Tuesday, February 6, 2007

OVER HILL OVER DALE

Our different practice sights offer different challenges.  When we have fifty-five minutes inside at the Edge there are many factors for me to consider.  I trust, or should I say practically lean on our trainer to get 'my' team in shape in many ways.  Considering that Brian only has two hours per week to work with them, that is indeed a tall order.  What that means I guess is that I need to react to what they do with the trainer before my 55 minutes two nights a week at the Edge are spent on the field.  Some days he has them almost fried by the time it is my turn, and sometimes they are barely moaning and almost raring to go.  The pace of my part of practice must work efficiently with what came before. 

When the night is done there is no exact way to measure how that part went, but it is pretty easy to get the gut feeling, which I think pretty much tells me the truth. I can do good, and I can screw it up.

Playing "small ball" at the Edge for a short time presents many hardships to turn into perceived blessings.  For one thing time seems so short with less than one hour from whistle to whistle that it almost makes me go beyond the state of urgent.  The next stop would be the municipality of frantic, but I try not to go there, however. I must be stoic with all that.

One thing I do try and do in there because field is small and time is short is to keep the general work pace extremely high.  We never do anything for more than 10 minutes and I would say 5 minutes is closer to the true length of each practice segment.

DR. FREUD, HEP ME!

So when we are inside I suppose I am trying to compensate for the whole 'small' thing by trying to animated about little things and to keep everyone moving as much as possible at all times.  I hate it when people are forced to stand around for too long, and this is for a variety of reasons and goes for any time, but it is magnified even more inside and on a small field.  Changing your game all around for every drill and trying to make it challenging and real in a team building positive way when your surroundings aren't that 'big' is not an easy task.

SIZE DOES MATTER

Because we have so few practices I want to touch on as many parts of the game as possible as often as possible, even if it can only be a faint muscle memory experience or whatever.  Let it all be quick AND have quality.  We do many different little drills and sub-scrimmages at the Edge, and again, it is me pretending that it isn't small in there or that it doesn't matter that it is because what we do as team and individuals is change, correct, and or fine tune.  I try to use and make drills that allow them to learn how to make the necessary on the fly adjustments.

I also even do things because it is hard to see in there sometimes, etc. and I try on purpose not to compensate for that, this, or any other deterrent or limitation we are encumbered with.

It's not that easy to plan things as a coach when you are worried about team overall depth and everyone seemingly is either rehabbing a body part or coming down with something.  We are there a lot, too, and it is still early.  Everyone should yet be healthy. What is going on?

STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE, or MARRIED TO THE ME

At the same time, and even while in search of going with rapid pace at all times, I say we have so few opportunities when looking at the big picture that one (I) can't just let things 'go their own way' either.  In other words, yes I want everyone busy physically and doing those muscle memory things to the extreme of as much as we can cram in the allotment at the time, but I find myself lately very unafraid to jump 'to the other side' and selfishly steal a whole practice moment by bringing things to a complete halt.  Let me explain.  In general I often use my whistle to freeze people out of position when I see what I might call, "The Ugly field" in front of me and it is not what I want (big time) as represented by my team, that one I supposedly coach, at that exact moment.  I would call this sort of thing a practice 'luxury', normally used only when there is more time to spare. Just the same, when I see an important 'teaching' possibility currently, I am not afraid to take the wind out of any practice to make either a personal or a team point.  I mean sometimes lately I will whistle stop things at times when I would normally be yelling at them to keep playing.  The reason is that I know this or that moment might be my only chance to make this point this clear, either to team or individual.  I cannot let that instant go just now.   Sometimes I can, but not now.  For better or for worse I continue to trust me on many of these types of things.

SIXTY MINUTES X 2 = INFINITY

The big story today is that we had two hours last night to practice on the football turf under the lights on an almost balmy (comparatively speaking) early February's eve.  That practice session was so 'big' it was almost too good to be true.  The coaches couldn't believe it when we had done so much and still had 45 minutes left on our 'clock'.  We were stoked. 

TRANSLATION and transition

I was pleased that one or two of the drills that we do to condition and play at the same time while working inside had translated somewhat to outside.  I had been afraid that when we did the "counter attack" drill that we do outside on a big field that they would all die, or at least keel over from the much greater running distance between the two points, but the running part looked okay and so did ball movement a few times.

The gear change response, which intheory transfers them quickly and immediately from the defending goal frame of mind to the attacking mode or, God forbid, vice versa, is something that takes constant work (nagging).  I think this group is needful of extra work on top of the extra work in order to be good at this.

Hey, I'm just looking for little shiny and positive sparkles to help me find my way.

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