This is just in my opinion... and a disclaimer that my wife and I paid for our entire wedding with money from private lessons.
When reading the below two items #2 had nothing to do with us cancelling privates at our gym. #1 was 100% responsible for us cancelling privates (coaches working too much and getting burnt out). In hindsight... #2 was a much bigger issue than we though and we couldn't see it until after privates were gone. #2 was creating it's own form of pressure and it was hitting all of our groups (managers... coaches... parents... athletes).
- Coaching should be treated like a real career... this means coaches should be paid well and not be working 7 days per week. Some coaches already work many days in a row during meet season. Many times the hardest working coaches end up working 7 days per week to provide very unnecessary private lessons to make an extra buck.
- Private lessons create a toxic and dramatic culture. We saw this in both the workplace and competitive team environments. We dealt with issues in the following ways...
- coaches vs. managers
- I can't work...but I can come in to do privates
- Issues with the minimum of 2 coaches in the gym at all times rule
- coaches vs. coaches
- camp coaching vs. progressive coaching*** (this is a big one... see below)
- that's my kid... you're coaching them wrong
- coaches telling parents that other coaches are less experienced
- coaches competing over who can make the most in a week
- parents vs. parents
- rumors that "privates are required if you want to be any good"
- parents vs. athletes
- expectation vs. actual talent mismatches between parents and their kids
- athletes vs. athletes
- Issues that migrated from the "parents vs. parents" and "parents vs athletes" sections above... basically kids repeating things that their parents were saying to them or that they had overheard their parents talking about
- coaches vs. parents
- Not really any issues here
***Camp Coaching = At most gymnastics camps you are instructed to make sure the athletes leave happy and knowing what they learned so they will register for camp again in the future. Make sure you cover exactly what they learned on pick up day so they will run out to their parents and tell them everything they learned at camp. This is just a marketing tactic and it works very well... even with basically no real progress.
***Progressive Coaching = Doing what is best for the athlete in the long run to provide slow and steady progress. Sometimes this includes telling the parent that there is no real purpose for private lessons at the current time.