THE BIRTH OF INTEGRAL SPORTS Insight into Coaching Parents in Sports.

This article provides an introduction to Integral Sports. We begin by outlining a key element of our work, integral coaching with parents of athletes, and then explain how Integral Theory can help support the aims of coaching in this context. To broaden the scope of the article we discuss how sports science research is tackling the issue of parents in sports and argue that much of this work has led to limitations in understanding and inertia in the field. The use of the methodology of Integral Coaching Canada is outlined with a case study of a parental participant in our project, followed by a discussion and reports of some of the characteristics found in other tennis parents. Finally, we present our future plans and the wider potential for Integral Sports both in research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]