Alliance Coaching In Action on YouTube
Copyright Pete Kautz 2014

Well, it was bound to happen...I'm finally on YouTube.

No, I don't have a channel yet like Mr. Keating (aka “The Knife Coach” on YT) but the other weekend my friend Lyte Burly from NYC came up here to help us improve our skills with the 52 Blocks....and being a prolific YouTuber he filmed a ton of clips.

(2015 Update: I now DO have a YouTube Channel that you can find right here!)

In weeks to come, I'll talk a LOT more about the 52 Blocks. I'll share many details of it's history, it's techniques, it's training methods, and so on. It is a fascinating martial art with much to offer and I look forward to writing more on the topic.

(Here is a link to an article about the 52 Blocks seminar if you want more details right now and can't wait!)

But, as far as the videos go, the first one Lyte put up was not of us training in 52, but just us on break doing a little knife throwing and instinctive rifle. We hadn't planned on doing it at all, it was just us horsing around, but when he and his training partner saw the guys doing it they wanted in on the fun.

In about 10 minutes Lyte and Joel were nailing aerial targets and zinging knives around like pros. You can see a little bit of this on Lyte's YT channel “52 Block Info”

On the clip you see me hit a quarter square in the center and us moving and throwing at the moving hoop target (hard to see against the green lawn – you see the yellow rope pulling it but the wire hoop is barely visible) as well as Lyte running up a huge string of hits on the moving Ghost Target.

More importantly, you'll see a nice example of coaching the shooting and the proper way to correct the student.

Spend some time listening to the patter I have going with Lyte, the use of inflection, tonality, and embedded commands used to encourage, praise, and correct. For those of you who've seen the Aerial Target Clinic DVD we did, this is all the coaching principles discussed there in action.

What I found most amusing with the clip was that out of 18 shots made on the video, the only time you'll hear Lyte miss is on shot number six. This is right after Kurt tells him “Don't stop moving even after you fire.”

I laugh and respond by saying “You just gave him a negative command, what should you tell him?”

Kurt immediately responds with “Keep moving even after you fire!” and right away the next one is a hit as are the eleven after that.

This is important to understand because a lot of coaches flat-out don't know how negative and positive commands work and they mess up their students by the way they speak to them.

For example, there's one shooting coach who's video I have and he uses negative commands about 90% of the time and his student's success clearly suffers on camera. He yammers on and on “Don't miss, don't miss, don't miss” or “Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop.”

What he doesn't understand is that to understand “don't stop” you have to think of stopping. Like the classic, “don't think of a pink elephant” one must conceive the idea of a pink elephant and then try and mentally negate it. So, in essence, his student's subconscious mind's just hear “miss, miss, miss” and “stop, stop, stop” all day from this dude.

Instead, as teachers, take the time and think about how you can give your student the same information by telling them exactly what you want them TO DO.

All my very best to you,

Pete Kautz

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