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Well this is the first blog I’ve written for ages , over a year I believe. The problem is I turned 50 and decided to turn serious. Well I’m approaching 51 and you will be pleased to know the serious head has been removed and instead the almost funny attempting head at humour has now replaced it.  So I’m rambling already , and need to address the problem that this blog is intended for this morning…

Having returned from a recent trip to Mallorca I thought I would attempt to write the entire blog in Spanish , but then I realised that my entire knowledge of Spanish is contained in the title of this blog today so it wouldn’t be a very good read or certainly not a long one . So this is the first blog I’ve written for several months , you see I was going through a serious side of life which I’m…

Have you ever struggled to sleep, I’m a ponderer,  pondering and sleeping don’t go well together. Take last night as an example,  I was struggling to sleep, so I started to count sheep,  I had managed to get to two thousand four hundred and eighty seven when the next one just bloody refused to jump over the fence, this was somewhat annoying as I now had to wake up and write the number down, …

Firstly before the main event I would like to warn those of you of a sensitive disposition that this blog does contain slight incidences of animal swinging not the sexual variety but instead the measuring variety,  I’m absolutely convinced that no animals were harmed during the writing of this blog,  and if they were they didn’t tell me.  The blog is a story of painting, it’s rather tedious and…

Painting B&Q and me. I have to confess right now that painting is not my favourite DIY hobby ,in fact to be totally honest DIY just ain’t my thing, I prefer to leave it to someone else who is better than me, yet every now and then I make the terrible mistake of attempting DIY, in my world it should be called DDIY don’t do it yourself. Marriages have failed over DIY,  mine on many occasions has…

There really is nothing better than getting on the wellies and attempting to fix the garden, fuck off I would rather stick red hot needles in my eyes and clamp my testicles in a vice whilst sitting on a red hot poker,, by that,you probably have gathered that gardening to me goes together like the Islamic state and the Nobel peace prize.

So the fist thing is the annual wellie hunt , this is the…

Sometimes all it needs is a chat.

  How a coaching conversation helped Lisa overcome a huge barrier to her learning, Sometimes a chat can solve a lot

Let me tell you about a lovely learner driver who I've been training , she's had a lot of lessons over the years with different instructors but in her words didn't seem to be getting any where.

Lisa has dyslexia, she's been told to try automatic by some and others have tried and…

Do we try too hard

Don't try too hard …..

This latest blog post is my reflection from my days as a ski instructor and compares this with driver training Coaching and other sports.

I hope you find it interesting.

  Years back I was fortunate to have been given the opportunity to work in some of the most stunning locations in Europe up in the clouds of the Swiss French and Italian Alps

I was a ski guide and…

Risk management made simple , I hope !

Did the trainer ensure that the pupil fully understood how the responsibility for risk would be shared ?

Risk management seems to be one of the most misunderstood parts of the standards check , this blog looks at an example of how I've used it in a lesson.

Today's lesson looks a left reverse with a lady who has some experience but is learning how to improve.

Today's goal was to improve the left…

Why reflection is so important in driver training.

The power of reflection

  Reflective practice is a powerful thing, learning quite often is reinforced by looking back.

Reflection is a highly prized skill in the toolbox of a coach, reflective practice is used for both learner and the teacher.

Simple reflective practice can be achieved through use of a log

The DVSA recommends the use of a reflective log

 This is an example of a simple reflective…

Do you walk in your learners shoes or do you expect them to walk in yours?The title of this blog begs the question how well do you understand your learner. Talking and just having a chat gives us some info but as stated in previous blogs the spoken word is only a small percentage of the communication process.

Body language is a certain give away for many.Body language helps us to recognise fear anxiety happiness and certainly confidence, but do we need to go to a more deeper level to truly understand what's going on in the mind of our learners.

I think we certainly do.

Recognising the signs through body language is a good start but to be on a real rapport and being on their level we need to experience their fears anxieties and other emotions before we can truly deal with them.

For years as an instructor I have been used to dealing with learners problems by thinking of how I would deal with them, in other words ive really been expecting my learners to walk in my shoes.

Coaching has helped.Since however moving into a coaching approach to driver training I've started to see things on a different level instead of being one dimensional I would say I'm now becoming more 3 dimensional.

The old 6 hats thinking is a great example but it still only goes 2 dimensional , we look at things from different perspectives rather than levels at least that is the way I see it.

Confused, so have I been but I'm finally starting to see the light, and that really occurred in a lesson last week.

Many is a time with a learner driver when I've thought what the hell has he/she done that for , why didn't they see that car how can they not get that etc etc.

Quite a few of my learners seem to suffer from anxieties of one form or another, I think they come to me as they know I do things differently.

Empathising with our learners is so important, there is such a thing called an Empath, this is someone who is born with the ability to feel other people's emotions. I think we can help our learners by feeling their emotions with them. I'm certainly no Empath but I do think we can try and reach this level with some practice.

This is what happened the other day on a lesson.

Learner was trying to deal with a multi lane roundabout, I decided to watch her really intently, noticing each change of facial expression, tensing of shoulders and breathing rhythm, I was guiding her through the roundabout so as to relieve some of the pressure. As I was observing her body language I also deliberately set about copying it.

I asked her how she felt, it was a blur came the reply.

I could really feel the emotion and tried to feel how she was feeling and found myself starting to experience her anxiety. I imagined driving through that roundabout and how scary it must be for someone who has those anxieties.

Perhaps sharing their emotions is a huge step towards helping, understanding their feelings hopefully will help me to provide answers. Many learners will not share their deep emotions and in my opinion it's up to us to create a rapport that allows us to really empathise and experience their thoughts feelings and emotions.

We have been through a fair bit of emotion during our lessons and I suppose that is why I was starting to tune into her feelings and thoughts, but this is the first time I had deliberately gone about trying to experience her emotions. The results were really extraordinary as I had completely been unaware that this was possible.

This will definitely help me in the future with others who have anxieties, I feel if I can feel how they are feeling perhaps I will have some answers. I know that with practice this will become easier to do in time and of course each learner has a different set of emotions thoughts and feelings, imagine how great it would be if you could really tune in to any of your learners and experience their emotions in this way.

This is a bit of a deep subject but one that fascinates me, many people say that teaching people to drive isn't rocket science and why complicate something that's not difficult.

Well my answer is for many yes it's not rocket science but for many it most certainly is more than that.

One thing for sure is that emotions control behaviours and influence the actions we take , if we can get to the root of emotions in our learners we are on the right path to helping them out with their corresponding behaviours and actions.

Thanks for reading

Woody

What is Rapport?First of all when I was first introduced to this strange word I thought it merely meant having a friendship, you know talking about the TV favourite football teams and things that you generally have in common with other people.

So let's look at the dictionary definition: a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well.

Coaching and being Client Centred hinges around good rapport, without this coaching doesn't work. Even instruction will not be as effective without rapport.

A most powerful coaching tool.Rapport is one of the most powerful tools to possess in the driver training toolbox, well to be fair rapport is not a tool itself but the skill of developing and fixing rapport is a very handy little tool to have.

If you imagine coaching as a Swiss Army knife , lots of little attachments that all do a job , well rapport is perhaps the tool itself. Without it, none of the other tools will work or function properly.

We often discover what rapport is when it's gone bad, imagine you have a pupil next to you and you just know that the communication process has broken down , you don't believe in them and they don't believe in you , this is broken rapport and quite often will lead to a parting of company if it's not fixed.

Reflecting on my lessons helps me to look at ways of developing better lessons, quite often the standout thing that makes a good lesson is good rapport.

You know if Carlsberg made driving lessons type of lesson, everything goes to plan and you just know that the pupil really gets it, that type of lesson. Sometimes you can't quite put your finger on it, why did that lesson seem really special, what happened to make it feel that good, chances are that you achieved a very strong rapport with the learner.

How rapport works.Have you ever been sold something by a clever salesman that you didn't really want, chances are that salesperson has tuned into you and has developed a rapport without you consciously knowing or being self.

good rapport can be a subconscious thing, let's go back to the Carlsberg lesson, what did we do differently that made that lesson so perfect.

If we analyse the lesson we may find that just on that occasion we were in sync with our learner, we listened without interupting, we nodded and showed interest , we matched voice tones and body language in short we made ourselves become interested in our learner and they got it.

Bad rapport.Think of it from your perspective , did you maybe have a poor experience in your training to become an Adi, or maybe some other experience where you were being taught something. Bad rapport is felt, it's a subconscious and conscious feeling, something doesn't quite feel right.

What were your thoughts

He doesn't get me

I'm too stupid to understand

I'm scared to get it wrong

I don't get what he's saying

Why don't I get it

He's getting angry

I'm wasting his time

I wish the time would go quicker

I'll never get it

Maybe these thoughts and feelings are familiar to some of you reading this, these were my feelings during my own Adi training many moons ago, I still remember the feeling of dread driving to my weekly sessions, now this didn't happen every time because during my training I had 3 different trainers, I know now that out of the three, I shared a good rapport ( I did not know this at the time)with one of them, I used to really look forward to these sessions, I felt he was interested, I thought I could make mistakes , I was taught the way I learnt best and I trusted him.

The feeling was great I enjoyed these sessions and found that learning was taking place, I was enthusiastic motivated to learn and eager to please my trainer , because rapport is a two way thing, you will often recognise this in yourself or your learners.

10 tips for building great rapport in a driving lesson?

1) Wipe the slate clean, don't arrive with baggage from a previous lesson

2)Open your mind

3)Believe in your learner

4)listen to them, really listen to key words and ideas,

5) Don't prepare an answer before they have finished speaking

6)match voice tone

7)mirror body language in a subtle way

8)match teaching style to their learning style

9)watch for changes in body language

10) walk in their shoes , think as them and imagine how you would feel if the tables were turned.

Having great rapport skills is the key to becoming a successful coach, without rapport it's very difficult to build a coaching relationship built on mutual trust.

Remember in a standards check there may not be a competence on the marking sheet for having great rapport, but most examiners will recognise rapport in a lesson and remember great rapport will help to lead to great lesson for both you and the learner.

Use the 10 tips above on a lesson tomorrow , watch what happens.

Kind regards

Woody