People need different things from a coach depending on the level the archer is at. A pure new commer to the sport needs good sound basic instruction. How to define "good" is a tough one.

As we all progress into archery we develop our own style and form. A coach needs to work with a student to make the best of what they have got. I have seen examples of some coaches destroying all the good bits and trying to make a student into a version of them selves. In my opinion this is not a good thing.

A new archer has no idea what a good coach is? They just trust they know what they are talking about. I suppose that can be said for any form of teaching? Again I have seen evidence that some GNAS coaches are nothing more than new archers them selves with spare time to give and an urge to teach. Often encouraged to learn to coach on the back of "it will help you with your archery too"..just to make club coach numbers up. This ploy was tried with me, I turned it down.

For me a I look for cridibilty, experience and evidence they know what they are doing before I pay any attention to a coach. Then I'm all ears, I have the utmost respect for people who give there time willingly to help others for the right reasons. I don't have time for some so called coaches who do it to feed there ego, who lack technical abilty, practical ability, and don't take the time to learn the stuff they are teaching and what is more, move with the times. I'm sure this problem is not confined to just the sport of archery. I think all coaches need to ask and answer honestly "why am I doing this?"

It must be a tough job being a coach, archers are often angry frustrated people by the time they seek help, hats off to anyine who can deal with that and turn a frustrated archer into a happy archer.

The only way people will respect the system is by way of evidence of ability, backed up by results. How this can be done is open to debate.