I saw a cool quote recently that read something like:

“Calm seas don’t make a good sailor.”

I think this makes sense. Why put yourself in the ideal situation all of the time? Don’t you want to improve? Don’t you want to become a better coach? When you put yourself through trials in order to improve yourself, your confidence in yourself will grow, your skill will improve, and guess what? You will become a better coach.

Sounds ironic, but all of this losing I’ve done recently has made me a more confident and a slightly more skillful coach. It’s funny how growth spurts happen. You can play for a long time with very few improvements, beating your head against the same ole’ wall, over and over and over again. Then, WHAMO!!! You understand, you learn, you improve. Just like that…

Most of my recent learning has taken place in the fire of the tournament! I played tough coaches and tough teams. Tournaments and leagues force you to play matches you probably would avoid normally, but these are the matches you should play, if you want to grow (skill and confidence) as a coach.

So join a tournament, join a league, and start your journey on becoming a more skillful coach!

When your skill improves, so will your confidence, & confidence is HUGE!

The right amount of confidence is everything. Too much, and you make stupid mistakes of bravado. Too little, and you make too many mistakes out of fear. These errors are most notable with certain CR coaches. The ultra high CR, coaches with a bazillion matches under their belt, usually play solid games with just the right amount of confidence that has been tempered through the fires of countless battles. The above average to average CR coaches are still playing with bravado or fear depending on the match. They for whatever reason have not reached that level of stability, but are getting close. The low CR coaches usually play with extreme amounts of fear or bravado, or simply don’t know what they are doing (rookie) or don’t care.

Is this the case with all coaches? Of course it isn’t! I’m generalizing. I am only trying to make the case that confidence has a part to play in our games. Confidence should naturally grow alongside your skill and if you pay attention, you will notice the change in yourself. Confidence by itself, without skill, is just foolishness.

Confidence steadies the nerves and opens your mind up, but like I said before; too much (bravado) or too little (fear), and you’re not playing at your best!