What John Wooden Taught Me About Coaching

John Wooden was a basketball coach, but I've always thought that some of the most important things he taught had very little to do with basketball.

I've spent most of my life around combat sports, and I've had a lot of coaches and mentors over the years. I've learned something from almost all of them, both from the things they did well and from the things I eventually decided I wanted to do differently. But if I had to name the coach whose philosophy has had the greatest influence on the kind of coach I want to be, it would probably be John Wooden.

That's an interesting choice for a martial arts coach. Wooden never coached a fighter. He coached basketball at UCLA. But the more I learned about the way he approached coaching, the more I realized that his ideas weren't really about basketball at all. They were about developing people through the pursuit of excellence. And I think that applies remarkably well to martial arts.

Wooden was obsessive about fundamentals. He believed that you didn't build excellence by constantly searching for something new. You built it by becoming exceptionally good at the things that mattered most.

That sounds pretty obvious, but I think it's one of the easiest things for coaches and athletes to forget.

Martial arts has an almost endless supply of techniques. There is always another takedown, another guard, another submission, another combination, another training method, another system that promises to make you better. You can spend your entire career collecting information. But knowing more things isn't necessarily the same as being better. I've watched people spend years looking for advanced techniques while still having holes in their stance, their balance, their positioning, their defense or their ability to control distance. I've also watched people become extremely good by doing what isn't nearly as exciting: practicing important things over and over again and paying attention to the details.

Wooden understood that.

The fundamentals aren't something you graduate from. They are what everything else is built on. That idea has had a major influence on how I think about curriculum and development at BLAST. I don't want students simply accumulating techniques. I want them to become exceptionally good at the things that are most important and then learn how to use those things in increasingly difficult situations.

There is another Wooden principle that I think is particularly appropriate for martial arts: Make each day your masterpiece.

I've always liked that idea because combat sports can make people very impatient.

Someone wants a blue belt. Someone wants to win a tournament. Someone wants to fight. Someone wants to become a professional. Someone wants to be a black belt. Those are all legitimate goals. But you don't accomplish any of them by staring at the end result. You accomplish them by having a good training session today. Then another one tomorrow. Then another one after that. A fighter doesn't become good because they had one incredible training camp. A BJJ student doesn't become a black belt because they suddenly figured everything out. Development is mostly the accumulation of ordinary days when you showed up, paid attention, worked hard and tried to get a little better.

That's another reason I like Wooden's philosophy. It puts the emphasis where it belongs.

Do today's work well. You can't control what you'll become five years from now. You can control what you do today.

Wooden also put enormous emphasis on preparation. I think this is something that gets overlooked when people talk about great coaches. We often focus on the coach's ability to motivate people, give inspirational speeches or make adjustments during competition.

Those things matter. But a great deal of coaching happens before anyone ever steps onto the mat.

• How is the training organized?

• What are we trying to develop?

• Why are we doing this particular drill?

• What comes before it?

• What comes after it?

• How do we know whether the athlete actually improved?

• What happens when the athlete is ready for the next level?

Those aren't particularly glamorous questions, but they're important ones. I've become much more convinced over the years that good coaching requires preparation and planning. You can't simply walk into the gym every night and teach whatever technique happens to come to mind and expect a group of athletes to develop systematically. The coach has to think about where the athlete is going. That doesn't mean everything needs to be rigid. In fact, good coaching requires the ability to adapt. But there needs to be a reason behind the things we're doing.

Wooden also talked extensively about character, self-control, cooperation and discipline.

This is where his philosophy moves beyond simply producing better athletes.

I think martial arts is particularly good at exposing character because it puts people in uncomfortable situations. You get tired. You get frustrated. You get submitted. You get hit. You lose. You discover that someone younger, smaller or less experienced than you can beat you at something.

You don't get to control all of that. You do get to control how you respond. That's part of what I think makes martial arts such a valuable pursuit. We're not just learning how to perform techniques. We're constantly getting opportunities to practice humility, discipline, composure and resilience. A person can be technically talented and still be a terrible training partner. They can be physically gifted and still be undisciplined. They can win competitions and still lack the character I would want in someone representing my gym. Those things matter to me.

Wooden understood that winning couldn't be the only measure of success.

That doesn't mean winning doesn't matter. I think sometimes people misunderstand philosophies like Wooden's and turn them into an argument against competition. That's not how I see it at all. Competition is incredibly valuable. One of the great things about combat sports is that eventually resistance tells you the truth. You can think you're good at something, but someone is going to try to stop you. You can think your game plan works, but someone is going to expose a weakness. You can think you're mentally tough, but eventually you'll find yourself in a difficult situation.

Winning matters. Losing matters. Competition matters. But they are measurements, not the entirety of development. A loss can tell you something that a win hides. A difficult training session can teach you something that an easy one doesn't. A period of failure can sometimes produce more development than a period of success.

That's why I like the idea of competitive greatness being part of a larger philosophy rather than the entire philosophy. I want athletes who want to compete and want to win. I also want athletes who understand that the pursuit of excellence is bigger than the scoreboard.

Another thing I've always admired about Wooden is that he didn't seem particularly interested in creating athletes who were dependent on him. That's a lesson I think every coach eventually has to learn.

A coach can:

• teach you

• guide you

• correct you

• provide structure, accountability and opportunities

A coach can't:

• create your desire for you

• practice for you

• develop your skill for you

At some point the athlete has to take ownership of their own development. That's something I've learned through experience, and it is one of the reasons Wooden's philosophy resonates with me. The coach's job is to create the environment and provide the guidance, but the athlete still has to do the work.

Ultimately, I think that's what I admire most about Wooden. He wasn't simply trying to produce better basketball players. He was trying to develop better people through basketball.

I think martial arts gives us the same opportunity. We can teach someone how to punch, kick, wrestle, grapple and fight. We can build better athletes. We can prepare people for competition. We can help someone become a black belt or become a fighter. But there is an opportunity to do something bigger than that. We can teach people to show up when they don't feel like it. We can teach them how to deal with failure. We can teach them to work with people who are better than they are and help people who are less experienced. We can teach discipline without making discipline miserable. We can teach confidence without arrogance. We can teach people to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

And we can teach them that excellence isn't something that happens all at once.

It's built. That's probably the biggest lesson I've taken from John Wooden.

There is no shortcut around the fundamentals. There is no substitute for preparation. There is no substitute for consistent work. There is no substitute for character. And there is no magical moment when you've finally "made it." You just keep working. You try to make today's training a little better than yesterday's. You learn from the days that don't go well. You keep showing up. You help the people around you. And over enough time, all of those small things start to become something much bigger.

That's the kind of coach I want to be. Not just someone who teaches people how to fight, but someone who uses the pursuit of becoming a better martial artist to help people become better versions of themselves.

John Wooden did that through basketball.

I'm trying to do it through martial arts.