When I work with an athlete I am always aware that I am working with a person, a whole person and not just a slice of that person. The whole person comes to the field or the gym or the track, not just their body but their mind and spirit as well and as an Intrinsic Coach® knows, most of what they bring is beyond what I can see.
This was revealed to me again today in a beautiful way during a training session with one of the young people I train. She competes as a track athlete at the college level. She was originally recruited by her university as a sprinter but competed in a field event last year. When she returned from school this spring she asked if I would help her train to return to sprinting. Her love for sprinting is intrinsic in the truest sense of that word and to watch her run is a thing of beauty. It is power and grace and rhythm and you can see her come fully alive when she takes off.
A year away from the sprints has left her with a gap in her training. Closing the gap between where she was in May and where she wanted to be by this first week of August was her goal.
We had our second to the last session today. It came at the end of a heavy week. We were working on her start and coming out of the blocks - a critical part of the race it’s a combination of power, technique, and relaxed concentration. It had been a long time since she had used the blocks so we began slowly finding her position and getting comfortable.
Then, it was time to give it a go. She rose up in the blocks and took off. Her postion was good, her technique was fine but there was no explosion. She walked back to the starting line, head down, frowning. I asked what she noticed and she said she felt no power, felt slow. I asked to to think for a moment about what she was wanting from the start. She said she wanted to apply so much force at the start that the blocks would literally be kicked out from under her. She took a moment to picture that, then stepped back to the line and took another start. Again, her technique looked fine and I asked if that was closer to what she was wanting. She said no. Then her eyes started watering and she stared up at the sky.
I left the silence there for a little while as she wiped a way a sniffle. We walked past the starting line and then back and when we stopped I asked her to tell me what was important to her about being able to kick those blocks away. When she saw herself starting so powerfully what was she wanting in that moment? “ I want to be right there with the other girls, she said. I’m always fast on my relay splits and once I get up to speed I’m great but I’ve never been good with my start so my coaches wont take me seriously for the open events. I want to be able to compete in the open events. I just really love to race.” And then she cried a little more.
That little snippet of a conversation told me more than the video tape or watching her sprint, or tracking her times and numbers. I hate to sound like a cliche but the working arena grew infinitely in that moment because I was able to be in synch with her in a way that allowed us to work with more than what was “merely apparent”.
I just waited while she took a little walk. When she returned to the starting line she asked if she could try starting with her other leg forward. So she did. It was better. Then I asked to try starting without the blocks. She was faster. I asked what she was thinking given the differences. Her conclusion was that the problem was somewhere in the way she was in the blocks. “ And is that saying anything to you,” I asked? “ That I can get better at this,” she said. Then she started to smile, just a little.
We packed up, left the track for the weight room, finished a short workout then sat down to wrap up. We talked about what we could emphasize in the next training cycle and she began to see connections and how those connections would keep moving her toward her goal. Her goals and her thinking were starting to lead the way and the confidence and power and grace she shows on the track were showing themselves in her posture and her voice and her eyes. The starting blocks were just an obstacle. The important thing was the goal and the process and she was in charge of that because she could make choices that would help her get better.
Our conversation will continue, even when she is back at school and her thinking is continuing even as I write this. Knowing what she wants, and being in tune with that part of her that just really loves to race brings her to a place that is at once both powerful and peaceful. The goal is clearer and much bigger than any obstacles along the way.
A friend of mine says that perhaps as an Intrinsic Coach® we are a catalyst. We aren’t the elements, they are in and around and unique to the coachee. We aren’t the reaction because as we know it is the coachee who does the work and accomplishes the results. Maybe our coaching allows those elements to come together for the coachee in a way that can spark them forward toward the fullness of the person they are meant to be.
PS: I believe there is something bigger at work in us and through us when we are serving as that catalyst.
Tim Clark, C.S.C.S., Intrinsic Coach®, is the owner of Kick It Training in Chaska , MN

