Coach the Player, Not Yourself
Take a random sample of volleyball players and ask them for a list of what they think makes a good coach. Some will say experience, others will say intellect, and everybody else will list something different. And yet, they will inevitably list many overlapping characteristics.
Depending on their strengths, coaches can be specialized as good team builders, good tacticians, or good technical coaches. It is the latter that I want to touch upon today.
I firmly believe that regardless of what sport you are coaching, there is one defining feature of a good technical coach - The ability to coach for a player's specific style, not to change the player's style to conform to the coach's own playing form.
This quote from NY Yankee Derek Jeter speaking about the strengths of NYY hitting coach Kevin Long (who is very highly regarded within the NYY clubhouse and around professional baseball) sums up my point quite well. (Emphasis mine.)
"You don't necessarily have to be good at something to see things in other people," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "Even if you had Ted Williams and brought him in to be our hitting coach, he's not going to teach everyone how he hit. I don't care what you were able to do (as a player). You're not teaching your swing to everybody. You're trying to help everybody out with their own.
"You're not teaching people to do things like you did. You're teaching them to be the best that they can be."
Kevin Long was a lifetime minor-leaguer. He never amassed even a single Major League at-bat. And yet he is one of the most highly regarded hitting coaches in the game today. Why?
It is his ability to read a player's swing and break it down.
It is his ability to communicate effectively to his players what he has seen.
And it is his ability, not to force a player to hit like Kevin Long, but to hit like themselves. Only better.
And thus is my point - when you are working with your (more experienced) players on improving any sort of technique, don't force them to play like you did when you were a player. Work with them to play like them. Work with them to improve upon what they already know.
It's a tough job, and quite honestly not everybody is able to do it, but if you're lucky enough to be blessed with an eye for technique don't waste it by forcing a player to change who they are. Don't approach the player as if they were yourself in your playing days.
Always remember - It's your job to coach the player. Not yourself.