It has been two weeks since our season ended. We are starting to talk with the athletes about next year. We want to have them think back about the year and evaluate themselves. We will ask some tough questions and then encourage them to begin preparation for next year.
As a coach we need to evaluate ourself as well as the team. I have had many discussion with the athletes and assistant coaches to find out why we didn't make playoffs and what can we do different. Personally I feel we need to have more contact with the athletes, try to schedule more video sessions with them to discuss what they need to improve on. The quick time video above has a good message for our team and coaches. We need to do more this summer than our opposition.
Last summer I had the amazing opportunity to work with the national team and brought in some of their ideas to the program. Mike Hebert the long time coach of University of Minnesota wrote in his blog, that we need to think about things and not follow them in blindly. If we go to a symposium or listen to the national team coach talk we need to decide if the information is correct for our level. Just because the ideas are right for one person they might not be right for all. The entire blog can be read http://bit.ly/A5E96K. Mike uses the example of many different volleyball programs.
The ideas I decided to use with our team were the ones that we decided could make us better. Fit into the style we are trying to play. Using the idea of traffic lights colours to determine types of shot situations was very successful for us. For the most part it gave us terminolgy for the different situations. WE improved a lot in our Red light situations. When we controlled the ball and didn't give the opposition free points from trying to force things we were very competitive. Volleyball is fast becoming a game of errors or controlling the errors.
An area that we struggled in was serve reception. We have been keeping a pretty good track of our team's passing. As an over all we passed the best down the middle of the body. Mid-lining is still the prime passing positioning. The next was to outside our body to the left, we could adjust and bring the ball back towards the middle of the court. We were weak to our right and high above our heads using our hands. The gold medal terminology of left is right and right is wrong was proven correct in our team. In talking with a lot of coaches in our league we feel that the new Mikasa international ball that we use has really affected the passing stats. Laurie Eisler from U of A, actually said she felt like she forgot how to teach passing. The ball floats in such dramatic fashion. Doug Reimer from the defending national champions thinks that there are at least 3 swing and misses a match. He referred to it as a batter in baseball missing a curve ball. With these things in mind I began talking to other coaches about what we can do to improve passing the ball. Calvin Aubin a mentor coach from Alberta, suggested that maybe we try to pass the ball to the left of the body, or off the left knee instead of in the midline. His rationale was if the ball floats to the right it would end up in our midline, or would be a less drastic movement of the arms. If the ball floats to the left we lunge after it keeping the platform to bring the ball back to the middle of the court. He used the term more room for error. This spring season we will try this with our passers to see if it will work. In theory I can see the success of it, but need to physically try it before I buy into the idea.
We also have assigned our 200 level volleyball coaching class to analyze our season. One of the criteria for the class is to create a game plan against us. So we assigned each person in the class a different match for them to stat and break down. At the end we should have lots of trends to show and discuss with our individual player. This allows the students to learn how to game plan and save me some time going back to analyze the season. I then will use this to help discuss different situations for the individual players.
We also will do physical testing again to try and determine a baseline for the summer. We will set goals on the different individuals as far as what they should hope to accomplish. 5 months a person can make dramatic changes in the physical conditioning both positively and negatively. This year overall our team was good with the conditioning, but in the summer it is up to them. They don't have the team beside them talking into working out when they are not ready to go.
Like the video says "Are you the one to do 12..."
As a coach we need to evaluate ourself as well as the team. I have had many discussion with the athletes and assistant coaches to find out why we didn't make playoffs and what can we do different. Personally I feel we need to have more contact with the athletes, try to schedule more video sessions with them to discuss what they need to improve on. The quick time video above has a good message for our team and coaches. We need to do more this summer than our opposition.
Last summer I had the amazing opportunity to work with the national team and brought in some of their ideas to the program. Mike Hebert the long time coach of University of Minnesota wrote in his blog, that we need to think about things and not follow them in blindly. If we go to a symposium or listen to the national team coach talk we need to decide if the information is correct for our level. Just because the ideas are right for one person they might not be right for all. The entire blog can be read http://bit.ly/A5E96K. Mike uses the example of many different volleyball programs.
The ideas I decided to use with our team were the ones that we decided could make us better. Fit into the style we are trying to play. Using the idea of traffic lights colours to determine types of shot situations was very successful for us. For the most part it gave us terminolgy for the different situations. WE improved a lot in our Red light situations. When we controlled the ball and didn't give the opposition free points from trying to force things we were very competitive. Volleyball is fast becoming a game of errors or controlling the errors.
An area that we struggled in was serve reception. We have been keeping a pretty good track of our team's passing. As an over all we passed the best down the middle of the body. Mid-lining is still the prime passing positioning. The next was to outside our body to the left, we could adjust and bring the ball back towards the middle of the court. We were weak to our right and high above our heads using our hands. The gold medal terminology of left is right and right is wrong was proven correct in our team. In talking with a lot of coaches in our league we feel that the new Mikasa international ball that we use has really affected the passing stats. Laurie Eisler from U of A, actually said she felt like she forgot how to teach passing. The ball floats in such dramatic fashion. Doug Reimer from the defending national champions thinks that there are at least 3 swing and misses a match. He referred to it as a batter in baseball missing a curve ball. With these things in mind I began talking to other coaches about what we can do to improve passing the ball. Calvin Aubin a mentor coach from Alberta, suggested that maybe we try to pass the ball to the left of the body, or off the left knee instead of in the midline. His rationale was if the ball floats to the right it would end up in our midline, or would be a less drastic movement of the arms. If the ball floats to the left we lunge after it keeping the platform to bring the ball back to the middle of the court. He used the term more room for error. This spring season we will try this with our passers to see if it will work. In theory I can see the success of it, but need to physically try it before I buy into the idea.
We also have assigned our 200 level volleyball coaching class to analyze our season. One of the criteria for the class is to create a game plan against us. So we assigned each person in the class a different match for them to stat and break down. At the end we should have lots of trends to show and discuss with our individual player. This allows the students to learn how to game plan and save me some time going back to analyze the season. I then will use this to help discuss different situations for the individual players.
We also will do physical testing again to try and determine a baseline for the summer. We will set goals on the different individuals as far as what they should hope to accomplish. 5 months a person can make dramatic changes in the physical conditioning both positively and negatively. This year overall our team was good with the conditioning, but in the summer it is up to them. They don't have the team beside them talking into working out when they are not ready to go.
Like the video says "Are you the one to do 12..."
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