Never be the benevolent dictator. It's hidden authoritarianism. And don't be a know-it-all." - Viola Spolin
Sidecoaching is an exercise in empathy. It allows the teacher/director/facilitator to engage with the players, sharing the focus with full involvement while at the same time, requiring the sidecoach to be a ‘diagnostician’ for both the individual player and the game itself.
The goal of the sidecoach is to connect the players to themselves; to each other and to their environment. This means a good sidecoach must have experience playing many of the games in Spolin's canon in order to, as Viola Spolin once put it, “Put a thread through them. To connect them.”
Observation of the student/players’ participation in a game requires a moment-to-moment diagnosis of several things:
- Recognizing resistance exhibited by one or more of the players during play.
- The interaction (or lack thereof) between the players.
- A familiarity with coaching phrases & exercises that might produce more energy, less urgency or deeper connection.
- Understanding problems faced by the player need to be solved by the player, avoiding the temptation to show ‘how’.
The obstacles to effective sidecoaching are:
- Ego and Authoritarianism
- Urgency
- Not understanding the problem posed by the game or its potential.
- No rapport with the players’ experience inside the game.
- Going for result vs. process.
This workshop will give everyone a chance to both play and coach and discuss issues of directing vs sidecoaching, approval/disapproval and whatever else comes up as well.
