NOTES ON METHODOLOGY

Here are some notes that I wrote down on coaching methodology.
Included are some good reminders to review every once in a while.
They are a list of principles to follow when thinking about our training sessions.

1. CHALLENGING

A. The basic thrill of the game is to be found in a simple set of challenges: can you score on us and can you stop us from scoring on you?

B. The secret to coaching: replicate these challenges as closely as possible during training. Modify the challenges in order to emphasize the one challenge with which the players are having the most difficulty. Allow the player to overcome the challenge as best he can and only if that becomes unsatisfactory must a change be made.

1. Helping a player change is like solving a murder mystery: you must establish three things: motive, means and opportunity. You as coach have to provide each.

a. Motive - comes from the desire to overcome the challenge. The motive does not come from a lecture by the coach. Players won’t want to do something just because they’ve been told it is important. That is unrealistic.

Another way of looking at it is to “strike while the iron is hot”. You want the player’s confidence in their own ability to be as sturdy as iron. You want the player to be confident in better ways to do certain things (like being in the habit of controlling their follow-through while shooting) so there will only be a brief moment when the “iron” is “hot enough” to change. That is at the point when the player has tried to succeed at a challenge and failed. If the player didn’t have their own means then they failed. Since they want to overcome the challenge, they would like to have that failure to do over. You give them not only the chance to do it over, you give them a more successful means.

b. Means - you demonstrate a simple way to overcome the challenge. There are two parts to this:

(1) Demonstration - you prove to the player that there is a more successful means to achieve an objective

(2) Rehearsal - you enable the player to prove that they can actually do it

c. Opportunity - you give the player two opportunities:

(1) Rehearsal - the player has the opportunity to prove that they can do it

(2) Restart - under the identical circumstances as the original problem. Here the player gets the opportunity to prove that the thing they just learned is truly a solution to the original problem

2. Identifying the right challenge

a. As close to the game as possible

(1) Simplicity - the simpler you can make it the better for both player and coach. This takes a long time to learn

(2) As few elements as possible at the beginning stage. If only three players are needed, then start with groups of three.

b. The exchange of challenges - the coach sets up a challenge for the players. The players try to overcome it. Their performance now becomes a challenge for the coach.

2.CORRECTION

A. Clarity - clarity is the goal of all coaching communication. The clearer the coach can be, the better prepared the players will be.

1. freezing play at the precise instant there is a problem. After three or four seconds no one will have precisely the same memory of the event.
2. One key factor per correction. If the coach points out only one key factor per correction, then this has the effect of making the game seem simpler to the player.
3. Simple verbal statements.
4. Demonstration which pinpoints a good solution to the problem.

B. Realism - the more realistic the training and the corrections, the better prepared the players will be. Training which is realistic is inspiring to the players and has a much greater effect on their ability to register improvements during a real game.

C. Steps -

1. Freeze
a. clearly the point at which things broke down; easy to see the potential problems, etc.

2. Demonstrate
a. call attention to one key factor
b. state in the form of a challenge: “Can you get your hips facing the goal just as you shoot?” rather than: “You must have your hips facing the target as you shoot.”
c. inspires confidence
d. done at proper speed if at all possible

3. Rehearse
a. inspires confidence that player can actually do it and that it does solve the problem
b. do it in same circumstances with the coach taking the role of the opponent

4. Restart
a. identical circumstances to the original problem
b. confirms the confidence started in the rehearsal stage
c. watch carefully.

3. PROBLEMS

A. The Pre-performance Lecture

1. Coaches would often introduce a technique or a tactic by lecturing the players on every detail of the targeted action. When that happens, we are guaranteed that even those players who might have had an intuitive grasp of the targeted action will be self-conscious of their performance, thus making them worse.

2. It is an unnecessary waste of training time which traces its origins to the belief that no player can do anything without having first been ordered to do it by a coach.

3. It is often boring.

B. Overcoaching

When the number and frequency of corrections interferes with the “flow” of training then the coach must cut back. It is unnecessary to fix every single problem as it occurs.

C. Undercoaching
When the coach allows the players to struggle with ineffective playing habits, techniques and understanding without making any improvements that is a misuse of training time.