Its time to get this show on the road!

So it's time to get this show on the road, well not so much a show but a practical!

 

We had took into consideration the discussion with cliff and broke down the session so that it focused on the basics of spatial awareness without a big technical element to it.

 

The aim of the session was to keep possession from the other team working in a given area which was marked out (Badminton Court). We used 6 participants in a 3 v 3. The reason we chose smaller numbers was to allow for more space to work in. If we chose more, there would have been less room, therefore defeating the purpose of the session. We could however progress the session to allow for more participants, but for this we have to utilise the S.T.E.P process, and manipulate the Space and the Participants.

 

We started with a Tennis ball, and allowed them to throw any way they wanted. The reason we never told them how to throw was because firstly it wasn't the aim of session to coach a throwing technique, secondly it gave them a sense of freedom as they could throw it anyway they wanted. We chose to do this from the JOLF session, the freedom of choice of equipment and how we approached the stations. One question was raised as to how they could throw it and when answered with "how you want" it immediately seemed to add an element of fun, as players were trying different ways to throw/pass the ball, which was fine.

 

We used a more Question and Answer approach when we froze the session and brought the participants in. We asked them how they were finding it and they said they were struggling to keep possession. We restarted the session and then the minute we saw them bunched together we froze it once more, again using questioning as our tool to coach rather than being direct. We asked this time for them to look around and tell us what was wrong (bunched up) and how they can solve it to keep possession better (use space that's not being used). We restarted the session, and the participants started to use open space and one team then either team looked to control the game when in possession. The use of effective questioning can allow the players to think for themselves, and rather than the coaches being teachers and spoon feeding information, it allows the players solve the problem rather than us giving them the solution.

 

For the final part of the session, we introduced a bean bag in place of the tennis ball. We then restricted them to passing on the floor only. The reason we chose this was because once you have developed spatial awareness on a bigger scale, this meant that players were lower down, so had to make sure they kept their head up and be more alert and aware of other players. This was our progression stage, and we anticipated that progressing it, manipulating the Equipment (S.T.E.P) and final giving them some restrictions, we would see players revert back to old habits and start to bunch up again. Which they did! Once again we froze the session for some more Q&A. Again we asked what they could do to stop the bunching up, then we also asked what they could do as a team or individuals to help keep possession better. They answered with Communication, which in fact was the answer we wanted. Rather then telling them, we asked them why communication is important in situations/games like this, one participant replied with "we can let players know how much time they have in possession, where they can go to avoid losing possession (I.e go left or go right!)".

 

After the session had finished myself, Sam and Ryan all had a debrief on the session. We thought that the session overall went relatively successful. By successful we determined that we had stuck to the plan the whole way through. We wasn't really tested on our ability to adapt to a session as it went to plan, but I'm sure if there was an issue and we needed to make a change we wouldn't have struggled.