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.
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