Abi Chamberlain - Women's Rugby - Coach

This week, meet former Women's Rugby 7s Captain and current Women's London Irish Coach Abi Chamberlain!

In celebration of neurodiversity week 2023, we interviewed both a neurodivergent athlete and their coach, to showcase what neuroinclusive coaching looks like in practice, and how it feels from an athletes perspective.

We found understanding the incredibly positive impact of Abi's coaching philosophy on those athletes who have the potential to feel most marginalised and misunderstood to be incredibly impactful, so if you haven't done so already, we recommend reading Hannah Owen's story.

So what did our interview with Abi reveal?

👉 No coach is the finished article. No coach is done learning; a good coach can take feedback, and a great coach actively seeks it out.

👉 Creating psychological safety within the training environment is key to allowing EVERY athlete to engage, train, and perform at their best.

👉 Creating psychological safety starts with non-judgement, open-mindedness, and curiosity.

👉 The coaches job is to facilitate the athlete: not the other way around. Coaches shouldn't be gatekeepers, they should be enablers.

Abi's coaching philosophy - "I care and I'm curious"

If you would like to contact Abi, you can find her on LinkedIn

You can also follow and support @londonirishwomen on Instagram and Facebook