When planning, structuring and executing your practice plan - embrace the pace and competition of the game. By Jon Isaacson Practice is essential and should incorporate the paradigm of going through a routine of the fundamentals to ensure that players master core skills while incorporating enough variance to keep players interested in the time set aside. If our team is not growing in their comprehension and development then we are wasting their time as well as our own. The foundational key to coaching success with regards to practice begins with having a plan (HERE). Whether we are drafting our practice plan or we are in the midst of making our time as productive as possible, there are a few key elements that we should keep in mind for keeping our players engaged from start to finish. Allen Stein, who was with Stronger Team and now Pure Sweat, notes that the most common mistakes that youth coaches make are, “Practices aren’t age appropriate (physically, mentally or emotionally). Practices aren’t purposeful. Practices aren’t fun.” The first principle of executing a productive practice is the consideration that drills should be conducted in the pace and scenario of the game as much as possible. By structuring our practices with game pace and scenarios we have a presiding principle that provides purpose for coaches and players, we can develop skills within age appropriate segments as the player on player competition reveals the areas that need the most work and the game pace keeps things moving. The first game of any season is often the most challenging. Whether this is your first time coaching or not, a new season is a new start and provides the first barometer for the preparedness of the team. Truth be told, we often pray that our kids will struggle if not lose their first game. While that may be a terrible thing to admit, kids often are more confident in their individual and team skills than they should be and a healthy opening loss can be fertile ground for focusing their efforts come next practice. Conversely, a win (especially a blow-out) at the opening of a new season may perpetuate unfounded confidence and create obstacles to youth player’s cognizance in the need to work on principles of the game. Beyond the first game, player preparation for game pace and scenarios are often obvious in how youth athletes respond to basic functions within a game - where there is panic, players freezing on the field/court and/or athletes making rash decisions often this can reveal a lack of speed or real world situations in practice. In that first game, often new coaches and players are overwhelmed by just how fast the pace of the game hits them and how unforgiving youth athletes can be. We started a recent season as returning coaches with players who were familiar with the game and had two seasons under their belts playing with each other and had made the mistake that we would focus too heavily on specific skills in set scenarios. That first game of the season, even as a relatively veteran youth team was brutal, not because our players did anything wrong but because we as coaches had ill prepared them for the pace of the game. It was clear early into the first quarter and our staff of volunteer coaches all noted to each other that we needed to immediately change our approach in practice to incorporate game pace and scenarios even when working on specific skills. There is no substitute for practicing with game relevant speed, situations and competition. As noted previously, we often hope for a challenging and close initial game (if not even a healthy loss), the opening game discussed in our previous paragraph demonstrated to our coaching team that this is just as important for returning coaches as we may be tempted to believe our own prior success and not be as hungry as we need to be as leaders of the team. Pace in structure – as noted in previous segments, our practice plan and structure should incorporate transitions that are long enough to cover the topic but not so long as to unnecessarily bore our subjects. We often recommended transitions of about 10 minutes per discipline as we will cover that skill multiple times and in multiple ways both in individual sessions as well as throughout the season, keeping youth players engaged over the course of the practice is essential. Have a plan, execute your purpose and keep things fun. I believe in more drills of shorter duration and being very careful on how we have them spaced. Follow physically or mentally difficult drills with easier ones and vice versa. Use many competitive drills, especially in shooting. Imitate game conditions as much as possible. – John Wooden Pace in execution – some skills require explanation and static drills for introduction of a new principle, but the verbal explanation and the duration of that static application should be limited to only what is necessary. As much as possible all skills should be explained, demonstrated and practiced in game like pace and with game like competition. Often coaches want to isolate players to allow them to develop but the truth is that without the application of competition that shows a youth player they are struggling with particular skills there is little incentive for them to change their poor habits or negative patterns. As coaches, we often will be the guard of a struggling player to allow our adults to regulate how much pressure we apply as well as reward effort by players who are developing at a slower pace, but at some point young athletes need exposure to competition to challenge their growth. Practicing at incremental pace and competition are useful tools as long as there are elements in practice where kids are allowed to play at one hundred percent effort with the speed, situations and competition of the game upon them. I wanted to practice at game speed. We would never allow for anything but full speed and full effort in games, and I wanted us to practice exactly like we played. One of the ways we would heighten the atmosphere of competition was by making sure our players were matched up against the teammates who would challenge them the most. Our goal was for our players to face tougher opposition on our practice field than they would encounter in games. – Pete Carroll Pace in purpose – Practicing with game like pace and competition will reveal skills, principles and scenarios that the team needs to develop. We like to remind our players that the reason we practice is because we need to get better, it is acceptable to struggle in a practice scenario as this revels to us as individuals and a team the things that we need to work on. Youth athletes need the reality that game pace provides as it is a natural revelation, we should not lavish upon the negative aspects it reveals but we should purposefully address the items that it brings to light. Verbally breaking a child down is not recommended but neither is it productive to excessively protect them from the reality that they will need to actively engage in practice if they want to get better in their sport. Youth sports is a collective responsibility, success does not have to be defined by winning but growth should be expected at the team as well as the individual level by coaches, parents and players. To this end it is also important to share with youth athletes and parents that in order to progress as a player the children will need to put in some individual time outside of practice to develop their skills. We challenge our youth athletes to commit to practicing core skills at least three times a week for 15-30 minutes and will demonstrate skills during practice that we want them to do at home then set aside time in the following practice for them to demonstrate their progress. Embrace the pace in the planning and execution of your practices. Reference: Stein, Allen [Coach Mac] (2015, April 8) 52 Basketball Experts Reveal the Most Common Practice Mistakes. Basketball for Coaches. Retrieved from http://www.basketballforcoaches.com/practice-mistakes/ Wooden, John (2010, July 12) Coach Wooden on Basketball Practice. Coaching Toolbox. Retrieved from http://coachingtoolbox.net/blog/coach-john-wooden-on-basketball-practice Carroll, Pete (2010) Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion. Portfolio / Penguin (pp 140-141) About the author: Jon Isaacson is a freelance writer assisting organizations to translate their mission and vision into story. In addition to working full time, raising a family and volunteering as a youth coach, Jon writes, speaks and serves as director of local facilities networking group LFMC.
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