I know what I want, how do I make that happen??

Planning with your principles in mind. Games, games, games.

A few years ago I sat down with a Women's Tennis coach. Without a doubt one of the kindest people I've met through sport. Now my experiences with tennis are limited to running around after the little ball whilst getting beaten by an array of family members during our summers in West Cork. The only way I've seen Tennis coached is badly. We got to talking about how they train, and what that looks like. In my innocence I asked if they played a game I've seen kids play at summer camps. Where you have to run around the net, and try to return the ball. It's a knock out game, one for kids. I think it may actually be for ping pong. Needless to say Coach Wharton was not impressed. He looked at me with a kindly smile and said "We only do things in training, that we would do in a game."

Similarly, I've talked to a number of coaches who have described the practice planning meetings going as follows:


"Any ideas of things you want to work on at practice today?"


"Let's have a look at the drill book, and see which ones we haven't done lately."


Essentially, in my opinion, they're taking a paint by numbers approach to coaching. They're assuming that by covering the same curriculum every year they are delivering what their athletes need. Now, if these "drills" are carefully designed to teach this coaching staff's principles of play then maybe this approach might work. But I think we both know that this probably is not the case.

Instead I'd like to propose another method. Now, as with everything I will write here, this is not a revolutionary new approach that I have personally arrived upon. Sadly this is more my way of trying to share the lessons I've learned along my path in the hopes that they may help you.


Start with the end in mind.


Have a clear idea of what it is you want your athletes to understand.




Design a game that will allow them to experience this.




Allow them to fail at this. Over and over and over again.



Make it fun


Sounds like a lofty goal right? Well let's embark on this journey together, and see what we can come up with. Let's try this with a sport I have very little idea about, and see if we can come up with something. Let's look at water polo. My experience of water polo is limited to one night of struggling to keep my head above the water in my local swimming pool when I was about 16. The game went on around me, and I have to admit, I hated it.

I've read a little of the rules of water polo on their wikipedia page. According to wikipedia "The key to the offense is to accurately pass (or "set") the ball into the center forward or hole set, positioned directly in front of the goal ("the hole")." So as we prepare our session, our aim will be to create this using what's known as a "dry pass" (thanks wikipedia). This is a pass where we play the ball to a teammate in the air without the ball touching the water.

So in principle we're going to be similar to Ireland's world cup team in the golden age of Jack Charlton. We're going to play direct. 

The principles we'll be focusing on are our goal attack and defense. Especially in relation to the Dry Pass.

The technique we're going to develop: How to play dry passes.

Water polo is played with 7 players on a team. 1 goalkeeper and 6 field players.

For this game let's play with these numbers. 

Regular rules, and one stipulation.

Stipulation:

There will be a specific sized zone in front of each goal that can only be occupied by the goalkeeper and one attacker.

This stipulation allows this player the opportunity to receive these "dry balls' at first. Forcing our team to work on creating these chances, while also creating offensive 1v1s. These are always fun.

After a while we can change the stipulation to allow for a defender to join the attacker in this zone.

So let's review and see how we did:

Have a clear idea of what it is you want your athletes to understand.


Design a game that will allow them to experience this.


Allow them to fail at this. Over and over and over again.


Make it fun.


I think this game allows for all of this to happen. While staying true to Coach Wharton's message "We only do things in training, that we would do in a game."


I'm off to see what other sports I can try and come up with some games for. Why not give this approach a go in your own coaching.