Category: Training & Coaching

the best results come from a ‘positve’ approach

Posted on

Art and Music in School…. is it gone forever?

Karla taknig a rideOne of the things that left our schools virtually without protest in California is art and music. And those schools that have programs are constantly threatening to cut them back or eliminate them entirely.

Some schools have replaced REAL languages with ‘sign language’. This I cannot understand. Certainly the priorities of many schools are off center and do little if anything to help our children become economically or culturally literate.

The fun thnig about art is that it is the universal communicator… and ANYONE can learn it! One of the things we would do is buy a case of copy paper for our children to practice their drawing….

You don’t need ‘art paper’ to start…. just a lot of ‘scratch paper’. One case of scratch paper costs less than a trip or two for the family to a fast food place and it’s a lot less fattening.

 

Kristin on a ride

 

Another very cool thing about learning to draw is that it is something everyone can do as a family. Part of the fun is that there is so much to draw in the world… and then there are the cartoons that children always ask Mom and Dad to draw… with a little practice, you can be a hero to your kid.

Karen takng a rideWe wanted our daughters to: learn a musical instrument, participate in a team (not soccer) and an individual sport, find an academic interest they enjoyed and develope it, and discover the world of arts and crafts. There are many thnigs to help one become exposed to our world… but this was a start.

On this page I have placed some of Karla’s work — although all of my daughters have talent — and if the horses look a bit familiar… it’s probably because these are the kind you ride at fairs… Merry-go-rounds and Carousels.

If your schools do not offer these opportunities to your children… buy some colors and a box of copy paper and have sme fun!

 

Roger Freberg

Posted on

the Parent — the first and most important teacher

Hey Guys!
Have you ever noticed some of the criticisms directed at parents from the halls of academia? Parents are supposedly ‘too involved’ with their adult college children, too interventionist with their children’s teenage friends and appear to be looking over the shoulders of their child’s grade and middle school teachers?

Why do parents do this?

Obviously, because getting involved gets the results all parents want… better performance. It reminds me of the saying-or at least my version of it:

” if you let the village raise your child…
don’t be surprised if you end up with the village idiot.”

1997 Laguna Middle School Throwers

Most parents — if they try a bit — can find ways in which they can teach their children or help them ‘be all they can be.’ Ask youself: what do I know that could help my kids reach the next level?

Were you an athlete? artist? musician? good in math? Or are you a good observor of people? Can you protect them from ‘bad associations”? Can you offer advice? Can you help them avoid the mistakes we all made at their ages?

I was an athlete, and when my children decided that they wanted to participate, I offered to help them learn some of the skills, send them to camps and pop for whatever equipment they needed. The parent is the support unit… but the child has to do the hard work. As a ‘supporter’ you can teach, cheer and offer encouragement when they don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The photograph you see above is from 1997. I volunteered to teach some young male and female middle schoolers how to throw the shot and discus… part of the fun was coming up with a design for our ‘shirt’. It stated ‘Laguna Throwers tc’ (tc stands for ‘track club’). I really wasn’t feeling too good here, physically, I weighed about 427 lbs and I was about to go into a diabetic shock … in a couple of years. That is a story in and of itself. Anyway, it was a way to help my daughter… in a way that was meaningful to her…. the rest was history.

So, don’t worry about ruffling a few feathers… after all, none of your child’s friends or teachers have to live with your kid… if things go bad. Studies show that a man in your child’s life is what they need to stay focused, besides, if someone needs to be the ‘bad guy’, it might just as well be you! Remember, your time and investment to get your kids on the right road early on when they are young is so much less than waiting for a problem to develope when they get older…… then, it takes so much more effort and so much more money to help them get back on that road if they ended up following a unhappy path.

Good Luck,

 

Roger Freberg

Posted on

Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports? … are you really surprised?

Roger Freberg UCLA 1971-1974 NCAA Runner-Up Discus, Pac 8 Champion in the Discus and Runner-up in the Shot Put, UCLA Discus RecordholderThe story of athletes ‘from the dawn’ of time attempting to enhance their performance is a colorful history. Recorded history speaks of ancient Greek athletes munching on animal testicles to extract testosterone or athletes taking small doses of various poisons as ‘stimulants.’ In 1927, the Nobel Prize was won by a German — Heinrich Weiland — discoverer of ‘steroids’ and athletics has never been the same …until now.

Today, there are rumors of ‘gene doping’. Simply stated, gene doping is the insertion of a performance gene into the athlete via a virus. So far this has proven to be a dangerous process with some non athletic deaths from introducing genes into the human body. The one of the genes likely to be introduced is is associated with EPO. The other gene — associated with certain rare strong athletes — is a form of non fatal muscular dystrophy.

Trying to ‘get an edge’ over a competitor — by any means — is certainly not new and working to provide ‘ a level playing field’ is certainly a worthy but somewhat unrealistic effort. The ‘solution’ to this problem will come from the athlete. The question each athlete has to ask themselves is how good do I want to become and at what cost? There are plenty of athletes who appear to be suffering from the effects of anabolic steroid use of 20 or 30 years ago. Some of the apparent problems that have developed with athletes who dined on steroids are liver & kidney problems and joint replacement and death. Some of these same fellows often find themselves in wheel chairs. Do they think it was worth it now? Continue reading “Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports? … are you really surprised?”