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and respect your privacy. 1. Welcome from the Coach SPECIAL NOTE: The number of subscribers
to this Newsletter is now approaching 1,500 mark! Thank you!!! Articles are written about this dilemma,
and people are looking for an answer. I feel I can provide that
answer. If you agree with what I'm saying, please help me get
my coaching methods out there. Refer people to my Website and
be in communication with me. Thanks. Last month I had a wonderful experience seeing basketball the way it can be played. I spent a couple days at the Summer Pro League at California State University - Long Beach. This is where the NBA teams' rookies and younger players get to show their stuff and wannabe's have a chance to impress NBA coaches, scouts, managers, etc. It's also a place for lots of very good players to test themselves against great opposition. There were about 25 teams in all, playing over a three week period. On the first day I was there, I saw the Golden State Warriors' team (with their new draft choices, Richardson, Murphy and Arenas, making a real impact) beat the Lakers' team. I also saw the powerful Clippers team win a couple of games in the two days. Second year Clipper Darius Miles, just one year out of high school now, is a tremendous player, especially in the open court. Wow! As he matures, he'll become more and more unstoppable. His shooting was streaky, however, and I'd jump at the chance to help him. The play was, at times, awesome, though the shooting was mostly mediocre. A few guys could light it up quickly, like Mike Pemberthy of the Lakers, but with most of the teams, maybe 1 in 10 of the guys could shoot well consistently. I see this kind of shooting at every level of the game. It's still amazing to me how these great athletes, so well developed in strength, speed, quickness, dribbling skills, spin moves, defense (some of them), rebounding, open court movement and passing, etc. can shoot so poorly (and many stay that way for an entire career). Flat shooting is an epidemic, with what I call "wristy, flippy" shots. Most of them hesitate before shooting, some waiting until the the top (or near) to shoot. I am guessing that their coaches in middle school, high school and college trained them to shoot that way, if they were coached at all. The new rules that allow a zone-type defense will make it more obvious how poor the shooting is for some players. Shooting will become a premium and, hopefully, the game will open up and be more fun to watch. THE UKRAINIANS What made the whole trip worthwhile, however, was not the American players. It was a team in green and gold, a team that didn't speak any language I know. It was a team of Ukrainians, with names like Sergei and Vladimir. They weren't high flyers or especially big, fast or quick, but they were excellent ball players in great shape. Their biggest man was 6'11", but he was only 209 lbs, so they were lacking size and strength. But they were a "TEAM" and they could shoot!!! As they walked on the court, I suspected they would be good shooters, and I was right. I'm aware that European teams shoot better than our guys do. They must get better coaching in the skill, and I imagine shooting outside jumpers and free throws well is a high priority and gets a lot of practice time and attention (quality time), unlike in this country. For this team, everyone was above average ("average" as in the American system) as a shooter and about half of the team were excellent shooters. I didn't see any of the "no way" kind of shooting that many of the American players have developed (a"wing-and-a-prayer" shooting, shoot and hope). Against a middle-level team of ex-college players and maybe some with experience in Europe, the Ukrainians jumped off to a 30-15 advantage and led all the way. They always had, like arrows in a quiver, the outside shot, both 2's and 3's, and great free throwing. In the last quarter, when the American team put on feverish pressure trying to come back and win, the green-and-gold were always able to pull off a clutch jumper or fast break and, when fouled, made 85-90% of their free throws. Their point guard, an excellent player, floor leader, penetrator, fast breaker and shooter, got 33 points! I don't know if they won any more games. I saw that they lost by a wide margin to one or two of the talent-laden NBA teams. But I feel they could hold their own with most of the other teams there. It was very enjoyable to watch this game,
with beautiful "team" aspects both on offense and defense.
And, of course, beautiful shooting is a joy to see! This is
how the game could be played again in this country. If a team
could have both the athleticism and great shooting, they would
be unstoppable. If we can reverse the downward trend in shooting
we've had for 20-25 years, American basketball will again be
revered for more than just great athletes. If this exists, it's a big problem because the players are not open to learning. What does it take to "coachable?" It takes a kind of "surrender" to a teacher or coach. By surrender, I don't mean giving up. I mean it in a positive way: Letting go of your need to be in control of every situation, surrendering your will a little so someone else can instruct or coach you. A person on a path of Mastery (the highest level of learning) has to be coachable. In his wonderful book, "Mastery," George Leonard talks about a person being on the path of mastery when she or he "loves the path" and "loves practice." Practice is how mastery is attained, and if you can come to love the practice, it makes the whole thing enjoyable, not just the high results. Practice has to come from excellent instruction, of course, to make a difference. Mastery doesn't happen in a linear, always upward, fashion. There are highs and lows, breakthroughs and breakdowns. There may be long periods of what are called "plateaus," where nothing seems to be changing. You have to endure them, because they are the prelude to more breakthroughs. If every breakdown upsets you, then you won't stay on the path long. If you love the path, you know that they are part of the process. To learn to shoot requires some real learning and lots of repetitions, with awareness. It's going to involve retraining yourself to shift from shooting one way to learning a new, more effective way. If you're not open to change, the old shot will continue to be the default and will hang around forever. It takes a bit of humility to admit that you don't have all the answers and maybe someone else does and can teach it to you. If you find a great teacher (coach), it's relatively easy to surrender to her or him because you just "know" the the person has something you want. It might be the way she or he walks, or talks, or demonstrates the skill or art being offered. An important part of this is to ASK for coaching. I wish I had known this much earlier in my life. There were so many things I just faked (or stayed obviously ignorant). But no one had ever taught me how to ask for help with things. We all, at any age, can use the help of others. You just can't have enough experience to know everything. But somehow we get this notion that we should know things, and that it's a sign of weakness to ask for help. I know now how bankrupt that idea is. Those who ask questions and ask for help get answers and learn how to do things and grow and develop much quicker. Those who say nothing and avoid asking for coaching get only what they have and learn slowly, if at all. It's like going to a potluck picnic but refusing to share your lunch with others. All you get is what you brought. But if you give your contribution away and open to the sharing process, you will be rewarded with countless riches in the form of foods, far beyond what you could have cooked and brought yourself. Life can be lived like this. I'm offering something very powerful in the way of shooting. I get remarkable confirmations of this. It's just something that I've known and, more recently, perfected that I can share with players and coaches who are open. If shooting interests you, hang out with me via my website or via the video or a shooting clinic or coaches' training. Send me your questions and keep me informed of your progress. Ask to be coached. People love to be asked for help. Sometime in the near future, I will offer more in-depth coaching via the website, using photos, video clips, audio, discussion forums, etc. Read my articles and newsletters, like
this one. I'm intending to impart some of what I know to you
in written form. The major part of what I offer has to be physically
experienced, but words can give us "understandings,"
which can open doors, and then you can start to coach yourself.
There's stuff I know that you don't know, and if/when you know
what I do, your shooting will be forever changed. And all it
takes is some humility and curiosity, realizing that you need
some help (or at least that you are open to new ways of looking
at things). A. I don't know who first used that quote... but I feel it's the kind of statement that can screw up a lot of kids! If they think they have to be perfect all the time, it disallows for experimentation and play. Nobody likes to fail. This idea makes practice much too serious. If we can only learn from perfect practice, then learning is going to be a very slow process because we can't be perfect all the time, and especially not as beginners. Few of us master anything enough to be perfect much of the time. Perfection is a very special thing. Most practice is imperfect! It has to be, until you really learn the skill to a high level. BUT THERE'S GOOD NEWS! The good news is that WE LEARN FROM EVERYTHING -- perfect or imperfect -- if we're paying attention!!! In fact, we can probably learn more from failure than from perfection. Failure teaches us what doesn't work ... too far left, too far right, arm pulling back, a tense wrist, hand jerking to the side, etc. A perfect stroke means you did everything just right that time. If you pay attention to the motion, you'll learn what works and it can be powerful, but more typically, I think, we become mesmerized by the beautiful shot and awareness and feel drop off. The pain of missed shots might give us the incentive we need to learn to pay attention to what actually happened. A much healthier approach to learning is to welcome mistakes and failures and learn from them. You don't want to repeat them longer than you have to, but they are a natural part of growth and development. If you're not paying attention to your mistakes, you're doomed to repeat them. Many kids these days are so intent on being extraordinary (the Hero, the Star, the Top Gun) that they're unwilling to be ordinary. They're unwilling to pay the price of practice that's necessary in order to master anything. If they think they have to be perfect all the time, and that's not happening, why try? They end up swinging for the home run or shooting 3 Pointers all the time, hoping for a miracle. And, in the process, they develop bad habits and end up stunting their growth. And what you see in today's game is the result ... poor fundamentals, awful shooting, sloppy games, poor execution of picks and screens, no one blocking out, missed free throws to lose games, etc. For those of you who play golf, you can see a parallel there: golfers who go to the driving range to "practice" but then reach for their driver first, taking big swings and hoping for heroic tee shots. (I know because I "resemble that remark" when it comes to the driver.) It's much more effective practice to start with small swings with the wedge and move gradually up to longer, more challenging clubs to hit. Invite your kids to learn to shoot close in to the basket, 5-10 feet, and only move back when they can make them consistently. And tell them to welcome mistakes -- they're part of the process! (Please note: If by "Perfect Practice" you mean "perfect awareness" of experience and patience, etc. and the terrific learning that comes from such awareness, then we mean the same thing. What I want to get across is that "perfect" anything is difficult to achieve and maintain.) -------------------- A. Before I start, may I suggest you read the article I wrote for the BB Highway Website, called "Taking the Lid Off the Basket: Challenging Conventional Shooting Wisdom." Here's a direct link to it on the BBHwy site: Taking the Lid Off. In that article, I suggest that shooting at the top of the jump (or peak) is not the best way to shoot, unless you're a big man jumping strongly near the basket to shoot over someone (the kind of shot that Rasheed Wallace is so good at). Even then, you should shoot near the top on the way up (as Rasheed does), not absolutely at the top, so you still have some of the stabilizing effect of the strong leg power. Shooting on the way down is very ineffective, as the energy you need to shoot from is moving in the wrong direction. AWARENESS IS THE KEY! First, as with all my coaching, Awareness is the key! To help your player change from shooting on the way down to shooting on the way up (or near the top of the jump, for close-in shots), have him increase his awareness of what he does. Does he "know" he shoots on the way down? He won't truly be able to make a change until he knows physically (from experience) what he is doing now. If he only knows it because you've told him, then there will be little learning. Instead he must start feeling it. Ask him to report to you whether it's happening. And then find a way to measure it. A NUMBER SYSTEM FOR UPWARD ENERGY Set up a system for him to communicate to you what he feels (and sees) is happening. You might use a scale of 0-to-5 to measure the amount of upward energy "in" the shot. Establish that shooting at the top of the jump is "0." If he shoots on the way up, it's a "positive" number from +5 max to +1 or +1/2. If he shoots on the way down, then it's a negative number. The more downward he's falling when he shoots, the bigger the negative #. A little past the peak is a "-1". If a little later than that, it's "-2," etc. Ask him to rate it from 0 to -5, "-5" being the maximum. (He'll never reach a "-5," it's that ridiculous and physically illogical.) Have an initial goal of "0", shooting at the peak of the jump, but later consider having him experiment with shooting on the way up. On that scale, +5 can be the earliest possible, very early in the jumping motion, and +4 or +3, etc. are later, and +1 would be just before the peak. As he gets familiar with what he's doing, he will choose to shoot earlier and earlier, maybe even getting to +5, which I recommend for outside shots, and +3, +2 or +1 for close-in shots. His experience will start to coach him to the most effective way to shoot. Awareness is always the answer. For yourself and/or with a team, turn learning how to do the skill of shooting into a JOYFUL EXPLORATION. If you are too attached to making shots and abhor misses, then it will become and remain, always, an exercise in "Performance." I see a lot of adult players in the NBA who never seem to get any better at shooting. They shoot and shoot and shoot and their free throw performances stay the same year after year. Only a small number of guys out of the 400 or so in the league seem to be improving. As a kid, don't let that happen to you. Don't just keep doing the same things over and over hoping for different results. (That's a definition of "insanity," I've heard.) Instead, really pay attention to how you shoot and where the ball lands, how it flies through the air. Watch the height and spin. Try different things and you'll learn. Exaggerate, too! That's very valuable. If your shots seem to be pretty flat, see how high you can shoot. Go so high it gets ridiculous. Then when you stop trying to go high, you'll see your remarkable body has learned something about height and how to get it and control it. Learning something new requires misses
and mistakes. If you must always perform well to "look
good" (or wish for it), then experimentation is not allowed,
misses are looked down on, and learning is greatly interfered
with. Playing too many games does that to you, too. Games are
mostly about performance. Winning is usually the goal in games,
not to learn something. If that's all you do over a summer,
then most of the crucial learning you need to grow to the next
level is minimized. As I've said before, the game lacks the
old "Playground" mentality, where kids just showed
up at local parks and played pick-up games and practiced, with
different ages intermixing. In my section of Minneapolis when
I was in high school in the 50's, teams that were born at two
parks about 5 miles apart won three straight state championships. -- GET THE VIDEO -- SPONSOR OR HELP ORGANIZE CLINICS AND
CAMPS -- LEARN TO COACH THE METHOD I'm interested in training coaches to coach this method. I started the process in Indiana this summer with 8 or 10 coaches. Over 40 coaches have expressed interest in this already, and I'm working to develop a program to do it. If it interests you, contact me and we'll start. -- A PACKAGE FOR COLLEGES I feel I can improve an average team's shooting abilities in the range of 20-40%, perhaps more, if the coaching is fully received and applied. The bottom line is that you'll have a team
that is developing shooting at a high rate plus coaches who know
how to coach the skill and sustain each player's development.
I'll be able to come in later for tune-ups, if need be, and
I can also do coaching remotely through the medium of video.
If you're tired of losing games due to poor shooting, check
this out. In one visit I'll prove this will work, and we can
go from there. Here are direct hyperlinks to specific pages on my Swish22 website: For the Home
Page I invite you to bookmark my Website (Swish22) Please tell others about my site and my
video. Send them See my Website for the latest news about
Clinics, Camps and If you'd like to organize some clinics
or camps with me, call or Here's a direct link to the Clinics
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