You sound like you´re talking out of your ass and have never done any motivional speeches to a team or been in a leader position of a team thats highly competitive. There´s essentially 3 ways to go about it that can be extremly useful and it all depeneds on what type of people you´re dealing with. You´re either:
- Going to do it like Claudia, who´s always encouraging them, having the mother role that tries to help them in every way you can and support them. This is all great and good when you´re winning, which Joanna would do aswell probably. But imagine Claudia losing 3 matches in a row, and if she´d keep being positive "oh yeah we´ll win the next one, blah blash blah" it wouldn´t be good, and you´d risk them never waking up, or keep their spirits high. Basically like a Khalil-Helen type. You´re looking good and you´re doing good, but its not always the best to do this.
- You could talk to every single fighter alone, get very personal with them. This is best done, by telling them directly the issues you see they are dealing with, and tell them all the good and positive things about them you can. Let them know you struggle too, or what you´ve had to go through if you got a good motivional story and can relate. You really need to gain their trust and make them feel extremly udnerstood like you´ve always kept an eye on them and you truly care for them. You can go personal and up close this way it can be extremly powerful, and at one point, you and him/her, whoever you´re talking to. Makes a deal about how things will be from now on, it might just be 1-2 goals, that from now on they´ll try focus on. And you´ll keep in touch and watch out extra for them, or be in the ring with them when they fight, like Claudia did in the second round whioch Joanna should had done too to Myron telling him to kick. Another great thing I´ve personally had, is its very useful to ask them what they´d like to do, what they think. Many coaches and trainers I always see them tell people do this, do that. They get good, but they never understand why. By asking questions, you make them feel valued, and without sounding condecensing you can ask them whatever it is. Make them think. Ask them why they did this and that and what they think they should do, or think about training. If its a specific fight they had or something you´ve seen in practice. Makes them tell you why they did this and that, not in a "Why did you do this you idiot" way, but make them understand you just ask questions to understand them. It´ll often turn out they won´t know. But you´ll know, and you tell them why you think they did this and that, either not throwing kicks or going for a takedown when yoúre a striker.
Once you made them think, and you give them your midnset you´ll see them start improving immensely. Therés an old saying "If you give a man a fish, he´ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish he´ll never have to starve again". This is essentially what its about when you teach them to ask themselves, why did I do this, why am I doing this. Oh okay it´s because of blah blah blah.
This can first be done when they have full trust in you, and feel safe. You have to have that mentor role, you see that everywhere in the world. Parents, teachers, siblings to another younger sibling, couples (man or woman who´s down and need to be brought up). Etc etc.
- The third way this can be done is the way Joanna did, she had already been encouraging Helen, she was actually very sweet and comforting. But this isn´t a kindergarden, this is a place you want to be. If you don´t want it more than anything then you´re are shitting on her and wasting her time. Look at how navy seals are trained in the class 234, there´s no cuddling there. And trust me, when you have been trying to encourage people over and over and you feel they are just shitting on you. You wil end up just bending your head and waiting for it to be over. You can´t do the fight for them, if she could she´d do it.
So her speech will cause 2 reactions, it´ll either cause these sad depressive people to become even more depressive because they´re so emotional, OR it´d fire them up and they´d want to show Joanna, we can do this. I want to be here. And really listen to her, show her respect and for sure you´d be her favoritei n no time. Personally this is how i am, and i´d highly prefer the way she did, because it´d fire me up so much and i´d feel horrible for having my leader who picked me feel like this. However the way Joanna did it was actually quite good, all up to the point when she took her coat and said bye. Then you´ll leave a team completly down and sad. And as much as i dont like these people who need encouragement 24/7 and be cuddled, it was highyl needed i agree. SHe should had said what she said, and then asked htem, don´t you want to be here, do you want to put in the work. Etc. And then possibly sat them all down on the floor like you did in a kiondergarden school, ot up close with them, and talked about all the issues. One person after another, letting it all out. And once done, tell them how much you care for them and want them to suceed. This owuld mean the world to them. I know she cares but they dont see it just how much. This is important.. A new start, where now you see a huge change in the team, and this could had been the turning point for them. If she wanted, she could had left by asking everyone to think about what they can do to fix this, or if they really wanna be here, and put in the work and leave, and some of them would come up with great ideas and motivation the day after, and some of them nothing
Lastly, doing what she did there, and then coming in the next day extremly positive could also have been useful, with tons of energy as they go from 0 to 100 in an instant, byt her "bringing them down" the evening before and then coming in with new energy.
But overall she really just got the shortest straw (fits since its her division i guess) and she got some inferior fighters overall. Even her very good fighters, just got put up against fighters a tad better too early, and they seemed to have no ground game. It was just "i wont let him take me there" no other plan.
So i think the optimal way would had been a mix between Claudia and Joanna. But personally, i´d had wanted her to be so much harsher. But thats because that motivates me. You have to be a special person, cuddling and motivation isall good, but if you´re that type you know what im talking about. Its a lone wolf trait, you´re strong, you can do on your own, you´re a good all rounder at everything, and often lone wolfs tend to be better than others in many aspects of life and be highly intelligent. And when you got a couple or more of lone wolfs together you can form an extremly strong pack/team. But thedse are rare. Joanna is very strong and the way she do things might not be the best for everyone, Its either you wanna be there or not. Do what you should do or not. If not, its your fault. And tbh shes right. But we livein a society where kids are wrapped in bubblewrap and we censor swear words still.
Long post. Just my two cents on how a situation like this can be handled. Theres plenty of more ways than what I said. But these are the 3 ways i know very well and got success with, and the last option is by far the least useful,but i totally understand and got her back in this though. But lets see now if Helen wins if things change. It´s unfrortunate Joanna doen´t have any who truly seem to want this or learn from her though, only one of the girls acknowlegded she waas rirght about training like pussies, And if you look at Khalil and a couple of the guys, they all got defensive like "we are training hard we´re not pussies" or "i don´t know who she was talking about but it can´t be me". Look a real winner even if you dont think it´s you, would truly listen and take motivation from it. And you´d only train even harder. Only these tough guys thinks because a much smalelr girl bosses you that it makes you less of a man. No doubt Claudia has much more mentally strong guys, while Myron andKhalil are poewerful and strong physically and Khalil very positive and fun (and a guy i picked to win) they do seem to not be able to really take motivation from it, but rather make excuses or shrug it off. Many people would had taken motivation as in "i´ll show her how hard i can work now" But we´re all different that way, but it is a factor adding up to why her team is inferior, mentally at least. And Joanna is doing good, but its hard with a team like hers.
