cgrock24

cgrock24 · @cgrock24

12th Feb 2010 from Twitlonger

Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters, Volume 3 (http://bit.ly/9ygw3G) by @brianmccormick is a must read for coaches(all levels) of all sports, not just basketball coaches. I've subscribed to Brian's newsletters since 2008, and have incorporated ideas from his books and newsletters in training young athletes in basketball,soccer, and track and field. I consider Brian to be one of the foremost thinkers in the sports industry. He's passionate about his craft, and on a weekly basis, clearly articulates methods and ways to improve the training of our youth in basketball and other sports.

If you've never seen Brian's weekly newsletter, here's a copy. This is the type of information that you can get if you buy his latest book. After buying his book, do what I do. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter on a weekly basis and save every copy in a Brian McCormick folder on your e-mail page.

Thank you Brian for enabling me to become a better coach. I appreciate you:

Hard 2 Guard


2009 Player Development Newsletter
Volume 3, Issue 37



Practice in Proportion to your Aspirations.


In this Weeks Newsletter...

· Quick Word: Youth Basketball Coaches Association

· Four Stages of Skill Acquisition

· Complete Ball Handling Skill Development

· Lunge Jumps

· Books

Quick Word

Long time readers remember the old Cross Over Movement web site with the forum. There is now a new forum at the Youth Basketball Coaches Association.



I believe that youth coaches (8-14 years-old) are the most important link in the basketball development process. I and some other coaches founded the Youth Basketball Coaches Association to provide information and certify youth coaches.



Please visit the YBCA Forum. Register and participate. Pass the link to other coaches.



A forum is only as effective as the people who participate. The more people who ask and answer questions, the more resources the site will have to assist new or inexperienced coaches as well as experienced coaches looking to broaden their knowledge or find something new.



Please take a moment this week to register. The site is a non-profit site, and the Level I course and certification are completely free.


Four Stages of Skill Acquisition

While running a clinic for an organization last weekend, the head coach reminded the group (and me) of the four stages of skill acquisition:

* Unskilled, Unconscious
* Unskilled, Conscious
* Skilled, Conscious
* Skilled, Unconscious



The beginner player is unaware of his mistake and the proper execution. Next, he learns the proper execution, but he cannot consistently repeat the skill. For instance, many young players understand the basics of shooting – they can recite BEEF and show you where to start your shot, where to place your hand on the ball, etc. – but they cannot execute the skill perfectly and consistently.



Eventually, they execute with correct technique. However, they consciously control their shooting technique. When they step to the free throw line, they tell themselves to bend their knees. A lot of players get stuck in this stage where they mentally control their skill execution.



The final stage is to forget: the player masters the skill and forgets the technical instructions. He does not need to think about his foot placement, hand placement, etc. – he simply catches and shoots.



Many players waffle in-between the 3rd and final step. When things are good and they are thinking positively, they catch and shoot without any conscious control. However, when they miss a shot, feel fatigued, feel pressure, etc., their mind attempts to wrest control of the physical process. Once a player reaches the Skilled-Unconscious Stage, thinking interferes with skill execution.



Is there a way to go from Unskilled-Unconscious to Skilled-Unconscious? After all, if the goal is to return to unconscious skill execution, why add the conscious element?



That is the basis for the school of thought which favors implicit learning:



Considerable evidence now exists in the scientific literature to show that excessive conscious control of one’s skills (reinvestment) is avoidable if the skills are learned implicitly, without recourse to hypothesis testing (e.g. bent knees = more power) or accumulation of explicit knowledge,” (Farrow, et. al).



How can a coach teach the required skills without explicit instructions? Many coaches already use many implicit learning techniques: (1) analogies; (2) errorless learning; (3) subliminal learning; and discovery learning/play.



Analogies can be used to present the key coaching points of a to-be learned skill as a simple biomechanical metaphor that can be reproduced by the learner without reference to, or manipulation of, large amounts of explicit knowledge (Farrow, et. al).



In 180 Shooter, I list several cues that I use with shooters that are similar to analogies. The most common basketball analogy is the “hand in the cookie jar.” This type of analogy allows “many bits of information about a skill to be presented to the learner in one manageable chunk,” (Farrow, et. al).



When I learned to swim last winter, I thought about one instruction – reaching on each stroke like I was reaching to touch the wall – and one image – the hull of a boat. In the Total Immersion philosophy, the goal is to be more efficient with each stroke, not to work harder. By reaching for the wall, you lengthen each stroke (made sense to me based on my rowing experience and the difference between stroke rate and stroke length), and by picturing the hull of the boat, I forced my head and chest down to create a more streamlined position. There were no details to remember about exact hand position or precise stroke length.



Errorless Learning

When I begin a shooting session, I start with form shooting close to the basket. This is a form of errorless learning. Rather than instruct step-by-step, the player shoots in an area where it is easy for him to make shots. He groves his technique or gets a rhythm. Through the successful execution of his shooting technique, he learns the right way to shoot with minimal instruction. The longer that I coach, the less that I say, especially in individual workouts because I want to minimize the thinking.



If the player starts in the right position and finishes in the right position, everything in between takes care of itself. While there are many details that one can teach, every detail gives the player another thing to analyze or another reason to think too much.



I show the right starting position and emphasize shooting the ball high: start small and finish tall. If there are mistakes that consistently result in missed shots, I tweak the technique and instruct as needed. However, when starting with the errorless learning and a basic picture of the goal, the need for detailed instructions lessens.



Subliminal Learning

In Developing Sport Expertise, Neil Craig, Head Coach of the Adelaide Crows Football Club, cites a study published in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink as provoking subliminal implicit learning. In the study, people memorized groups of words and then walked down a hallway. Those who memorized words subtly referencing old age – gray, Florida, old – walked with a stooped, slow fashion like an older person.



Craig puts posters on the wall which emphasize the importance of precise skill execution like focus, attention, concentration, etc. He figures that reading these words in the locker room on a daily basis contributes to subliminal learning.



Discovery Learning/Play

When I work with a new team, I present situations and allow the players to devise solutions rather than telling players exactly what to do. As I conducted several clinics last weekend, I realized that coaches skip over generalities and move straight to specifics – in a sense, they skip the perceptual and conceptual elements and move straight to movement.



I worked with a junior college coach once who moved straight into out of bounds plays – she never taught or challenged players to get open, use space appropriately or anything pertaining to spacing and getting open. Instead, it was straight to set plays. She wanted Skilled-Conscious players because she wanted to control their actions through her verbal instructions.



For instance, last night, my directions centered on this: Basketball is a game of time and space – the offense aims to create time and space and the defense attempts to take away time and space or to protect space. I did not tell the players how to play, where to go, what to do. I want to see how they learn and develop within general ideas.



Last night, we concentrated on 1v2 and 2v2 because most teams at this level press. Therefore, I want players who can handle the ball under pressure. We have no press break; there is no “right” way to get open. There is no rigid way to attack 2v1.



Instead, I aim to create challenges that give players an opportunity to discover the right play or the right decision. My job as a coach is to create the challenges and then offer occasional instruction based on the execution. For instance, after watching several missed lay-ups, and remembering a study conducted by my friend Lindell, I stopped the game and taught a two-foot lay-up rather than the one-foot take-off which resulted in many missed lay-ups and off-balance shots.



The goal, then, is to move to a Skilled-Unconscious performer as quickly as possible. In a sense, coaches use set plays because it is quicker to memorize an A-B-C plan (set play) than to teach and develop players into Skilled-Unconscious players.



The goal is unconscious execution where players react immediately to defensive cues. My practices and clinics often look ugly because the players are not there yet. However, the ugliness precedes the Skilled-Unconscious level because too much instruction or structure inhibits the players’ learning.



Therefore, to move to the Skilled-Unconscious performer, coaches either need to give players more time and repetitions so they think about the right decisions and learn in the traditional four-step method, or they need to focus on implicit learning and developing players who move from Unskilled-Unconscious to Skilled-Unconscious.



Players need the time and opportunity to learn the game: through exploration and discovery with minimal interference, as opposed to the constant structure and explicit instructions in today’s game.


Complete Ball Handling Skill Development

Last week, I wrote about the three elements of a skill: movement, perceptual and conceptual. Most ball handling drills focus on movement elements. How do you add perceptual and conceptual elements to the drills, especially when players are trying to develop confidence dribbling with their eyes up?



Here is the progression that I used this weekend with some beginning to intermediate players:

* Baseline Shuffle: Start with a protect dribble. Next, sprint forward eight to ten feet, stop with a hockey stop and use a space dribble (shuffle with inside shoulder toward the defender) to return to the starting point. Practice both hands.
* Baseline Shuffle with Crossover: Next, sprint out, hockey stop and shuffle to the starting point. At the starting point, make a crossover dribble and attack with your other hand.



To demonstrate the usefulness of the Space Dribble and Pull-back Crossover, I added a drill where the players attacked from half-court at the sideline to the top of the key, used a pull-back crossover and then attacked for a lay-up. It is not the most common use of the move, but I was asked to do a clinic that featured ball handling and finishing. Once the players learned the basic movement, I wanted to add some basic conceptual elements and finishing.



These drills primarily covered movement elements, which are the physical actions of the skill. To practice the perceptual elements – “the individual’s interpretation of stimuli that leads to correct performance,” (Schmidt and Wrisberg) – and conceptual elements – things like proper spacing and deciding which move is appropriate or the best option – I played 1v2.



I dislike typical zigzag drills for three reasons: (1) they teach players to turn their shoulders and attack at a 45-degree angle rather than attacking the defensive player; (2) the offense and defense anticipate the change of directions because of the artificiality of the drill, which does not translate to the dynamic nature of a game; and (3) a player would almost never make a straight crossover move when tightly defended and dribbling at a 45-degree angle – it is unrealistic.



While playing 1v2, the offensive player inevitably must dribble out of a trap using a space dribble or a pull-back crossover move. I could do a zigzag drill with the pull-back crossover, but it would be more movement practice because the drills pre-determine the decisions. However, when playing 1v2, the offensive player has to discover the best approach (implicit learning). He decides when to use the space dribble and how to attack. There are few rules and the play is unpredictable, like a game.



I use the initial drills to train the basic movement skills and to familiarize players with the space dribble and pull-back crossover because many young players resist going backwards – they play the game in one direction (usually at one speed) and need to learn that the game requires them to play in all directions as determined by the circumstance.



Once players learn to handle the ball – which happens at a young age – movement elements rarely lead to turnovers. Instead, most turnovers occur because the player uses the wrong move, dribbles into trouble or picks up his dribble unwisely. Since the perceptual elements lead to the turnovers, more time and focus should be devoted to drills which incorporate perceptual elements rather than just the skills’ movements.



Last week, with the passing drills, I started with offensive advantage passing drills and cautioned against progressing too quickly because players need an opportunity to learn about spacing, passing angles, passing lanes and anticipation through a gradual progression where players learn through success and with confidence before moving to the next step.



In the 1v2 example, I jump straight to a disadvantage drill for two reasons: (1) the move necessitates it – in a live situation, it is the best way to force players to practice the move; and (2) I incorporate an advantage drill too.



In my 1v2 drill, the original defenders attack 2v1 when they get the ball from a steal, rebound or made basket. Therefore, in the drill, there is a balance between the advantage and disadvantage. If a player struggles 1v2, in his next turn, he plays 2v1 and can regain his confidence with the ball.


Lunge Jumps

The current Men’s Health cites a Swedish study that found that lunge jumps lead to improved sprinting speed. To do a lunge jump, start in a lunge and explode upward. In the air, switch legs: if you start in a lunge with your right foot forward, land in a lunge with your left foot forward. Click here for a video.

Books



My books are available as paperbacks through my store on Lulu.com and as e-books through my 180Shooter.com site.



· Developing Basketball Intelligence

* Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development, 3rd Edition
* Blitz Basketball
* 180 Shooter
* Hard2Guard: Skill Development for Perimeter Players
* Brian McCormick’s Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters Vol. 1
* Brian McCormick’s Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters Vol. 2
* Championship Basketball Plays



Copyright 2009, Brian McCormick

All rights reserved. Written permission required for public or commercial use.

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Brian McCormick, M.S.S., CSCS, PES
Performance Director, trainforhoops.com
(916) 225-8524


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