You wouldn’t coach your kid gymnastics, unless you actually were a gymnast would you? I didn’t think so. Well, while I may have driven performance rally, I’ve never squeezed my behind into a kart so why would I try to teach my kid how to drive. Besides, sometimes there are benefits that come from another person talking to your kid. Let’s face it, a 13 year old girl really doesn’t want to hear what the old man has to say anyway.
Yesterday, the importance of a good teacher really hit home. On a bright, sunny and warm morning, things looked good. Until that is the karts hit the track. The talented driver we saw a few weeks ago was gone and Miss Shelby was just thrashing around the track. Practice and qualifying saw her go farming at the exit of the uphill hairpin lap after lap. It was clear that she was carrying too much speed at the entrance and keeping the power off until she understeered right off the track. Super coach Petri was over in turn one flagging, so it was up to me to relay the message (by cell, trackside) of what she need to do. She understood, but just couldn’t put it together and race one was hopeless. She finished 8th out of 8. Her fastest lap was a full 2 and a half seconds off the leader’s pace.
Between race 1 & race 2, we managed to get Shelby & Petri together for about 3 minutes. As a good parent, I stayed away, so I don’t know what was said.
The start of race 2 showed a completely different driver. Starting 5th, she not only held her position, but she stayed glued to the 4th place kart. The really cool thing though is that the first 5 karts could have been covered by the proverbial blanket for most of the race. All Shelby needed was a bit more aggression and she would have been top 3! Until of course the teeth stripped on the drive belt of her kart. So much for the reliability of fleet karts, even ones that are 2 months old. Her fastest lap was less than 2 tenths off that of the leader and almost a full 2 seconds faster than any of the adult drivers.
So what magic was used to knock her out of her funk? Obviously it had something to do with words of wisdom from somebody other than dear old dad. Oddly though, even Petri wasn’t sure what he said that triggered the change. If we could only just figure it out and bottle it!
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I am so glad to see not only your involvement with your children but equally as interesting are the post with their carting progress. As you probably already know, carting is absolutely the best foundation there is for drivers especially those destine to sit in the seat of a race car. But it is equally as important to learn how to be supportive to them at the same time. NEVER tell them what they did wrong. NEVER ask them why the spun out on a corner. NEVER bring up anything negative. On the other hand ALWAYS make it a point to tell them what they are doing right. “Hey Buddy, Man did you ever look great coming thru Turn 4!” Here is an interview I did with the great Robert Cornish some years ago. It’s long but I guarantee it worth while reading but it will also show how important good coaching can be or even how what some consider to be good coaching can be not so good. In the mean time lets hear more about their growth as they move up thru the competitive ranks of cart racing.
Coach’s Insight
By Robert Cornish
I provide Co-Active performance coaching services to Business leaders (CEO and business owners) and Race Drivers. Co-Active coaching is grounded in the belief that the client is naturally resourceful, creative, and whole. It brings clarity and connection to values and purpose in life, with accountability to being in action. My intention in working with clients is to unleash the unique qualities and awareness’ naturally within the client that result in the highest levels of success (however that is measured), balance, and fulfillment in their lives. That was the nicely worded sentence, what my coaching really is about is – curiosity, learning, possibilities, aliveness and most of all being inspired.
You see there is a level of human performance and achievement so high that it can only be reached through creating the kind of relationships that inspire. My long-standing clients are already successful people, they don’t necessarily need or have coaching in their lives to be more successful (though that happens) they have this continuing desire to grow and learn about themselves through being inspired – they want to dive into their life all the way. To really LIVE in their most extraordinary way. One of these clients shared that the reason he has me as his coach is because I am all about possibilities.
© 2003. Robert Cornish, all rights reserved
The Weakest Link
Have you had occasion to watch the NBC prime time game show “The Weakest Link”? It is a get on the “Who wants to be a millionaire” game show bandwagon offering, that is already very popular in England. The noteworthy element of this show is not the rules or the way the game is played (which is interesting), rather it is the show’s host Anne Robinson. The show’s web site says Anne is the rudest woman on TV. Rude is a good description, and the way she is rude is by being sarcastically blunt and imaginatively descriptive of how badly the contestants are performing in playing the game. She is very good at playing this role.
The huge popularity (over 6 million people watch) of this show is a commentary on our culture. Most people believe that to improve performance you have to fix whatever you are doing wrong and so their primary attention and focus is on what is wrong with the performance. In our culture it is commonplace to focus on and bring attention to the failures, flaws and shortcomings of anything. You could even say that our culture is pre-disposed to being negatively critical. Even I, who am about to describe how counterproductive this negativity is to performance, find “The Weakest Link” entertaining.
While the rudeness of the host of “The Weakest Link” is entertaining, have you ever noticed the effect on the contestants? Have you noticed how often their performance deteriorates as the show goes on? This deterioration in performance is no surprise to me. I would like to share a true story sent to me last year by Gary Faules a racer and former Olympic Skeet Shooting athlete, building on what I had written in one of my columns about the subconscious.
In an interview with Gary Faules he wrote, “An experience I had in Moscow at the Sparticade Games which were just prior to the 22nd Olympiad in Russia in 1979, my coach, made me come with him to watch Nadia Comaneci in the Gym as she practiced a routine, which she intended to use in the Olympic games. Coach made me sit and watch and listen for HOURS. Every time I asked what this had to do with Skeet Shooting he told me to “Shut up and watch and listen! ” Well, Nadia kept working on her Balance beam routine as her coaches looked on. She would get up on the beam and each time she got to a particular spot in the routine, she would fall, hit herself in the crouch, or in the head and it looked very painful. She would get up and limp around, cry or whatever until she could collect herself. At no time did anyone say anything to her… absolute silence! When she was ready she would get back up on the beam and attempt the same routine again and once again, she would fall and again, silence! Finally, she did it and stuck the landing perfectly and went on to finish a flawless routine.
When she made the perfect landing all hell broke loose! All the coaches, and helpers and her entourage ran to her and speaking in some other language that I could not understand they were obviously all very excited for her. “There” said my coach “Did you see that… Faules, what did you just learn?” I told him I learned that I would never try the balance beam! Not really, I asked what in the hell was I supposed to learn, I sit there for over four hours watching someone beat the hell out of her body and I have NO IDEA what in the hell I just learned, maybe you better tell me. Then he told me that NOT ONCE did anyone tell her when she fell, WHAT SHE DID WRONG! Instead, they waited until they could tell her ONLY what SHE DID PERFECT! Never should we ingrain what we do WRONG we should ALWAYS ingrain what we do RIGHT. It’s positive and the sub conscious eats this stuff up.”
I love this story from Gary - it powerfully describes the concept of positive acknowledgement. And I want you to know that it doesn’t just apply to athletes who are expected to perform at ultra-high levels. It applies to all of us, all the time. The quote above that says, “the sub-conscious eats this stuff up” really means this: positive language and emotions ARE what the subconscious responds to for learning and performance to occur. Our natural learning ability, that is integral with the subconscious, doesn’t function well in a negative context at all. The subconscious is what operates our body, it does not reason. It only knows what it receives from the five senses, it stores these inputs to be reused again when appropriate to a previously stored activity, and it gives positive commands to our body to do a particular action in response. Our conscious mind, which does the all the reasoning, only indirectly influences or controls the subconscious/body actions. Negative words require reasoning about what is the right or wrong thing to do. The subconscious is programmed only to DO. It doesn’t know how to NOT do. When our conscious mind sends out negative messages it only serves to confuse the subconscious that is searching for “positive DO commands” to send to the body.
Enough explanation now lets apply the concept. My example of the prevalence of negativity in our culture represented by the popularity of “The Weakest Link” TV show is relatively easy to spot and take steps to change. What is harder to spot and may be even more pervasive in our culture are the same negative, critical, making wrong thoughts and statements we make to OURSELVES! And yes they have an even greater sabotaging effect on the subconscious’ role in performance. How do we change what for many of us is an ingrained habit of being negative and critical? The way to begin is through awareness, by becoming aware of when we are doing it. Notice the negative or critical thoughts you have during the day. Then start thinking of ways you would change those thoughts into positive ones (or at least neutral). Start to implement those more positive alternative thoughts - find something (anything) good about what you or another person have done and acknowledge it to them, to yourself. As you do this more and more, you will be feeding your subconscious what it thrives on. You will be feeding your subconscious only positive things to DO. Your performance level and the performance of others around you will skyrocket. It’s easy to say and hard to do in our culture, and the potential is huge by doing it. Give it a try and let me know what happens for you.
Whats a safe (responsible) age for your kids to start carting? There is a race track just down the road from us in Pembrey where we have been to watch the go-cart racing but have never considered it a safe thing to allow my children to participate in.
GF - Wow! What a great thought provoker! I’ll actually be passing this one around work.
Used vans girl- Here in Ontario, we start them the year they turn 8. If you think that’s a bit young, don’t forget that they can race dirtbikes at 5.
As for safety, karting is safer than it’s ever been thanks to improved chest protection, better coverage of wheels and better track design.
Here in North America, arguably the two biggest sports for kids are football and hockey. Both are very physical sports in which injury is very common. Even minor injuries are quite rare in racing these days. In fact, there are more injuries at the dance studio Shelby attends than there are at the kart club!
It’s a great sport that keeps families together and many people stay involved for their whole life. Go for it, get your kids involved!
UVG,
It’s never too early to start a child out in carting as long as properly supervised by professionals. Now don’t let that word (professional) scare you away thinking it equals expensive because that’s not true at all. My experience has shown that most quality cart shops where you can buy good quality carts and supplies will in fact meet you at the tracks and help get you pointed in the right direction. Believe it or not there are many similarities between carts and formula cars and if you think all you do is add gas, pull a rope and go you’re wrong. Besides driving, passing, racing there is lots to learn such as set up, tire pressure, axle offset, which way to lean and the list is long. But wait there’s good news… What I found most appealing about cart racing for my kids wasn’t the racing. OH sure that was a blast too but the most enjoyment I got out of carting was I was learning right along with my kids and it helped us bond like nothing else. This in turn gave them the opportunity to feel good about themselves and there were times when it was them having to explain it to me. That camaraderie carried over into what has now become a very satisfying way of life and it gave my kids just one more thing to keep them busy and out of trouble. You know what they say, show me an idle child and I’ll show you trouble about to happen.
The sooner you get them started the better off they are since they will be in a very competitive sport but believe me your child will surprise you how fast they learn and how aggressive they will become and in turn how they will learn to control their aggressions in real life.
Last but not least, buy GOOD equipment. A reputable cart shop will help you with that and remember, that at that age there is usually a lot of good used equipment for sale since typically someone will be moving into a new class. Whatever you do DO NOT by one of those “Fun Carts” they are dangerous.
I agree about the less injuries compared to physical sports like basketball and soccer. With the proper equipments for the driver’s protection, it’s certainly safer than before.
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