On "Teaching" versus "Coaching"

Until recently, I was never great about maintaining my physical health. I spent many years living by the adage: "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse." However, since that didn't happen and I find myself now firmly trapped in middle age with no turning back, I am reluctantly having to grow up and acknowledge this rapidly decaying shell I am living in.

Thus, after two kids and a pandemic, I resolved to do something about my "Covid 19." I hired a personal trainer, and started working out twice a week. This past spring, I added Muay Thai classes to the mix, and rediscovered my long-dormant love of martial arts. I've been teaching more advanced students this year than ever before, and the combination of these different factors led me to start thinking about the distinction between teaching and coaching.  In music we often use these terms interchangeably, but for this article I'm going to treat them as separate roles.

What does a coach do in sports? Well teach, yes of course, also coordinate and strategize; but I would argue that one of their primary functions is to push their players beyond their comfort zone, beyond fatigue, and to get them to go the extra mile when they wouldn't on their own. In Muay Thai, we have a joke:

Gym logic:

You: "I can't do another rep!"

Trainer: "Okay, then take a break."

Muay Thai logic:

You: "I can't do another kick!"

MT Coach: "Okay, then do twenty."

We also have something called "Muay Thai counting," which means that if coach says "Do ten pushups...my count," the count will look something like this:

"One!

"Two!

"Three!

"Four!

"Five!

(long pause while we hold plank)

"Six!

"Sevvvvvven!" (increased time between each count)

"Eighttttttttttt!

"Nine!

"Nine!

"...Nine!

"... ...Nine!

"Ten!" (everybody collapses to the mat)

Sometimes, a little external motivation can make all the difference.  So, for the sake of argument, let's define "teaching" as the imparting of concepts and ideas, and coaching as motivational techniques.

What are some examples of teaching concepts in music?

• Everything to do with setting up a reliable and healthy technique

• Everything to do with staff reading and music theory

• Teaching score interpretation

• Demonstrating different practice techniques

• Performance protocols and regimens

What is coaching, by contrast? Coaching is that part of the piano lesson where we say: "Nope, that wasn't it! Try again!", or, "Right, good job! Now do it again!" It is the part where we generally get the most pushback from recalcitrant students, the part that often feels like you're dragging them kicking and screaming through the mud. This is to be expected, because on their own, human beings are generally hardwired to make the minimum effort required to meet a goal. It's a basic survival instinct to conserve energy.

The problem is, when you are a student you usually can't see just how far that goal is beyond your grasp, and that distance is much greater than we tend to assume. This is just as true of adult students as children. Sometimes I think our misconception of that distance is for the best, because if we knew the truth about how far we had to go, we might give up then and there. This is where having a coach makes all the difference. It's our job as coaches to bridge that gap by determining just how far we can push our students beyond their comfort zones while minimizing frustration and keeping things positive. (This applies to parents too, who spend much of their lives in the coaching role as well!)

In educational psychology there is a concept known as the "zone of proximal development." It represents the space between what a learner is capable of doing unsupported, and what they cannot do even with support.  The idea is that there is an optimal zone for learning, where, with the right support and guidance, the student makes maximum progress.  I think this applies both to the teaching side of introducing conceptual material - the speed at which you transition from teaching basic reading to the rules of music theory, for example - and to the coaching side, where a student is challenged to practice longer and more thoroughly than they would on their own, but not so much they burn out and lose interest.

Needless to say, it can be tricky to find the right balance. You need to understand your student's current level of ability very well, as well as their personality and maturity level. For younger students, coaching is relatively easy, as pieces are short and technical demands are minimal. Although everything is new, we can make fewer difficult requests, as the priorities are having fun and cultivating a personal rapport with lots of positive associations. This ensures that the relationship is strong later on, when greater challenges become unavoidable.

These challenges are familiar to us not just as teachers, but from our own pasts as students:

• the necessity for long hours of hard work

• consistent adherence to a routine

• thoughtful problem-solving, rather than mere mindless repetition

• a certain amount of mindless repetition

• resisting the urge to take ill-advised shortcuts

• getting a handle on nerves, anxiety, and self-doubt

• dealing with frustration and failure

...and many more. As many of us have experienced, at this point a coach becomes more than a teacher, but someone who sees both our greatest weaknesses and our greatest potential, and chooses to help us walk towards the latter. That is why mentors can make an impact that lasts a lifetime.

Personally, when I look back at where I started and what I have done since, it feels like very little of it came solely from me. I may have been born with a purpose of being an artist and teacher. But without my teachers, most of what I've produced would have stayed inside me, never to see the light of day. Teachers and coaches see us for who we are before we do ourselves. They believe in a power we don't even know we have yet. And they work with us through the fatigue and frustration, all to prove in the end that it was worth it. Getting the student to persevere through those challenges is an art form in itself. Those teachers who master coaching produce students who can move the world.