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.