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and respect your privacy. 1. Welcome from the Coach His point of view is that players either ARE shooters or they AREN'T, and if you're not blessed with the shooting gene, there's no hope for you. That players can't learn to break through that bad/good barrier. I respectfully wish to differ. Maybe the way he teaches shooting and the way he's seen it taught doesn't work, but my method definitely does work. Anyone can learn to be a pretty good spot-up shooter, and anyone can get her or his free throw percentage up to 75% at least. There are just some things that this and a lot of coaches aren't seeing. It's possible to maximize the use of bigger muscles and minimize the use of the less reliable, smaller muscles. It's possible to have a stance that's comfortable and natural and allows for easy alignment of eye, hand/ball and target. It's possible to have a release motion that's accurate, consistent and repeatable. If you shoot high and quick, the target gets bigger and the big muscles of the body stabilize the shot. When you discover that way to shoot, anyone and everyone starts to improve. Practice starts to make sense and leads to something. Teaching players to coach themselves through awareness and feedback leads to them being empowered to observe and correct their own shooting. Shooting has become such a Lost Art that
people have given up hope. In my clinics I ask the kids how
many have heard the term "Pure Shooter." Very few
raise their hands. I guess it's because we have so few pure
shooters out there so the name isn't used very much anymore.
My intention is to help change that. I will welcome your input
and feedback as we do this together. An article was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer Nov. 8th, that merits some attention. Sports writer Stephen A. Smith published the following after an interview with Rick Carlisle, coach of the Indiana Pacers: "Carlisle: Bigger rim would help scoring" I don't know if Rick was just playing with the sports writers on this, but there's a good chance he was. His idea is to increase the diameter of the rim by 1", an increase of roughly 5%. In his paragraph revealing that idea, he says, "At the very least, it should be explored. There's a problem with scoring in this league and everyone knows it, but no solution has been heard. In my mind, this is a good place to start. I certainly haven't heard anything else as a potential remedy." A 5% increase in diameter wouldn't make that much difference with the bricks that are being thrown at it now. Maybe if we increased it 6" or even a foot, yes. The problem is that this is not getting at the root of the problem: poor learning, ineffective coaching, focus on dunking and spin moves rather than free throws and mid-range jumpers, practice that doesn't make a difference, etc. Yes, the defenses are getting tougher and tougher as referees allow more physical stuff, but that doesn't excuse the missed wide-open J's and the poor free throw shooting you see at every level. What practice there is is often on stuff that doesn't work: If you constantly try to square up and get your elbow under the ball and wrist flip the ball at the top of the jump, you get a stance that's not supportive of a one-handed motion, a setting of the ball that rotates the hand off the target, and a ball flight that is hot, flat and variable. It's as simple as that. The way that most players are practicing is counter-productive! My Method offers a "solution!"
This is a "potential remedy." But it's going to take
some work and good coaching to right the ship. I hope you agree
with what I'm saying and offering and help me inspire the Renaissance
that's possible with a proven, simple, natural method that works! Recently I had an email conversation with a mother of a 12 year old Yugoslavian boy who lives in Italy and loves basketball. His mother, Maja, found my website on the Internet and was impressed by what she read. Her emails started out with, "Thanks for sending the video so quickly, we are looking forward to view it. As I can see that you are very interested in feedback from 'your students,' I thought you may be interested to hear why I decided to order your video among all the others (there are over 700 instructional videos at U.S.A. coaches site!). "I love basketball, but all I know about it is from some school playing lots of years ago and watching clubs and Championship games (European, World, Olympics and NBA, when there is an occasion) - so I am far from being 'an expert' in choosing valid instructional material :) My son is 12 years old and as most of Yugoslavs (we live in Italy but we are from Belgrade), is growing into a real, passionate fan of the game (hoping to become a good player some day :). "During their games I was always confused about how is it possible that they miss over 50% from the free throws line! I kept telling him that at least that one can be learned because the distance is always the same and there is no defense to make it difficult. They should practice more, 'cause in their games, free throws are more often than in 'bigger' games (to lots of them, defense still equals fouling. "But, as their coach is not a very good shooter himself, he was obviously not able to teach them how to do it... "Well, what happened? My son is one of the best shooters in his team, but when it comes to free throws it was always kind of 'let's pray that this one will go into the basket'. Until his last game... In this game he made 100% of his free throws and I noticed that suddenly he had a very high arch (I was not paying attention on arch ever, but this was so different from what he did before that I 'had to notice' the ball flying very high). I paid more attention on arch during the game and noticed that lots of boys (especially the taller ones) have a very low arch and have a lots of problems in getting a ball in the basket. Better shooters (usually the smaller ones) have somewhat higher arch and more precise shooting. "After the game I asked him what happened and he said: 'I don't know...looks like I've got it!' He couldn't explain what exactly he did differently than before, but he said: 'Suddenly it was so easy!' "Then I went to Internet to try to learn more and to find some explanations, 'cause I wanted to find a way for him to understand and remember what was he doing. Among all the sites I've found, yours was the only one that explained the exact thing that I saw happening on my son's last game. So, I already have the confidence in your method and really hope it will make an essential difference in my son's shooting ability : ) "One small update, even before the video gets here, regarding his free shots. Last two games he managed to maintain his 'new skill' and as a consequence he started to drive much more to the basket, even when he had three boys in front of him -- looking to get fouled. :))) Of course, he drew lots of fouls ... and made his free shots :). At one point I heard the coach from the other team shouting to his player: 'I've told you, DON'T foul HIM!!!' You can imagine what this does for his self confidence!" I replied that her son is lucky to have a mom like her looking out for him... Her reply: "Well...I am not sure HE thinks so :))) He always says that other moms tell their sons how 'great' they did in the game, while I use to tell him what I didn't like as well... Actually, he is quite angry with me these days, 'cause after last game, when I noticed that he was selfish twice and instead of passing the ball went for the shot, I told him that basketball is team sport and if he thinks he should be a star and show-off, he'd better train for tennis! I must admit that he usually doesn't act like this, but I wanted him to think about it... "By the way, I have to tell you that I liked very, very much your, I think September 1999, Newsletter - the one in which you talk about winning and losing and about the life itself. I think THAT'S most important... and I hope the game will help my boy understand some very important things about life itself. Thank you for pointing that out, 'cause in our 'competitive' world some basic values are almost forgotten..." I then asked her the following question for her son: "Where did he get the idea, or was it, as you implied, just a 'gift' to him? Did he see something or read something about arch? I'm curious about how he learned this." Her reply: "He told me that several months ago his coach told him that he should try 'to shoot higher,' but he never explained how exactly to do that...so he tried to accomplish that by himself for some time and then forgot about it...(obviously not completely :) "He saw or read nothing about the arch...he has no time whatsoever these days (they will have their tests next week, so all he does is study and go to his trainings). We don't have basketball material around house, and he was not able to go to Internet lately (besides, his English is worse than mine, so I don't know how much will he understand of your newsletters from the archives, that I plan to give to him once he gets his school votes :) "He keeps telling me that 'it just happened,' and the only difference he was able to register (after his last training today where he did 19 of 20 free throws, as I kept insisting that he should try to remember how does it feel) was that he did 'that jumping movement, but without jumping' (so looks like he used his UpForce) and he had his hand 'more relaxed.' He says: 'It looks like my hand does nothing...no effort...I don't know where the force comes from!' That's all he could say..." I wrote her back that her son had a remarkable, self-discovered "Breakthrough." After a suggestion from his coach, but no instruction as to how to do it, he tried for awhile and then gave up. Months later, totally out of the blue, his body did something and he was awake and aware enough to see what happened and learn from it. As more power came from his legs, his arch went higher and his Release muscles (wrist, hand, fingers) could start to relax. As he put it, "It looks like my hand does nothing...no effort...I don't know where the force comes from!" I'm fascinated with how we learn. From the training I've had in coaching, I know learning is related to awareness. The greater the awareness, the greater the learning. In fact, I believe that awareness (kinesthetic feel, sound, and visual observation) is the only thing that teaches us physical things. In this case, a little suggestion lead to a physical experiment (not even consciously performed) that lead to a completely new way of shooting. The young man discovered what I learned many years ago and now coach in my Swish Method. If he weren't "aware" of what happened, the breakthrough might come and go. The coaching in my video will now serve to help him "confirm" what his body learned naturally, thus making it more permanent. Plus the video will give him additional key distinctions that can help him improve even more. I'm indebted to this remarkable Yugoslavian
mother for her determination and hard work to find coaching to
help her son. Editor's note: This first one is interesting because this was what happened in only a few minutes after watching the video. I gave him some more specific instruction since this, but you can see how simple the Method is in how this father describes it. Simplicity is the key! "Tom, Thanks for your prompt shipment of my two packages......received them and they are great. My 14 year old daughter had to help with Jr. college girls tournament and practices , so have had just a few minutes with her in the driveway, but she already has a much better shot. Finally, she has arch in her shot----- she was kinda of shot-putting it very flat and awkward before. She has some touch.......so when she can get your nice motion "burnt in"........she should have a very nice shot indeed. Although she was able before at times to shoot pretty well......7 or 8 out of 10 free throws sometimes..... she told me they recently had her shoot 25 at school practice and she only made 5...(wow-room for improvement!). The problem is no consistency and repeatability like YOU teach. Really enjoyed video. Thanks a bunch !!!" -- L. Loewenstein, Iowa --------------------- This next testimonial came after the second day of a two-half-day camp in St. Louis. Max had been taught the "other" way to shoot by some people he respected, so he resisted opening his stance, not having the elbow under the ball, not wrist-flipping, etc. He almost didn't return to Day 2 because of that. However, he made the choice to return and check it out further. From this note, you can see he made the right choice. The Swish Method is opening his shot to further breakthroughs than he could have had before. It's all due to his being "open" to a different way to shoot. "Hi, this is Max, What worked was
that being open freed my arm up to align my eye with the ball,
making it easier to shoot. The Up Force has helped me get more
arch, but i am starting to jump at the free throw line. Concerning
the clinic i thought that the second day was much better than
the first, because you could put the skills to the test and improve
them in fun game-like situations. The other day, while spending
nine hours in the gym, i made 30 free throws in a row, which
is the best i have ever done. After practice on Tuesday my dad
pointed out that my shot looked a lot like it did when i first
started shooting, open and all the stuff you had taught me again.
He said that i made like all of my shots because of what you
said, but i did that in 2nd and third grade. when i asked him
why i stopped, he said that it was because different coaches
telling me different things like square up and stuff. But overall
i would recommend this clinic to anyone that wants to improve
their shot because it really works, my shooting percentage is
up and my three pointers and free throws are higher than ever!
Thanks for all the great help." I saw my first high school game of the season last night and it wasn't pretty. It was low scoring, the majority of the boys were afraid to shoot from the outside. Those who did mostly missed. The one "shooter" on the team that lost didn't take many shots. (He was the point guard and maybe he doesn't realize that he's the best shooter on the team and they need him to take more shots. I could see that every time he passed up a shot to feed a teammate he was sealing the defeat.) A couple guys on the winning team whom I had worked with shot pretty well, but the free throw percentage was hovering around 50-60% for both teams. Uuuuuuuuuuugly! And in this morning's San Jose paper, I saw stats for a high school game that went into overtime with one team winning 33-31!!! In 37 minutes they couldn't get up to a point-a-minute scoring. Neither team scored over single digits in any period! The box scores for the losers were: 4-4-9-8-6 = 31. The "Winners" were: 5-7-8-5-8 = 33. That must have been an enjoyable game to watch (can you sense the tongue in my cheek?). WHAT CAN BE DONE A HALF HOUR GROUP EXPERIENCE IN SHOOTING First, I introduced myself and told a little of my background. Then I talked about how "simple" shooting can be and gave the main principles of what I coach: THEORY OBSERVATION EXPERIMENT WITH A DIFFERENT WAY The time flew by. There wasn't any time for a discussion and feedback as to what they experienced, but the coach and I could see many of them were shooting better, some remarkably. When I asked for a show of hands how many felt they had learned something and were shooting better, about 75% raised their hands. I told them now to practice this way and "figure it out yourselves." I told them they now KNOW what works, what matters, and with practice and awareness they can coach themselves. If every team in the country did this simple learning progression, even as unguided as it had to be, they would start to shoot better. The players would shoot quicker the higher. They would power the shots more from the stable, powerful big muscles of the legs and middle body and less with the smaller and more "flippy" upper body muscles. Releases would become more predictable. Medium fast backspin would start to occur. Focus on alignment would create more accurate shots. Shots would start to drop and confidence would start to soar. Shooting a basketball is really a simple motion, or at least it CAN be! Once you understand the basic principles I offer, you can start to coach yourselves. That's why you see the amazing testimonials I get. This is not Rocket Science. It's simple Bio-Mechanics. If you do THIS the same way every time, the ball does THAT the same every time. Once you understand what works and pay attention, then what you practice will teach you how to do it more effectively. NEXT VIDEO (Reprint from April 2001 issue #24) WE ALL WANT TO "LOOK GOOD!" From my experience, most people, including kids, of course, think they'll be happy when they perform well at something. I can see it's the "human condition" (one of the ways we are and always will be), always needing approval. We all have it and we'll always have it. I feel it, too. From my coaching of golf, every golfer thinks he or she will be happy when the handicap is down to single digits (the handicap is a measure of how well you play, the lower the number the better, and someone who's handicap is below 10 is a good to very good player). The problem is that if they practice hard, take lessons, play a lot and improve and get down to 8 or 9, then they want it to be even lower, at 3 or 4, perhaps, and when it's 3 or 4, they want it to be even lower. It's sort of a never ending chase. When you start to play better, you just get more challenging playing partners, same frustrations, just a higher level of play. Unless you're a professional, that's about all it means. In shooting, we all want to "look good." Our fragile egos need that. We feel badly if we miss and we feel good if we make it, on almost all shots. In my clinics, I can feel that same "pull." If I miss some shots, I might say to myself, "Uh oh, I'd better start making some. I'm the shooting coach! I should be making all my shots!" The more I think that, the more the pressure I put on myself and the harder it gets, though I know ways to get back on track quickly. FROM LOOKING GOOD TO LEARNING (A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY)! When you practice, see if you can change the game from "Looking Good" to "Learning." Change it from "Did I make it?" to "What did I notice or feel?" From a "performance" issue to an "awareness" (or learning) exercise. Examples of questions in the latter category
would be: LEARNINGANDENJOYMENT What will happen for you is both Learning AND Enjoyment. I say that because whenever we learn, there is always a measure of joy. We love learning new things! A coach of mine often says he thinks it's really one word, "learningandenjoyment!" Your Performance will improve if you learn, so you don't have to worry about that. But if you always strive for performance (How did I do?... Did I make it? Did we win?) and judge yourself as "bad" if you don't do well, your performance will actually decrease in the long run. That's why, to me, too many games contributes to the problem in the game, deteriorating individual skills, including shooting. If it's always "performance," which games are mostly about, you don't have time to practice things and make mistakes, and mistakes are less valued. You can't run plays over and over just for the learning. Games are about how well you do individually and as a team. JUST PLAY AROUND Find time to just practice, experiment, and not mind making mistakes, in fact, expect mistakes, because that's how you learn! You might even miss on purpose to feel what it's like. There's a slogan that goes around and around, "It's not practice that makes perfect, it's 'perfect' practice that makes perfect!" Well, I don't believe in that one. I think it's saying you have to do things right in order to get better (at least that's one interpretation). But you can't do things right in the beginning. You have to make mistakes to figure things out. And the word "perfect" is a very special word, reserved for only the best of the best. Kids can't be expected to practice perfectly. LOVE THE PRACTICE So, my dear young player, keep practicing. Love practice, if you can. It's how you develop. In a wonderful book I've recommended before, "Mastery" by George Leonard, he talks about how mastery involves loving the practice. And loving the inevitable plateaus. If all you care about is getting to the top of the mountain (high performance), then you'll never hang around long enough to learn how to climb. Mastery practice is about the long haul, it's about being in the present, being real, being honest with yourself. And that involves periods of seemingly no development, where the shot just doesn't want to drop. It's like blaming the small shoot of a plant for being immature and not flowering and pulling it up to see what's wrong. It'll never grow that way. If you're impatient for the perfect shot, you might give up at that point. But if you can stay with it, suddenly there will be a leap to a new level, where you start a new plateau. Mastery is like that, a continuing striving for more and more excellent performance, but mostly long periods of no apparent growth. If you judge it as bad or too slow or that "something's wrong" with you, you'll probably switch to some other sport or activity. Hang in there, my dear young friends.
These lessons are Life Lessons. They apply to the bigger picture
of your life, but they also help your basketball skills ... right
now! If you'd like to start on the process of learning how to coach shooting with my Method, please join my Coaches' Mailing List. The list is a quick and easy way for me to communicate to all the coaches at once. As I develop new things and post new articles, coaching ideas, etc., I use this vehicle to let you know. Also, visit and bookmark my "For Coaches" page, as it will have more and more coaching ideas, lesson plans, articles, etc. There's a "Homework" document that can get you started on this path very quickly. To join the List, go to this webpage on my site ("For Coaches" page), scroll down to the "Sign up" section and click "Join List." You'll be prompted as to what to do. Your email address will not be sold or given to anyone else, and you can easily un-subscribe yourself on that same page. If you're having some wonderful results either from working with the Swish video or just from reading my coaching suggestions, lesson plans, etc., please write them up for me to post on the coaches' page for others to see. We can all learn from each other's experiences and insights. ------------------------------------------------------------ For the latest news about Clinics, Camps and Coaches' Trainings across the country, go to the "Clinics" page. I'll be posting the details as soon as they're finalized. In the meantime you can email me if you're interested in attending any of these clinics and camps. Clinics and camps being planned for this fall/winter: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA IN DECEMBER Dec. 14 & 21, two half-day clinics
in East Palo Alto, 1-5PM each day. PLEASE NOTE: Contact me if you're interested and I can
send you more information. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, JANUARY 2004 I'll be doing a few clinics in the L.A.
area the first week in January. Keep in touch with my website
"Clinics"
page for the latest information on them. I invite you to bookmark my Website (http://www.swish22.com) so you can go there easily to catch my latest news and comments on shooting. You can read about my video there (including endorsements, testimonials, reviews and an overview of the video), my coaching, and the many articles on shooting I've written. You can see video clips and archived back issues of this Newsletter and, of course, subscribe, if you're not already getting this on a regular basis. Please tell others about this newsletter,
my site, and my video. Forward the newsletter to them and suggest
they read it and the many archived issues. Send them the URL
(http://www.swish22.com) and let them know there's a proven method
for powerful shooting. To SUBSCRIBE to this Newsletter, click
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