Mid season

We have just officially finished our first semester.  The athletes had their last classes on Monday and now face exams. This is the toughest time to be a student athlete and is a real unique situation for Canadian Athletes.

The athletes are expected to maintain a practice , physical training schedule and study for exams. We have found that this is a time to work on competing.  We organize different types of tournaments in our practice time.  We have played half court 2 v2 and 3 v 3. This allows our athletes to compete and get contacts.  It also allows them to continue to work on block defence relationship.  It is a perfect opportunity for the athletes to continue to improve without the stress of learning an oppositions tendencies.

We also use this time for mid season meetings. A chance to touch base with the athletes and to discuss the semester and guide them towards goals for the second semester.  We have a general itinerary that we work through. 1. School, this is our priority and we want to make sure they are on track.  During the year we meet with all the first year players ever Tuesday. They have to show their plans and routines for the coming week. Also a chance to remind them of different assignments. Kellie Baker our Captain has a gift with organization and teaching these skills that she has taken over the role as peer tutor.  2. Team, we ask the athletes if they can see any potential red flags.  Is there anyone left out or not fitting in?  3. Specific volleyball skills, this is things related directly to the athlete.  What do they see as their strengths and weaknesses. Then we compare them to what we saw as a coaching staff. 4. General volleyball, we  discuss are team in general terms, what did they see the  first semester.  The athletes view will vary depending on whether they are starting or coming in on a role situation. This unique view can often help us move forward, and ultimately it will become their team.

I myself am very disappointed with our 5 and 7 record.  But I am not disappointed with the team.  We have learned to train and practice like a Top CIS program.  We have bought into our team values and are working towards our goals.  We need to learn how to win now.  We showed flashes of brilliance and have shown we can compete with the best.  But now we need to learn to not accept competing as our goal and to start demand winning.  I am quite proud of our team and how far they come. I wish we had more wins to show for this.

In a lot of meetings we found that we have a decent I between rally routine when we make an error.  We struggle to get over errors when another person makes mulitple errors.  We then spend our rally trying to figure out how to help them out. Instead of focussed on what it takes to score on this rally.  The other error is we spend to much time evaluating our game instead of playing. Sometimes a 1 scoring pass is a great pass.  Then we need to find out how to win off that pass. Instead we let a poor scoring pass bring us down. Ron Thomson from Grande Prairie College had a different view on why this occurs.  He thought maybe this occurs because of the way we design our drills.  I think back to our practices and often we will do drills that are scored with a 2 or 3 pass earning a point, a 0 or 1 pass takes away a point.  Another drill I use often is a serve and replace drill. If you pass a 2 you stay to pass again with no penalty.  A 3 pass scoters you a point. A 4 pass or perfect pass will score you 2 points.  But a 1 or a zero removes you from the drill. Instead maybe we should reward a team that can win with a bad pass.  Make it worth more points.   I onced coached a men's team, on this team we had a left side that would make poor pass on purpose so he would get set. When the game was on the line you knew he would hang the ball up just outside attack line.  Not  a great idea, but it sure taught our team we could win off bad pass.

Here is the highlight video we made for our team.  We hope it will motivate them over the break.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebmzrpp5rozafzl/first%20semster2012.mp4

A Week of Learning.

The last 2 weeks have been very interesting one if you follow our Bobcats Women's Volleyball team.  We came off a decent weekend against Manitoba and had a short week to prepare for Mount Royal. We traveled to Calgary on Weds to be able to play Thursday and Friday.

We ended up losing both night to Mount Royal and we were taught a very interesting lesson about discipline and block defense.  Mount Royal was very well prepped and kept us off balance both matches.  They then did a great job of funneling our attackers to their defenders.  We were leaning on balls and really using our wt room strength.  We found out that we couldn't over power them.  They were able to dig up and transition our shots.  Secondly we started to free lance on our own defense.  

For example we asked our blockers to take away the left side on their middle and our player in middle back would then slide to the right to help defend.  Instead our middles would front the attacker and they would score to the left.  Eventually our defenders started cheating left, but our middle would then block properly and they would score to the right side.  It was all unraveling defensively.  The same thing started happening with our blockers they would set up to block cross and would reach back to line and then proceeding to have the ball hit off them.

After Friday’s match we watched a set together in the hotel and really noticed what was happening.  Hoping that would help Saturday.  I know that blooper video never helps.  It was in essence a blooper video discussing our block defense.  It didn’t help.

Our league is such a tough competitive league that .500 winning percentage will not get you in the playoffs.  Our league is November to February, it is hard to think but in early November we are feeling playoff pressure with those two losses.  We felt we needed at least a split.  

Monday’s practice was crucial we needed to get back into our groove.  This practice was a defensive one with a lot of pursuit and tough defensive situations.  We then began to introduce our defense again a different way.  We spent all Sept and Oct hoping to solidify our defense block relationship.  Over the course of this practice we discovered that we had different terminology.  When I was saying read they were thinking different from what we were trying to accomplish.

Tuesday I called Scott Koskie.  Scott is our assistant coach on the Canadian National Team and we discussed a variety of ways to teach block and defense.  We came to the conclusion that we needed to put them in different problem solving situations.  We designed a drill that worked well.

It is a 6 versus 6 wash style game.  Team A would be on serve reception and would also receive a free ball. This would happen 5 times and then Team B would receive the serve and the free ball.  Before the first serve we would give Team B specific defensive instructions.  Of the leftside on Team A scores line they get 3 points. If team A middle scores on the left side they get 3 points.  Then Team B would huddle up and decide how they wanted to defend this problem.  We then gave Team B a point for a dig, a point for a set and a point for a kill.  If they played proper defense they could get 3 points on each ball.  We felt rewarding the defense and the block would keep the focus on that skill.  Plus with the players deciding how they would defend the situation also helped them discuss and figure out different defensive ideas.

This worked well and it led well into explaining our game plans again.  The team prepped for University of Calgary Dino’s much better.  Everyone could feel the energy and commitment within the team.  We had a good week of practice.

Our Friday’s match was sold out we had the largest crowd of the season and we started really slow and Calgary was on fire.  We were still in our funk.  We couldn’t pass or defend.  Nothing was working.  The effort was there but still slightly off.  In the 3^rd set we were down by a fairly large margin when we substituted Brooke Huculak.  Brooke is a first year outside attacker from Forrest Manitoba.  Her old high school team was at the match.  When she entered the match her team went crazy.  She served and made some big defensive plays.  This seemed to energy the team and the crowd. We battled back and won the 3^rd set 25-23.  Then all of a sudden everything we worked on made sense.  We won the 4^th 25-18.  The fifth was a really battle.  They went ahead 14-12 when Kellie Baker had 2 back to back stuff blocks for the tie.  We then went ahead on a great defensive transition.  We had three match points that Calgary held off.  We lost 19-17.

Saturday we had a chance to explain in a bit more detail our blocking ideal and show what it looked like when we did it properly.  This the opposite approach from the week before.  This worked well for us.  Saturday’s match was all Bobcats.  We won in straight sets and held the Dino’s to .107 hitting efficiency.  It is something we can be proud of.  This still has us at 5-5 record.  The upcoming weekend we play U of W and it is another big match.  WE need to apply what we learned this week and keep building.  This week is still a strong defensive focus week.

Rivalry Weekend

This past weekend we played the Manitoba Bison’s.  They are presently ranked #4 in Canada and are one of our provincial rivals.  I started to talk to our team Monday about rivals and what they mean.  The rival matches are exciting for us and the school gets rev’d up for them too.

In a study in 2006 Ku came to the conclusion that a rivalry is really something that exists within the minds of competitor and media. The rivalry intensifies with  prior interaction. It is also given that rivalry magnifies competitors’ psychological involvement and desire to win independent of objective stakes, it may lead to departures from rational or typical competitive behavior.  

The Bison team is very close in age with our team.  They are a young team that relies on young players to be successful.  They have played club together for a long period of time and our really disciplined in their systems. Our Bobcat athletes have played alongside the bison players on school, club and provincial teams. They have formed strong friendships off the court with the Bison players.  This made last week of training interesting.

The first noticeable reaction was Monday.  We arrived at school to find that the construction was still going on and they had a vehicle exhaust venting to the hall of the gym.  So they asked us to not practice.  The team was disappointed and seemed a little concerned about the lack of reps they would get.  Monday’s practice is used to just make some small corrections from Saturdays match therefore it is usually very light.  Second event happened during our video session the athletes had a lot more information to give out about the individual Bison players. The athletes also all asked more questions and wanted to see more specific video of the Bison starters.  (My hope is that this preparation will soon transfer into a weekly event. ) When an athlete gets into their 4^th and fifth years they have competed against a lot of the same players on all the oppositions.  They will have stories and remember what happened the last time we did this...the opposition did that. Our first and second year players were feeding a lot of extra information since they knew so much more.

Friday we came out flying.  Our serving game plan worked well.  We kept the pressure on them and that made it easier for us to block and play defense around that.  The first set we would get a good lead and then the Bison’s would battle back we eventually won the first set 25-23.  The next 2 sets went well for us.  We were able to control the match and won 25-17 and 25-18.  Tori Dakin had 4 serving aces and Shanlee Mclennan added two more.  Shanlee is leading the nation in serving aces.

We knew Saturday we would see a different team.  The Bison’s are well coached and very disciplined. They would make some adjustments and we would need to adjust.  From the start of the match we seemed a bit off. We fought the ball, the Bison’s changed their serving strategy and we found it difficult to adjust.  I feel that we spent too much time evaluating our passes instead of playing off them.  If we pass a one we need to find a way to score or put the opposition in trouble so we can get an easier ball back and then be in system.( A little story to input here...  In the 2008 Olympics the Brazilian men’s team knew the U.S. team would serve tough.  They decided to use the U.S. block to help get them into a better situation.  The Brazilian team would intentionally roll into the U.S. block and then cover that shot.  They would then run speed off that play.  It worked really well and helped them win the match).

The Bison’s kept pressure on us the entire set. They won 25-21 that set was never in doubt. We battled back in the second set and matched their score. 25-21. The third set we struggled again with ball.  I also think this is the rivalry, we wanted to win the second night so bad that when we weren’t winning like we were Friday it was magnified.  We talked in our pre-game about playing in the moment.  I played am Asic’s commercial to help explain it. But doubt crept into our heads. At the end of the set I tried making a couple of subs to relieve the starters and hope the substitute could bring some energy.  The Bison’s won 25-19.

The fourth set the wheels fell off completely.  We struggled at every aspect of the game.  As we made more errors we started to set the ball higher and to call for a higher set.  That played into their hands as they were able to close blocks everywhere.  We decided to make a couple of subs.  We put Mary into the match to set for Kellie, Gillian went in for Shanlee and Larissa went in for Lexi. The 3 subs played with a ton of passion and energy.  WE called a time out down 14-6, and just asked the group to compete just do what they can and have fun with it. What happened next was really impressive.  That group battled hard dug some balls and went on a tear.  They caught up to the Bison’s and tied the game at 21-21.  It was fun to watch them find different ways to win and they celebrated each other’s success.  We played hard, but eventually the Bison’s came out on top 28-26^th.  The Bison’s showed why they are 4^th in Canada, but we grew in confidence.  We all learned that we have a deep bench and the pressure for the starters to perform is off them.  If they struggle which all do we have players that can perform.  It also showed us that if we play with confidence and just play with whatever happens and find away to cut down our red ball errors, like our team did in the fourth set,we can play with the top in the nation.

A little side note, Brandon University Women’s volleyball is #1 in Canada in hitting efficiency. (kills-error/total attempts)  it is rare that a Canada West team is that high.  But we will celebrate that for now.  Shanlee added 4 more serving aces to maintain her 6 ace lead on the next player. 

Opening Weekend

Opening weekend

It was an interesting and learning weekend for us.  We played our first league matches against University of Regina.  Regina has become a pretty good rivalry for us.  They always play us tough.  Plus in Canada West it is extremely hard to win on the road.  Our schedule then becomes very important. 

I felt we were really prepared on Friday and have been practicing well all week. We ran a continuous drill on Weds that we struggled with earlier in the year.  We struggled to get the ball to continuously cross the net 15 times as we rotated around the court.  This time we achieved 50 overs in the drill.  We discussed how much we have improved and some athletes even commented "how was that drill hard before" We won the first set on some strong serving.  Regina pushed us all the way and for some reason we looked nervous and unsure of our self.  In one of the time outs we talked about confidence and fighting for it.  It is a choice of us to allow the other team to take away our confidence.  We need to fight for it.  We battled the rest of the way.  We were down 2 sets to 1 and we battled back to win a convincing fourth set.  The fifth set is always a risky situation.  This set feels like a sprint to a finish.  We lost 15-13.  We won every statistical number we could except digs.  Yet Regina won the match.  This happens when one team wins two of their sets by a big margin and lose close.

We were all extremely disappointed.  After the match we went through our regular post match discussion.  I was really frustrated, more with myself then the team.  Our effort was strong.  If we maintain our effort and correct our focus we will be better the next day.  In my younger coaching I would have blasted the team after the match, but really it wouldn't help improve our situation.  Plus our effort was there. 

When we went through our stats we decided if they beat us by 12 digs and that was the only stat they beat us in, then that would be our focus.  We needed 10 digs to beat their total.  We didn't need to reinvent the wheel; we needed 2 more digs a set.  That seems really simple but that was all we really needed.  Our discussion in the morning just was a refocusing on our system and showed the team that we were in the right spot more than not.  We just needed to dig the ball up.  We started our adjustment mantra of 2 more digs each.

Our serve and pass practice started with defense from coaches off a box. I am not a big fan of hitting off boxes at the athletes.  We eliminate some of the most important cues for the defenders. Today this is just to get a feel of digging the ball up, a controlled situation to get some confidence in the different situations.  We then went quickly to live attackers with no middle blocker, then we added the middle.  This progression seemed to help us understand our depth on seams and on closed blocks. In the morning during breakfast I read online two articles about how mood affects cues.  That people who are happier tend to see more cues and look at things in a broader way.  People who are angry, nervous, and tense seem to look at thinks with blinders on. The article stated that research has found that cues are more readily recognized when people are happier.  We also took time to discuss their vision pattern with some of the athletes.  We have to know where to look in order to react to the cues. Our serve practice was really upbeat.  We had some fun in it

We came out in the match with a ton of energy.  We were serving tough.  Chloe decided to get the 2 more digs a set all on her own.  The first 8 points she had 4 digs that we were able to transition to points.  That set the tone and the rest of the team followed suit.  We cut their attack percentage in half.  Of Friday their efficiency was 25%.  (kills-error/total) Saturday we held them to 12%.  Our team goal is to keep the opposition under 20%.  It was a fun match to coach in.  The athletes were in a groove, discussing early what was happening and then working together to try a limit the other team’s opportunities.  We have always prided our team in our ball control When we were out defended it was a good character check for us.  We responded well.

We returned to Brandon at 2:30 am after the match.  The young first year players and myself had a fundraising commitment in Winnipeg on Sunday.  We had to be back together at 3pm and head in to Winnipeg in a van.  The young athletes were impressive very upbeat and had fun together.  They were studying most of the way.  I learned a bit more about each of them.  I have to admit that Jasmine kicked my but in name that tune.  The worst part it was my playlist.  She really knows her old rock and country. 

This week we have our sport psych meeting.  This is one of our most important meetings as Dr. Skinner is introducing courageous conversations.  Even though right now we have a strong team image and team concept, eventually every team goes through some kind of adversity.  This class session sets the tone for how to deal with some things athlete to athlete.  Plus it is an amazing skill to learn for their careers post sport.  I will discuss this session more in depth next week.

Nerves

The great thing about having assistant coaches that have gone through our program is their ability to relate to the team.  We were having a tough practice and in discussing the practice came up the topic of first league match.  I sometimes forget the nervousness and excitement that the young athletes get from their first regulation match.

It is something a lot of the athletes have been dreaming about for a long time.  They can officially say they played CIS.  This match is important to them.  The coaches were talking about how nervous they were for their first match.  Our first match ever was against Regina.  Thinking back I was really nervous to coach my first match.  The excitement around a CIS match is great.  They felt the athletes were looking ahead of the practice and start to think about the match.

Nerves are an interesting thing. Physiologically we get butterflies, sweaty palms, dry mouth and some will even get an upset stomach or shaky hands.  People who are excited react in the same way physiologically.  The difference between the two is our perception of the situation.  Our brain is amazing thing it is taught to react to cues that we have come across.  WE do have a choice in how we decide whether we are nervous and scared, or nervous and excited.

Controlling nerves have been researched and studied a lot. Some of the main recommendations are;

a.       Prepare well.  The more you understand the game plan and your teams systems the more confident you are in your ability to perform when the opportunity arrises. Practice hard and this will also aid to your confidence.  Coaches cliché is always practice like you want to perform in the match.

b.      Know the audience, most people don’t want to see people fail.  The opposition fans may heckle and try to get players off track, but realistically they expect athletes to perform.  The home fans are really pulling for their team.  When young athlete get a chance to go in they have the entire crowd behind them.  

c.       Often as athletes we project our worst fears on the match.  “I am going to struggle infront of all my family and friends” Athletes need to rationalize their fears or distractions.  Write them down and look at them objectively.  With some of the athletes we talk about writing their distractions and fears in a book.  Then if they crop up into their head during the match they can say “I closed the book on them for now”

d.      Positive self talk and relaxation is important.  Our brain often tries to lead us down a negative path.  Here is a good article I have found.  http://onforb.es/VsEVyD it discusses all the different brain trick we have.

e.      Last one eat a banana, it helps with the nerves.

Controlled Scrimmages and Planning.

We have had a great week of practices.  We played 10 hours of volleyball on the weekend with organised scrimmages with U of Regina and U of Winnipeg.  This is an interesting tradition that volleyball has.  We meet up and play controlled games against other teams.  The first session we played 3 different styles of “wash” or multiple ball drills.  The basketball coaches at BU think we are crazy to get together to practice with the other team.  I always respond with the standard “ Don’t you get tired of playing against your own team?”  On Sunday we had a couple of the men’s players come in to officiate sets.  We split into two groups and would scrimmage 1 set against each of the Universities.  Then the would play each other for a set, we would then play one of them again for a set.  WE kept rotating like that. Play one set, then have a short practice to work on something specific.  Then play another set to see if we have a good feel of what we practiced.

As a coaching staff, we decided to  give the team Monday off to catch up on school work. They were expected to do a weight session. When we were all back together on Tuesday you could feel a real sense of purpose with the team.  We handed out Iphone skins to help celebrate our succesfull pre-season of learning. The practices this week went very fast and were very focussed.  Our captains decided to have a players only meeting. This was to set the record straight, to help the younger players get a sense of what it is going to take to be successful in league.  I was really excited about the group taking ownership of the year.  Tom Skinner always tells the team that they are in control of the results, as coaches we put the pieces together for success, but what they do with that information will determine where we end up.

Another thing that changed was the practice plans.  Now that we are in our new facility and have a chance to use two courts to tweak some technical things, we take advantage of that. Here is a copy of our practice on Tuesday. 

In the plan this week we controlled as much as we could; who would play beside who, who would go through the drill twice so the courts would be working around the same time.  The number of reps the drill would take.  The athletes setting their goals and working together really was successful this week.

When planning a practice, for me it is like watching a movie.  I need to see the drill in my mind before I put it down on paper.  I think what is it we need to work on.  This case it was hitting off blocks.  We moved the attenna’s closer together so the outside attacker had to hit the ball between them.  We discussed with the defense your job is to keep them in the drill forever. After doing a rough draft, I then look at the flow of the practice. Are we warm enough to swing full? Does the practice build on the previous drill? Does the game act as an accumulation of the entire practice? Once all of this is set I will then type it into our practice plan.  Then I usually find an adaptation of a drill yet again.  Being over planned really helps the success of the practice. Then we still find situations that I hadn’t thought of. In that case as a team we decide on the rules. An example was we were playing a game to 25. If you score 24 you must score 25 or you go back to 23.  This time we had the hero (A player who had to score the 25^th point).  But we hadn’t counted on the team with 24 getting a stuff block. The purpose of the game was to put pressure on the attacker, so we decided it would be a wash.  Then the team with 24 had to receive serve for their 25^th point.  This would give the player a chance to score first opportunity. 

I just find that routine in planning for practice has been successful for me.  I always feel confident heading into practice that we have an opportunity to get better. 

Quick recruiting trip and questions asked to me.

I was on a whirl wind recruiting trip out west this past weekend. Recruiting is such an interesting part of our job. It is never the same twice. Usually when recruiting I try hard to watch players that we have identified.  The second part is to meet with coaches and get leads on who is emerging as a possible Canada West Player.

During the tournament I try really hard not to distract the athletes  There are recruiting rules in the CIS that state this too, but if the coach allows you coaches can talk with the athletes. NCAA is different they cannot interact at all with the athlete and need to state so if an athlete approaches them. I say hi to the athlete and the coach and then just watch.  After matches I will talk to the coaches.  Often this conversation turns technical and I have found many an interesting drill idea from this time.

This year a long time friend of mine was coaching a team.  He asked me if I would come meet the team and talk to them about playing the game and answering questions.

Here is what transpired to the best of my memory.

Team Question #1. What is the height of your smallest player?  Volleyball is getting to be a taller and longer sport.  Our smallest player is our 5’4” libs.  She is extremely fast and has great vision.  Our smallest outside attacker is Chloe.  She is  5’8” but she touches 9’10”.  This is quite a big jump.  It isn’t how tall you are it is how high you play. 

Team Question #2 What do you think are the most important skills for Highschool teams?  I think at all levels it is serving , passing and playing out of system.  These are the three skills/systems we spend a ton of time on.  Blocking and attacking will take care of itself. 

Team question #3  What can a player do to get noticed in a try out?  I think you should try to be 3^rd person in line when a coach describes drill.  Thae first person will try and the coach will correct.  Usually the third person is the first person to do the skill or drill the way the coach wants it done.  Second thing is follow the rules to the T, get noticed.  One year I was coaching provincial team and the athletes were playing pepper.  The coach in charge of the drill said if the ball is shanked the two partners are expected to run and get the ball and start playing where they get it. The door to the gym was open to a field a ball was shanked out to the field.  Two players ran out and started peppering outside.  Whenever we were discussing the players both players names kept coming up.  Everyone was so impressed.

Team Question #4.  What can we do if we are on a losing streak?  I think it is important to stay as a team during this time.  No one likes losing, but very few teams go through an undefeated season.  With a young team learning to win their are some close matches.  The team needs to stay strong, it is easy to start placing blame on one another.  I told them of one of our teams in Grande Prairie.  I love high fives and low fives.  It means you see and recognize the team mate.  When I was coaching at a highschool in Grande Prairie the team took to high to the max.  Whenever two Ceinahs met each other in the hall way they would high five each other.  Sometimes there would be no time to talk in-between classes, just a quick hand slap in the hall.  People in the school started to notice the camaraderie of the team.

Team Question 5.  What do you look for in a player?  I look for speed and dynamic movements.  Too often in volleyball we try to just time our movements with the arrivial of the ball.  The best players react fast and are ahead of the ball.  Attacking, wait longer and approach faster.  Blocking, beat the ball and be stationary and strong in the air.  Serve reception spot the ball, beat it to the spot and then pass it. A fast player is usually a high jumper, good blocker, strong passer and server

New Facility and Goal setting

New facility,

If you have been following along our blog we are in theprocess of building a new gym and renovating our old gym.  It is an exciting time here for our athleticsand for the team. 

Earlier this summer I was talking with Kevin Neufeld and hecame up with a great team building idea. When it was time to enter the gym we should do it as a big groupblindfold the athletes so that they all see the gym for the first time at thesame time.

Yesterday was that time for us to enter the gym.  We met on the steps and blindfolded theteam.  We then had them form 3 linesholding hands.  A coach then lead theminto the gym to the end of the court.  Wethen counted to three.  The reaction ofthe team was priceless.  It is a greatway for them to begin our new journey in the facility.  Next week we will begin to practice in there.

This week we also met again with Dr. Skinner and we wentover goal setting.  We focused mostly onthe process goals.  We are setting goalson Monday for the week.  It is a way forthe athletes to focus on a skill that we might not be working on during theweek. 

https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=X8rephqoLkCmxcKGonF9TA

The above link is to the online version of the form we use.  We have a the athletes fill out the form in their personal dropbox folder that syncs with my computer.  That way I can keep track of their progress and write responses to their goals.  

One of the by products to the form is the athletes again have to think and evaluate their game.  We have a technical, tactical, nutritional, educational and team goal.  The team goal was describe to them as "who haven't I connected with lately?' Maybe invite them for tea or to meet you for lunch.  Just an idea for the athletes to make sure they understand each other better.  

Inside a preseason tourney

Preseason is upon us already.

This past weekend we travelled to Briercrest College and University of Regina to play our first set of exhibition games.  We scheduled the Thursday Briercrest match and the Friday morning Med Hat College matches so our young athletes would have a chance to play in some matches before the first Canada West tournament in Regina that weekend.

Our first two months we prioritize fitness ahead of results at the preseason tourneys.  In CIS there are no wild card berths.  The amounts of teams for Nationals from each division are based on the results from the year before. With Canada West teams meeting in the final we know we have 3 births.  The preseason record counts towards the top 10 rankings, but ultimately teams win the right in.  For this reason we rank conditioning ahead of the result.  Of course we want to win, but we don’t base theteams rest on peaking for the tourney.

WE set team goals for the weekend around our systems and the learning of them.  We want this weekend to confirm our different defense and the player’s communication within the system. As the errors build up players and coaches tend to get quiet.  I know as my frustration builds up that I always find myself sitting down and clamp up.  I have asked my assistant coaches to recognise this in me and to ask me a question.  “What’s next?  This simply jogs me back to reality and then I start coaching again.  We ask the same from our players.

We discussed in depth the 5 r’s of volleyball.  I’ve mentioned this in a past blog. http://coachingbobcats.blogspot.ca/2011/10/5-rs-of-volleyball.html

But we really emphasised the during rally communication as well.  Saying what you see is the habit we need to have happen.  I equate it to writing a test together.  If one person in the group knows the math part of the exam really well but refuses to communicate the whole groups mark will go down.  This is the same in volleyball, what we watch and say out loud has effect on our team as a whole.  We explain even if it is the wrong read at least your teammates know you made the wrong read and then can adjust accordingly.

What do we say?  Well our defense is based on whether the setter is front row or back row.  We will also adjust later in the season based on what the tendency is in each rotation.  We will bunch in one situation and against another team we will spread block.  Everyone has to know the rotation.  We have some very creative coaches in Canada West and they will have different rotations.  Alberta the defending silver medallist run a modified 6-2 system, plus their se3rve reception is more of a trapezoid shape than a line or the traditional 3 player passing.  So it is important in that situation to confirm who is responsible for the attackers across the net.

Once the ball is set we want our back row then to identify what the opposition middle is doing.  To try and pick up the read as quickly as possible, The middle is going 30!  That is because we feel that will be the middle is the quickest a ball will come over, we have less time to react to it than the outside set.  Then when head back to the ball, is it in system or is it off the net.  Then the set, what is the hitters approach like, where are our blockers, will the middle be able to close or are they committed? Then our defense moves accordingly. We want this to happen with vocab,  hitting cross or line, roll or swinging, closed, seem or triple block. 

Last week maintained our weight training and track workouts till Weds.  We then travelled 4 hrs to Briercrest.  The Briercrest and Med Hat matches were good, we were fresh and won 4-0 both matches.  We won 3 straight and agreed to play a fourth both matches to make sure everyone played.

When we entered into our matches in Regina against Manitoba we were feeling pretty good but as a coaching staff we could see fatigue creeping in as the match went longer.  We lost in 4, won the first set 25-21, then lost 22,22 14.  The last set we were tired. 

We then went and watched video as a group, we had 2.5 hours off before we played Sask.  We clipped all the attacks of Manitoba and showed the set we won.  As a coaching staff we wanted to show our team executing the systems properly.  We were able to get 5 triple blocks which showed we were focussing on the right cues.

We played a bit of a younger group against Sask and lost in 4 again.  Win or lose we start every team debrief with what went well.  We ask for specific plays that stood out.  Not just we closed our blocks well, we want Lexi came a long way to close that block in the second set.  I want them to recall the exact play.  I feel this helps build team confidence but it also helps them begins to help them replay the match in their heads.  The second part of this is to teach athletes how to take a compliment.  We have a tough time taking a compliment, quite often we feel we need to justify it with a negative situation to balance the compliment, or we feel we need to compliment the person back.  We teach our athletes the appropriate thing to do is just to say thanks. Nothing else. 

We then discuss what we need to work on; this one was tough on us as we feel that we need to be able to beat Sask if we want to play in the playoffs. We used this opportunity to show our young players that Canada West every match is up in the air.  I also took this time to thank some athletes; we have a few athletes that are working extremely hard to fix technical errors.  One in particular is trying to learn new footwork as she had left-handed footwork for her right handed approach.  She has worked very hard at this, right now she is not jumping as high as she did with the other footwork, but it will pay off in the long run.  We pointed this out to everyone.  It is important for her teammates to support the change to make it worthwhile for her.

Saturday morning we watched video of our match against Sask, this time we showed 20 mins of the set we won, but really noticed break down in our systems and defensive postioning.  We then went to play Alberta.  Again we lost in 4, we went back to watch video again before we played Regina in the consolation semi.  The video showed improvement with our defense when we were serving but we were sloppy off serve reception and in transition.  Alberta was able to take advantage of the errors often.

The amount of video we watched is beginning to pay off we really notice the improvement.  We were able to win the Regina match in 5, some of our younger players played a big role in the win.  Mary our freshman setter started the entire match and played well for us.

Sunday we loaded the bus for a rematch with Sask.  This was an important match for us we needed to send a message to ourselves and to Sask that we were better than our last match.  We played our best match winning 14,14,20.  It was a good bus ride home.

Beginning Typical Week Being a Bobcat.

Start up of the 2012/13 season is well under way.  As always with this time of year the athletes are working hard and improving Daily.  The first week of school we gradually built up the volume until we are at a super high level right now.

A typical week for the athletes right now is

Monday

They have weight training in small groups with our Strength Coach Sean.  Right now it is a very basic program making sure everyone is caught up to speed.  Then we will have practice from 4-7pm.  Usually a small group from 4-5pm, example would be setters and middles.  Then from 5-6pm the whole team will train together.  The hour with the whole team is dedicated to our systems. We focus  a lot on the defense to transition part of the game.  With the Mikasa ball we feel the game is played a lot more out of system than it used to be played.  Then the second group will work on skills from 6-7.  This way everyone has 2 hours of practice but also a good hour working on things specific to their positions.

Tuesday

Morning starts with a track workout.  This is a great team builder.  It gives each player a chance to see how each other work.  It also has lots of positive peer pressure when an athlete thinks they are done but see their teammates keep pushing, they keep pushing too.  The photo’s are from this weeks track work out.

Tuesday we also practice 4-7, different groups than Monday as we have to juggle around some class schedules.

Weds

The athletes are asked to work out on their own with weights today.  With Brandon being a small school we have only a limited number of courses.  This makes it very hard to get everyone in the gym at the same time.  So we trust the athletes to get this done.  This is an important part of our program and the athletes must understand that they need to lift or do the circuits on the days scheduled.  We have planned this for optimum recovery and results.  During the pre-season physical training is a priority over being fresh for tournament matches.  If the athlete skips a day it affects the whole team.

This week we have our first meeting with Dr. Skinner . He is coming in to create our standards.  We have three over riding values on our team.  Be loyal, Bring honour to the program, Put the team first.  These are brought from the last year to the next year.  But each year is different so we have to have  adifferent set of standards for the team.  With Dr. Skinner we come up with these standards.  We have already discussed what each of the values look like and don’t look like.  For example what does being loyal mean when you are coming off the bench?  The team came up with; cheering for the players on the floor, looking for weaknesses within the oppositions defense, being ready to go when called upon and also knowing the game plan so you can execute it when you have a chance to play.

Know as a team we have to decide on all the things we brought up which are the most important ideas and methods.  These we want to write down and hold each other accountable for.  Each year the team comes up with their own.  Last years can be seen here http://coachingbobcats.blogspot.ca/2011_09_01_archive.html

We also normally practice from 4-7pm the same as we have all the way through.

Thursday,

Thursday the team is required to do a circuit in small groups.  This one involves a little less jumping and more bungy cords, working on footspoot and trying to create an overspeed situation with the team.

Then we will practice from 4-7.

This week we are travelling to Briercrest to play our first exhibition matches.  WE play Briercrest College at 8pm.  This team competes in the Alberta Colleges League. It is a good chance to for our rookies to compete before they face CIS competition in Regina Fri to Sunday

Weekend.

This weekend we play in the University of Regina Tournament.  We have a great pool.  We play University of Manitoba and University of Sask on Friday.  Round out pool play with last years national silver medallist U of Alberta.  Then depending how we do play an A side of B side playoffs.

I will update how it went next Tuesday.

We also had the opportunity to take our team photo's, head shots and video introductions for each player.  We had a fun time with this.  Alex Beshara he is our Communications Officer Social Media.  He documented the event for us.

Welcome to BU "Rookies initiation thoughts"

On Tuesday at 6pm central time on twitter there is a volleyball tweet up or discussion. It is facilitated by @goodtouchvolleyball.  This past week one of the topics was hazing. If you want to join in it is #gttalk   It led me to think about our first years and their welcoming to BU. I am happy with how our first year players are fitting in with the team so far.  With the addition of 6 first year players this leads us to the idea of rookie initiation and the dreaded word hazing.

I am not naive to think that our team won’t have some form of first year welcoming.  I like to talk to our captains beforehand. Personally I believe this is the Captains first real challenge as leaders.  They have to be strong enough to make this a fun and safe activity.  I believe the purpose of a welcome to BU experience is to team build, to bring the athletes officially into our family.  By having the first years singled out and make a fool of themselves does nothing to endear them to our school. It also can be a source of stress on a student who already has a ton of stress placed on them. The idea that you have to earn your way on to the team is very archaic.  The athletes today have put a ton of time into their sport already, hired person trainers, played provincial and national teams just to get to this level.

In the discussion with the Captains I mention three guidelines.

1. Captains and the rest of the team are personally responsible and accountable for all the actions.  They need to make sure it is a safe environment.  I also ask it not to be limited to First years.  It needs to be inclusive; if the first years do it then the Captains or veterans should be doing it too.

2. The activities chosen are genuinely voluntary nature, first year athletes have the choice to participate or opt out of the activity without fear of any negative consequences. If an athlete makes a positive choice to limit alcohol, or food intake, we should celebrate this activity instead of ridicule.  This is a committed person who wants to be able to train. Alcohol takes 48 hours to leave your system, if overconsumption occurs, that is two days of training and recovery wasted.

  3. WE do not have special dress up activities and then head out around town.  We want to be seen as mature place of learning.  Whenever anything negative happens around the athletes it is “Brandon University Bobcat arrested” or “Former Bobcat in trouble” as headlines in the paper.  They lose a bit of their own identity and have to think of the larger group.

So far in our 8 years of existence our welcome parties have gone pretty smooth. But I still worry about the ramifications every year.  It only takes bad one to put tarnish on the program forever. 

I am not in favour of this type of activity and let it known to the team.  WE live in a small community and when it comes to athletics it is even smaller.  Coaches find out eventually all the things that go on. 

We recruit athletes that are quality people and this is their time to prove us right.

Camp Drills

It is that time of year again when our summer volleyball camps are going into full swing.
This year we are trying something a little different we are doing a team skills camp.  I have had many opportunities to work in camps and we always emphasize the technical aspects. We thought it would be different to emphasize systems, high ball management, siding out, serving strategies, and the importance of never giving up.

We decided we would offer different individual skills in the morning session.  Each athlete could sign up for individual skill sessions. We would then have our middle years camp in the afternoon and our senior years camp in the evening.

https://acrobat.com/#d=3sFn3*YZWKeYOzPgo4Z4Bg

Here is a copy of the practices for the week.  In the middle of the document there is a few blank pages that I can't seem to get rid of. (never claimed to be a technical wizard)

I have borrowed the format of the drill cards from Glen Hoag.  He is a our men's national team coach.  when Glen was coaching the national team in Winnipeg I had the opportunity to watch his practices and then borrow some of his computer planning ideas.

Some of the drills I use are straight from his data base, others are from Lupo and Scott our women's national team coaches, and the rest are from other coaches I have worked with. (yes Rod Durrant and Ron Thomson a lot of the names are yours) In the end it isn't the drill it is the criteria and the key words that help the athletes get better.

We used a fair amount of block skill teaching in our morning sessions and then tried hard to emphasize them during game play in our evening sessions.

I hope the document makes sense as you work your way through the different drills.

Gilberts and his 7 things (first guest blogger)

Dan Gilbert is the Head Coach at Red River College and the president of the successful 204 volleyball club in Winnipeg.

Dan and I spent the summer mentoring the provincial team.  Often during the summer we would discuss what we would see>  I asked Dan if he would write his top 7 lessons from the summer.  

TRAINING FOCUS IS MANDATORY FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE

After listening to Lee Carter talk extensively about how volleyball is a visual sport based on visual cues, I thought what does this really mean? I came to the conclusion that being good at understanding the visual cues really comes down to being good at focusing on those cues and remaining focused prior to, during, and after the execution of a skill.

How often do you hear a coach say one of the following when the practice is not going well?

-        “You need to focus!”

-        “Pay attention!”

-        “We’ve lost our focus.”

-        “There is no attention to detail.”

-        “Quit being distracted!”

-        “What were you thinking?”

Can we train our athletes to be more focused and will it result in better performance? I believe the answer is not only yes, but that training focus is mandatory for peak performance.

Definition of Focus:

1.     Close or narrow attention; concentration.

2.     A condition in which something can be clearly apprehended or perceived.

Two Assumptions:

1.     The greater the focus while executing a task, the more quickly the task is learned. Focusing on the external or outcome has been shown to result in more efficient and longer lasting learning than focusing on the internal or process.

2.     Focus is required for an athlete to most efficiently identify cues that will allow them to react quickly to a situation. Fast eyes are as important, if not more important than fast feet.

7 Things Made Clear this Summer Related to Training Focus

1.     Focus should be on the internal at first, but once the motor pathway is correct the focus must change to the desired result. The majority of our training time should be spent with the focus on the desired outcome (an external focus). At first we may teach athletes to pass with their right or left foot forward, but once they do this with a high rate of success the focus must be the location of the pass.

2.     As soon as two individual skills can be executed at a high degree of success independent of one and other, start training them to be done in sequence (in the real game skills are executed in sequence). As soon as the two individual skills can be done in sequence with a high degree of success, start training them to be done in sequence with a third skill, etc. The ability to execute two or more skills in sequence requires a greater level and duration of focus. At first we may teach the float serve and digging an attack separately, but once each can be executed players must learn how to serve and then defend. Likewise, once a player shows a high degree of success digging from a known location (coach on a box), the player must be made to read the ball out of the setter’s hands to the attacker, and then defend the attack.

3.     Make each repetition count. Does each contact count in the game? If so, then we must train that same focus in practice. Use +/- drills such that each contact has a known outcome that was good or bad. Use a “strike” system such that each error contact is noted. You can use the scoreboard to give points for demonstrating the proper motor pathway or for the appropriate outcome depending on the stage of learning (locus of focus). Yes, I believe in volleyball your athletes need to be way more mentally fatigued at the end of a practice than physically fatigued.

4.     Increase the rate of repetition and keep them focused for a longer duration. If you are going to do those super boring repetitive drills with emphasis on one simple skill, then have the athletes execute the skill multiple times in a shorter period of time. Passing 3 balls in 10 seconds, maintaining focus the whole time and then taking a 50 second break is more beneficial than 3 balls in 60 seconds with 17 seconds of little focus between each contact. Avoid long lines and instead use small groups. You’ll improve execution of the simple skill more quickly and this means you can move to drills of sequence as soon as possible.

5.     Focus on the proper cues as there is such thing as wrong focus. It isn’t good enough to simply tell our athletes to “focus more” or “pay attention”. We must be specific in what cues the athlete is to focus on. If they preparing to dig an attack, are they to focus on the attacker’s shoulder or the ball. Focusing heavily on the wrong cue may actually be more harmful than less focus. Wrong cue = wrong read = wrong movement = poor execution.

6.     Demonstrate focus in many different ways as a coach. Leaders don’t tell people how to do things differently, they show them a better way. Joking with an assistant coach during drills or playing your own game of pepper while the team practices shows your lack of focus. My teams learn the term “always ready” very early in the season and I try to keep them in an anticipatory mindset at all times. At any time in a practice a random ball may be tossed or spiked in a player’s direction (especially players shagging). When you turn your back to me and I have a ball, there is pretty much a 99% chance that it will be tossed in your direction within a few seconds. If we are having a round circle discussion and I’m holding a ball, it’s going to be tossed towards a player that I’m not making eye contact with. Maybe it trains focus, maybe not. Either way it makes for some funny moments during the training session.

7.     Force the sequence and don’t let a broken play break the focus. If you are playing a great team, they will test your team’s focus as they extend the rally with limited errors and persistence. In any drill of sequence, try to find a way to keep the sequence going even if a player makes an error. For example, let’s take a simple drill where there is a serve to a passer and that ball is set to a leftside attack. If the server misses their serve, have an assistant coach (or player) put an immediate downball to the passer, so we train to remain focused (we can’t assume our opponent will let us off the hook). If the passer makes a reception error, have a ball immediately tossed in to the setter from the backcourt.

Some Background Theories on Focus and Paying Attention…

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura developed social learning theory around the core concept that human beings learn by watching and patterning the behavior and attitudes of others, and paying attention is the first essential process. Bandura saw attention as dependent on the relationship between a specific event and a specific learner.

Gagne's Conditions of Learning

Robert Gagne described five types of learning: verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills and attitudes. In his view, the learning process is accomplished with a series of nine instructional events, each of which results in a corresponding cognitive process. The first event, paying attention, results in the cognitive process of reception.

Gabriele Wulf’s Attention and Motor Skill Learning

When attention is directed to the desired movement effect, performance levels rise. Not only is a higher level of performance often achieved faster with an external rather than an internal attention focus, but the skill is retained better.

Seven things that came up over and over when mentoring

1.     Volleyball is about seeing cues and reacting to the cues. 

 Often in Canada in women sport in particular we do a poor job of teaching reading cues.  The first system we teach is the slide line defense.  The ball moves this way the player in middle back goes to the side line.  Following the ball where it moves.  For this reason young players don’t need to know any other cues than the ball.If we would teach the young players to see the ball and then look at the attacker, even something as specific as their feet.  Still using the slide line defence, if their feet (approach) comes from out side in to the court we ask the athletes to go line seam, if the player stays in the court and approaches straight then go to the sidelines.  Now U-14 players are learning more about cues. Then they start  U -16 we add after they jump look at their shoulders.  If the shoulders stay turned then the athlete stays home more, if they rotate then the athlete rotates toward line a step. 

2.     Volleyball starts from the cues. 

This is to carry on from point 1. In volleyball the game is started by a whistle then after that the server has 8 seconds to decide when to start the drill.  But everything after that is decisions from what we see.

In many different drills I watched during my the last couple years coaches often start the drill by slapping a ball.  This is their cue to begin the drill.  But it isn’t game realistic.  That is based on a sound. The drill should start as a from a visual cue.  Usually a player or coach  tossing a ball high enough to them selves to attack or hit a down ball is significant enough for the athletes to begin the drill. 

3.     Players need more serving and hitting reps than coaches.

 Often as coaches we design drills where we are the center of the drill.  The more we can teach athletes to run the drills with tempo the more they will understand the game.  The more realistic it is for the level of play that the athlete will see.  At Jasper we were able to get U-13 athletes tossing and attacking their own toss.  Not very well but still well enough that we could enter the ball that way.

4.     Volleyball is random so create random drills.

  The best passing drill is pass set hit, the best attacking drill is pass set hit, the best setting drill is pass set hit.  The more we can teach technical drills with in the purpose of the game the more it will stick.  When designing drills think about what happens before and after that skill is needed.  When entering the ball into the drill find many different ways to enter it.  Examples are; off a serve, from a down ball, opposition tipping the ball, opposition sending a free ball the ball over and from a controlled attack. Each of these help make the game more realistic than a coach centered drill.

5.     The length of a volleyball match is predicated upon score not on time. 

This is why the length of drills should be based on reps or score.   Examples are Start score at 18 all and play to 25.  Serve 5 balls each and then switch roles. Make 20 overs in a row…

6.     Have a purpose.

There are many volleyball drill books with some great drill ideas, but as a coach we need to know what we are trying to accomplish.  Not just run a drill because it is a cool drill, or because I saw someone else run it. 

As mentioned above the best passing drill is a pass set hit drill. It is what the coaches focus on that makes the drill a little different.  For example we wanted to work on attacking for middles.  First we need to decide on the tempo we would like to run.  WE have come up with a numbering system that is based on when the ball is in the setters hand.  Third tempo set would mean the athlete has 3 steps left in their approach when the ball is in the setters hand. Many of our high balls will fit into a 3^rd tempo category.  A 2^nd temp set would mean they have two steps left when the ball is in the setters hand. This would be our x balls, back row balls or quicker tempo sets to outside attackers.  1^st tempo would be one step left. Many middles are first tempo, ball is hit on down trajectory.  Then we have a zero tempo.  The attacker is already in the air or jumping as the ball is in the setters hands.  Most university and national teams run this tempo with middles in front of the setter.

Then as mentioned in a previous blog, http://bit.ly/N7U7Iy we would run a high rep drill or tutor phase. Then after the athletes get a good sense of what it feels like in this situation we would move it to a mini game situation.  Ironically a lot of attacking drills we saw this summer were without a block.  Very rarely do attackers in a game get to attack against no blocks.  So the faster we implement blocking and attack around or off the more comfortable the athlete will become.  After mini game we then put it into a large game situation.  Our key words don’t change and the purpose doesn’t.

Finally number 7.  Challenge the athletes.

It is ok  for them to fail. We need to continually keep raising the bar.  Allow the athletes to fail and then sit back analyze the situation, what way can we work to be successful at this drill.  Failing means they are trying new things pushing their limits of success.  Teams that come from behind often are teams that believe they can come behind.  They have struggled and found different ways to succeed.   Here s an example of a drill we talked about this summer that makes it hard for a team to win.  Teams start at 20 all.  Play a game to 25, the catch is when a team gets to 24 they must win the next point, if not, they go back to 20.  The opposition keeps their points.  This is a tough drill to win, teaches teams there are no leads to big. To keep pushing.