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| Don’t forget! At this age, fun is the most important thing. Balance here is the key. If you’re ever in doubt, err on the side of fun. Drills: Actually, the Big Wigs at PA West, our parent organization, are trying to get us to use the term “activities” instead of drills. I’m a firm believer in the fact that repetition is the key to mastering a new skill. The move someone practices a new skill, the faster that person will become comfortable with that activity. The problem is that repetition tends to bore most people, especially kids. Whether you use drills or activities you need to keep an eye on the boredom factor. Oh yes, and don’t forget, what’s more boring than standing in a line? Practice Theory There seem to be to theories on how to conduct a practice. #1 One theory suggests that a coach choose a specific subject and devote the entire practice toward that one subject. For example, If you think that your team needs work on passing, you would choose only drills that relate to passing for that entire practice. The first activity would relate to the very fundamentals of passing. The coach would demonstrate how to position the plant foot and how to swing the leg and strike the ball. The coach would then have the kids pass the ball back and forth to each other. His second activity would then be something a little more complex, but still relating to passing. The third activity would something a little different, but still related to passing. This coaching theory believes that the activities throughout the practice should become more and more complex with the practice ending with a full scrimmage. The idea is that the kids can learn something and then use what they have learned in a real game situation. #2 The second theory believes that repetition is the key to mastery. If you work on dribbling one week, passing the second week, throw-in and corner kicks the next week and trapping the next week, it’s been a month since you’ve worked on dribbling. This theory suggests that you include the fundamentals for a portion of every practice and then work on something specific. I’ll say it again because it’s important, the down side to working on the same things over and over again is that the kids might get a little bored. Keep alert for this and if it happens, change things up a little to make things more interesting. If the kids ever tell me that they already know this stuff, I have an answer for them. I tell the kids that their brains are really smart and they can learn something by doing it only once, but their feet are really dumb. Feet need to do things over and over to really learn anything. And believe me, some kids have dumber feet that others. What do I work on? There are three things that the Grasshopper Coach should really concentrate on: 1, dribbling 2. dribbling and most important 3. dribbling. Practice Structure I have put together some sample practices for you to use if you wish. My opinion is that the structure of the practice is a good one. The structure includes 10 minutes of fast foot skills, 5 minutes of demonstration of a new skill and ten minutes of activities relating to that specific skill. After that, there is a 10 minute activity devoted to 1 vs. 1 (dribbling) and then we finish up with a 10 minute scrimmage. Whatever you do, don’t eliminate the scrimmage time. This is when the kids have the most fun and when they learn the subtleties of the game. Let the game be the teacher. Again, here is the suggested structure for your practice.
Sample practices (PDF Files for you to print out) Download blank practice form for you to use to create your own practice |
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| © Michael Ray 2005
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