Feel Bad First Theory.

First, I need to discuss our weekend.  It was another first for the program.  We went into the UBC T-Birds War Memorial Gymnasium and finally won.  They haven’t lost there since 2010 season.  This win was a total team effort and was a great snapshot of how the team is developing this season.

We lost the first set as they came out firing on all cylinders.  We fell down 7-1 but manage to fight back to tie at 18 before the T-Birds kicked in another gear to win.  The second set we started to find our range with our serving game and put pressure on them.  Winning the second set was a great feeling on the bench.  Our 3^rd set has been difficult for us all season.  Something happens between the break. Friday was no different.  We made every kind of error we could. At 16-6 technical timeout we subbed in some of our younger players, hoping they would battle and try to get some energy back in to our group.  Down 21-10 things changed.  Our rising star rookie Regan Dahl got a stuff block. Everyone was really excited for Regan it was her first in her CIS Career.  She has been primarily used as a serving defensive sub this year. 

Then Shanlee Mclennan went back to the serving line and put  pressure on them.  She served 9 serves in a row and got us tied up at 22. The team was rolling and you could see the stress on the T-Birds.  This doesn’t happen to them very often.  It was as if they relaxed just a bit when the subs went in.  Not expecting them to battle as hard as we did. We won that set 25-23.  It was an amazing comeback that showed the resiliency of this group of athletes.

The fourth set we fell down again, but this time we had lots of confidence in our serving and defensive game. We double subbed to try and get our middles open more and they took off.  Lexi and Meaghan were blocking everything.  With the final point coming on a Meaghan Robertson stuff block to win 26-24.

Saturday was a different match.  I believe we came to play a volleyball game and UBC came to prove a point.   A point they did prove.  They controlled every aspect of this match.  We struggled from the serving line and never gave our self a chance to gain any momentum.  The match was filled with long rallies and good volleyball. We would win one of these long rallies and then go back and serve the ball into the net. Totally crashing all the effort we put in to the point before.

There was some shining lights in this match though.  Rookie Vaovai Aiono was .348 efficiency at leftside. This was the best she has played and to do it against the top team was awesome.  Lexi Loewen in the middle also scored over .350.  We know if we can get the rest of the team on the same page we do have a fighting chance against them the next time we play.

With our the amount of travel we have done in the last couple of weeks, it always allows me time to read.  One of my favourite blogs is the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.  This week he discusses the “Feel Bad First Approach” of the Green Berets.  Here is a sample but the whole article can be read here. http://thetalentcode.com

Teams spend weeks training for a mission (most of which happen at night). On the day of the mission they follow a two-part routine.

First, they spend the entire morning going over every possible mistake or disaster that could happen during the mission. Every possible screw-up is mercilessly examined, and linked to an appropriate response: if the helicopter crash-lands, we’ll do X. If we are dropped off at the wrong spot, we’ll do Y. If we are outnumbered, we’ll do Z.

After some hours of doing this, the team takes a break and has lunch together. They socialize, relax, and maybe take a nap.

Then they spend the afternoon in phase two, talking about everything going exactly right. They review each move, visualizing each step, and vividly imagine it going 100 percent perfectly.

You might call this Balanced-Positive Approach: equally split between negative and positive, and ending on the positive. Notice the complete wall of separation between the two phases. They don’t toggle back and forth between positive and negative. The two phases are kept as separate as night and day: first comes all negative, then all positive.

I find that most coaches I talk too are engaged in this approach, we are always looking for plan B,C,D,E.  Most matches I start out hoping we will win one set.  If we win one set then we can win 2.  If you win 2 then 3 only seems natural. But when I address the team it is from a position of confidence.  We spend a lot of time making sure the team is prepared so that they feel this confidence and when things do go wrong they have the confidence to try something different to solve the problem.

After covering all the possible things that can go wrong we are then prepared as a coaching staff to make adjustments that will bring confidence to our group.  So we go from bad to great. Just like we did in the 3^rd set last Friday.