 Soccer Stuff is a collection of youth soccer coaching essays written to help educate novice soccer coaches that are trying to learn more about the great game of soccer. Freeze Dirtbag! Ok, I don’t say dirt bag, I just yell freeze. If you’ve ever attended a PA West Coaching license course, you know what I’m talking about. Yelling freeze is a great coaching tool if it’s not over done. (You should really attend a few of their classes, you’ll learn more at the lunch table than you will learn all year coaching (try to eat with the instructors)).Let’s say that you have an activity (drill) and you see a “coaching moment”. A “coaching moment” is when you see something that illustrates a situation relating to a subject you want to teach your kids about. You yell FREEZE! Hopefully, everyone stops exactly where they were at the moment you yelled. If not, you move the players back to where they were when you yelled freeze. After you get everyone’s attention, you illustrate the coaching point so that everyone understands what you wanted to communicate. If you are suggesting a correction in their play, you demonstrate your point and then you have the players demonstrate that they understand the idea. After that, you start play from the frozen position having the players employ your suggested correction. You have to watch that you don’t overdue the Freeze thing. More than two or three freezes an activity and you’re probably slowing things down too much. Don’t forget that the more touches each player makes in a practice, the better the practice, generally speaking. Remember to be patient with your team. You will make a point and some of the kids will “get it” and some won’t. Next time you cover the same point, more of the kids will get it and some still won’t. Be patient. Some time between now and the end of time, they will all understand… Enjoy your kids while you can, pretty soon they’ll be pain in the butt teenagers… © Michael Ray 2004 |