develop my coaching knowledge and skills. I have also always found that when you start coaching a sport your personal skills and technique improve and you become better at that sport. So I thought why not. 

My kayak coaching began with the help of Mr. Ken Hughes - the best coach I have ever worked with, and I have worked with a lot. He mentored and guided me through the coaching process up to Advanced White Water Kayak Coach. I learned so much from Ken including how to structure kayak coaching sessions, how to get the best out of students and to help them progress.

After a few years of running my own courses at home and abroad, and joining the Glasgow Kayak Club coaching team, it was an article in Scottish Paddler that alerted me to the Performance Coach Award. I thought this would be a good way to learn more and develop as a coach.

The first thing was to attend the weekend community event at Glenmore Lodge. This was two days of a mixture of classroom and on-the-water mentoring and learning from some of Scotland’s top coaches. A great two days which gave me a lot of insight into what the Performance Coach Award was all about. It was also a great opportunity to meet other coaches from various disciplines and learn from their experiences and perspectives. The weekend event left me thinking a lot more about my own approach to coaching and what I should be doing to improve how I deliver a better experience and outcome to the people I am working with.

After the community event I was lucky enough to secure Calum McNicol as my mentor. Calum and I met on a number of occasions where we looked at and discussed my coaching style. Calum came on a number of my courses, providing some great advice and feedback on how I could improve as a coach.

I then went ahead with my White Water Kayak Performance Coach (Advanced Water) Assessment. And failed. Having put in a lot of time and effort prior to the assessment I was very disappointed to say the least. I had returned to how I’d always coached and failed on not enough student empowerment and individualisation. 

So I went away, thought about it, regrouped and with the encouragement of Lara Cooper, picked myself up, dusted myself off and started again. Lara also suggested I work with a coach developer by the name of George (the one and only) Fell. Working with George as my coach developer proved invaluable. To start with, he gave me a whole new way to approach the Performance Coach process: simple things like reduce the number of people I am coaching to a manageable level, identify two or three ideal students I could work with over a sustained period and look at a long term coaching strategy.

I looked hard to find a couple of top boaters who were comfortable on grade 4/5 water and ended up working with Murray Watson and Alistair Reid Thomas (Arty). I could not have asked for two more committed boaters than these two. The four of us then met up and identified what Murray and Arty were looking for and what they hoped to get out of the days spent on the water. Between the four of us we produced a strategic plan of attack.

There were then five or so days spread over six months spent on grade 4/5 water, where we worked together as a team to achieve Arty and Murray’s goals. George was there every step of the way, examining with me the areas I had failed in, and working hard to modify and improve my coaching to allow the guys to be driving the sessions, looking at each of their individual needs.

We had some great boating, some great fun, set ourselves some serious challenges and I know that Arty and Murray came out the other end as better boaters with lots to work on going forward. I believe I came out of it a better, more knowledgeable coach, also with lots to work on going forward.

All in all a great process to be part of. I like to think I improved as a boater but more importantly I feel I am a better coach mainly because it has made me look far more closely at the hows, whats and wherefores of how I coach. I also realise now I am by no means the finished article, but have taken another step forward.

I can’t recommend the Performance Coach Award route highly enough if you want to become a better coach.

Thanks to Paddle Scotland, Calum McNicol, Lara Cooper, Murray Watson, Alistair Reid Thomas and the Fell Man. 

If you are interested in the Performance Coach find out more here.

The next Performance Coach Community Event is on: 

8th & 9th November 2025 at Grandtully Station Park

Book via JustGo Events Finder. 

These events are open to any qualified coach with an appetite for further learning even if you are not interested in progressing to the qualification. You will get to explore coaching and how this relates to 'who', 'what' and 'how' you coach, alongside other highly motivated, skilled and experienced coaches from a range of disciplines, creating a powerful opportunity to explore, develop and refine your thinking about your coaching practices, knowledge and understandings.