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ATTENTION: You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. If you'd like to remove yourself from this mailing list, please see the instructions at the end of this newsletter. Our subscriber list is NOT made available to other companies or individuals. We value every subscriber and respect your privacy. PLEASE excuse the advertisement paragraph
you'll see at the top of this Newsletter. Because I have a "free"
service with the Mail List company (Topica), they insert that
ad to help them pay for the service. Sorry for the little commercialism. 1. Welcome from the Coach ------------------------------------------------------------ I don't intend to dwell very much on what's wrong with shooting in the great game of basketball, preferring to talk about the positive shift that's possible. But Saturday night's game (May 1) between the Lakers and the Spurs had me and probably all of us groaning. I'm talking about the shooting, and, in particular, the free throw shooting of Shaq O'Neal and Tim Duncan. In the first half Shaq had something like 2 for 9 and Tim made 1 of 6. They finished up 3 for 13 (23%) and 4 for 11 (36%), respectively!!! Combine the stats and you get 7 for 24, 29%! You'd think these were threes, not free throws. It's just pretty unbelievable that these two remarkable athletes, with all the practice time they put in on a basketball court and all the coaching that's available to them, could perform so abysmally. I've offered my coaching to both of them in various ways. So, probably, has every other real or imaginary "Shooting Coach" in the country. I'm not holding my breath. If any of you readers has a direct connection to either of these great athletes and they trust you, please pass on my name and give me whatever credibility you can. I could help them quickly and painlessly. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------ I like this little article in Coach Glenn Wilkes' April 2004 Newsletter (Basketball's Best: http://www.basketballsbest.com). It's aligned with the thinking and practices of the Positive Coaching Alliance (http://www.positivecoach.org). (Written by Tony Dicicco, from "CATCH THEM BEING GOOD," Penguin Books) "* But coaching doesn't mean finding
constant fault. Simply pointing out errors isn't coaching. "* We are not going to correct everything
we see that's wrong, which is the classic coaching "* It's simply bad coaching to belittle
or overly criticize a player in public or in private. You "* Once you start celebrating a good
play, not only will you make the individual player feel ------------------------------------------------------------ For Coaches: Before you jump on the bandwagon of "Repetitions are Everything" and ask your kids to join a 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 or 8,000 Shots "Club" this summer, may I suggest an alternative? (I even heard of one coach who had an 11,000 shot program.) How about a SHOOTING-WITH-AWARENESS CLUB? From my experience, it's the "quality" of the shooting time that matters more than the "quantity." We learn by awareness of differences much more than rote repetitions. Instead of requiring that kids shoot tons of shots, maybe there's a different way to approach it that will increase "learning." It sounds good to ask (or require) kids to shoot a set number of shots per week or month, and have them record it, keep a log, etc. It seems to be an effective strategy, and some learning will happen just by the huge number of repetitions. It's how a lot of us learned things, but it's a slow way, and oftentimes does not result in the shifts in performance we want. How many people go through their tennis lives with a tentative, ineffective backhand, even though they've hit thousands of backhands? How many golfers spend time at the practice range and don't get any better. The problem with a regimen of large numbers is that it can lead to "unconscious" practice. The young girl or boy will obey and think it's helping, but maybe it isn't helping as much as it could. Here are some suggestions of coaching advice that could make a huge difference in learning to shoot more effectively: Ask your kids to spend a certain amount of time on a court consistently doing the following exercises in awareness (maybe a few of these each time they shoot). Copy the ones that appeal to you and write them up or print them out and give them as handouts. A. HEIGHT From my experience, most shots are flat, in the 6" to 18" range above the rim. Players often tell me they think their shots are "medium" high when they only get 1 1/2' above the rim. If they get to 3' above, they think that's a really "high" shot. High is a relative term, but could probably be considered in the range of 5', 6', 8' above the rim. There is a huge space above the basket to play with. A great exercise is to see how high you can shoot and still make shots or come close. This stretches the players' experiences and expands their vision and capability. B. USE OF LEG POWER VS. UPPER BODY POWER C. OBSERVE THE RELEASE AND FOLLOW THROUGH What does your hand do as you shoot? Are the wrist and hand relaxed or tight? Does the hand stay in direct line with the target? ...or does it move to the side or up? Is it twisting or clenching as you shoot? Is there a feeling of "Letting Go" and Freedom when you shoot, or are you always controlling things and tensing your arm and hand? D. SPIN E. HOW DO YOU CONTROL DISTANCE? F. ACCURACY If you hit the left side of the rim with the center of the ball, your shot was ~9" off to the left. It's a good experience to stand under the basket (near out of bounds) and watch balls from other players come into the basket. Observe if they are dead center or off line, and by how much. You'll get a sense of how "big" that basket really is, especially to high-arching shots. G. DISTANCE Play with it. You might even "try" to hit the back rim, thus aiming to be ~9" long, and see what happens. Aim to hit the front rim. Your body will surprise you, once you start to trust it. You can even intend to brush the inside right or left of the rim by moving your vision 4" right or 4" left. (A coach I worked with in Iowa told me he got really good at hitting different parts of the rim to create rebounds for specific players. The only problem was that, when he played in games himself, he forgot to aim for the center of the basket and had to retrain himself.) Once you have an idea of your direction and distance and then start to play with it, your control of ball flight will improve. If all you notice is if you made the shot or not, the body does not get the feedback it needs to develop subtle control. H. CONFIDENCE Try unconditional confidence (trust): As you go to shoot, can you JUST TRUST that you're going to do your best and not interfere with things? Doubt and Fear create the problems that you don't want -- tension, hesitancy, awkward physical motion, a tentative finish to the shot. Can you be calm, and just see the basket, intend for the shot to go in, and trust your body to make it happen? I. NON-JUDGMENTAL FEEDBACK ---------------------------------------------------------- With attention and patience and accurate, non-judgmental feedback of what's happening, the kids will start to figure things out for themselves. A good coach can then introduce the "distinctions" that matter in shooting and the kids will learn like crazy. With this kind of awareness, tremendous learning is possible. Within this framework of practice, then"quantity" of repetitions is necessary to cement the learning and develop trust. How many repetitions, I can't say. But I do know learning can happen fast. Hundreds of shots, a thousand, more? Who really knows? It depends on the state of awareness of the shooter, as well as her or his intention, commitment, dedication and trust. It might be just ONE shot or TEN and you've made a huge change in how you shoot. I'd love your feedback on this Quality vs. Quantity suggestion. Do any of you do that now, emphasizing awareness more than just raw quantities? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------ "FYI, we just had a tournament this weekend. One of the shots Stephen put up along the baseline went so high, he told me later that he lost sight of the ball while keeping focus on the basket, and waited anxiously for it to come back down . . . dead center! From my view, it looked like the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I think he's starting to believe in the method, just take some work to be more consistent. And he's looking forward to achieving that." -- Bill Lee, California (I liked that image of the ball disappearing from the young boy's sight as he kept his eye on the target and him "waiting anxiously" for it to re-appear, and then seeing it come in ... dead center, Swish! My suggestion is just that, to aim high above the basket, letting the ball come down softly, like a butterfly with sore feet. Don't aim high just to aim high, however. Let it be appropriate, as created by a strong leg and middle body force.) ------------------------------------------------------------ I keep learning things about the way I shoot all the time. A neighbor has a basket on his garage and I go down there several times a week just to shoot and have fun. It's a kind of meditation for me, I guess. And I keep discovering stuff! One thing I've been looking at is the function of my wrist and hand in the shot. In my early understandings of how I shoot, I said that I had a "totally" relaxed wrist and hand. Now I feel that isn't exactly correct. It's the word "totally" that shouldn't be there. My wrist and hand are "basically" relaxed and passive, but they have a job to do before they can totally relax. That job is to keep the ball on the line determined by the arm-straightening action. I discovered this by watching how I shoot right and left handed. With my strong-side right hand, the wrist and hand aren't as relaxed as my left hand was when it did the shooting. And my left handed shot is a bit sloppy when I shoot that way. In looking at that, I saw the wrist and hand are keeping the ball on line. It's a tiny but critical job! Once the ball leaves the hand, then they relax totally and flop forward, still on line. When I do that with my left handed shot, the results improve immediately. The arm motion determines the direction and supplies a constant amount of power to the shot. The pushing action of the arm is what gets the ball on its path to the basket. If that action is in line with the eye and the target, accuracy is much more assured. If you shoot in line with your shoulder or even the ear, it's not exactly on line and a calculation of an angle has to be made each time you shoot. The most accurate shot you can make is if the eye, hand/ball and target are all aligned and you propel the ball exactly on that line. And ... if the wrist and hand don't interfere. ACTIVE WRIST AND HAND -- TWO PROBLEMS TEST IT OUT If you have some interesting discoveries you want to share, send them to me. ------------------------------------------------------------ I'm interested in learning and what are the things that help or inhibit it. Last weekend I was listening to a course on tape I have from a wonderful speech coach named Arthur Joseph. His program is called "Vocal Awareness," and he talks about his passion -- speech and vocal expression -- much as I do about shooting. There are a lot of parallels with respect to relaxation, intention, concentration, trusting yourself, free expression, etc. His description of a progression to Power,
meaning Vocal Power in this case, says it very well: SHOOTING EXCELLENCE, SHOOTING MASTERY THE SWISH METHOD PROVIDES THE KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO TRUST AND LETTING GO Letting Go leads to Freedom, freedom from tension and worry and trying hard to shoot "right." To perform at your best, you need to be relaxed and present. Definitely Letting Go will give you that. One of my mentors, Tim Gallwey, of "The Inner Game of Tennis" fame, called this state "Relaxed Concentration." Freedom is like that. When you're free, you're much more apt to be focused and "in the moment" with your shot and open to discoveries and learning. FINALLY, TO SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE AND, POTENTIALLY,
MASTERY THANKS FOR THE UNDERSTANDING, ARTHUR! ------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO COACH YOUR FRIENDS OR, GASP, YOUR PARENTS! When people buy my shooting video, I suggest something that pleasantly shocks them. I suggest that their kids can coach them in shooting. What 12 or 14 year old wouldn't love to be able to coach mom or dad in something? Usually, of course, it's the other way around, the parents teaching the kids. But if you take something like shooting a basketball, you are probably more skilled than your parents are, especially as you play more and more (and they sit and watch you more and more). This sounds preposterous, I'm sure. How can a young player coach someone else in something that is being learned? My answer to that is that you will be surprised what you can coach. THE BEST COACHING IS ASKING QUESTIONS! When you know how to do something to some level of competence and someone else asks you to help her or him, here's what you can do. (You don't have to be an expert; you just have to know a few key things.) (1) First, they have to want to be coached! Make sure they are receptive to the idea. Don't talk them into it. Make it clear they are "asking" for help. Then be clear on what it is they want to be coached in, and then ONLY COACH THAT. Do not try to coach them on something they haven't asked to be coached in. People don't like to be coached when it is "uninvited." In this example the subject is "shooting," and it's assumed you can shoot pretty well and you know how you do what you do. (If you have my video, you will really know what works with shooting, but even if you don't have the video, if you shoot fairly well -- or have any other skill that you do well -- that's enough to get started.) (2) Secondly determine how long the person wants to be coached. Don't leave it "open ended," meaning you have (or think you have) permission to coach her or him forever. Set a period (or a series of periods) of 1/2 hour, or an hour, or whatever, and then stick to that. Here's how it could happen if you have the video: The idea is to watch the video together, and then for the parents to pretend they know nothing about shooting and let their child(ren), YOU, lead the coaching. If the parent is already a good shooter, then ask her or him to use the opposite (weak) hand so she or he is in the role of a beginner. This coaching is possible because the method is so simple and natural and it gets results so quickly. If you don't have the video yet, then you can try this if you know more about shooting than your parents. Ask them if you can "experiment" with coaching them in shooting. If they agree, and you have a period of time set up, then go for it. And here's what to do: COACH ONE ASPECT AT A TIME, LIKE HEIGHT Before you start, get in touch with how YOU shoot relative to height, if you don't already know. Let's say you shoot medium high to high, and you want to help your dad or mom learn to shoot that way. The key, as I said above, is that once you have the lesson set up and the action to be coached is determined, then all you really need do is ask questions. An occasional demonstration can also help dramatically, just so it enhances their awareness of what's possible for them. Step 1: Set up the parameters and a method of communication Once you have the focus of the lesson determined, then demonstrate a few shots and ask what she or he sees in terms of height in your shots. Find a way for them to rate how high each shot is (the bottom of the ball relative to the rim at the highest point in the ball flight). For this example, we'll use a physical scale... so many feet above the rim. Step 2: Then get them in action and and ask them to report what they see and feel In this step, you just ask them to shoot and report to you exactly what happened, no more, no less! With the scale you've set up, they should fairly quickly be able to report that a shot was 1' above the rim at the highest point, for example, or 6" or 2 1/2''. Don't think you know the answer. Don't think you know how high they "should" shoot. Stress to your "student" at this time that this is a mutual discovery process. You and they are both exploring this, and the goal is learning about height and how it's created and how it affects a basketball shot. After they report, ask them to shoot again and report again what happened. Do this simple process over and over. Their smart bodies will start to try different ways to get power. From that they'll learn about height and how to control it. Step 3: Don't interfere! They'll do the learning! DON'T TELL THEM WHAT TO DO! MINIMIZE JUDGMENTS, YOURS AND THEIRS YOU CAN COACH ANYTHING THIS WAY TEACH AWARENESS AND YOU CAN'T MESS IT UP Curiosity, exploration, discovery, openness,
not knowing. These are the qualities of a Learner. Invite your
parents to examine this stuff with you and not know the outcome.
What will happen is incredible learning and joy. And they'll
call you a wonderful coach! I invite you to bookmark my Website so you can go there easily to catch my latest 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Two more 4-hour shooting Clinics are planned
for Eastside Preparatory School in East Palo Alto. Open to ages 11 and above (younger with special permission). For the details, prices, how to enroll and a PDF you can download, go to this page: Clinics ------------------------------ For the details, prices, how to enroll and a PDF you can download, go to this page: Clinics ------------------------------ A Coaches' Training and three players' clinics at Matilija Jr. High School in Ojai Coaches' Training: Players' Clinics, open to ages 11 and above
(younger with special permission): ...Sunday, May 9 For the details, prices, how to enroll and a PDF you can download, go to this page: Clinics ------------------------------ One 4-hour players' clinic at Duarte High
School For the details, prices, how to enroll and a PDF you can download, go to this page: Clinics ------------------------------ One 4-hour players' clinic at the Westchester
Recreation Center For the details, prices, how to enroll
and a PDF you can download, go to this page: Clinics
------------------------------ Three players' clinics at the Ballard Community Center, Seattle Tuesday, June 22: Wednesday, June 23: For the details, prices, how to enroll
and a PDF you can download (as soon as it's completed), go to
this page: Clinics
------------------------------ · Spokane, Washington: Possibly
June 24th If you'd like to organize some shooting
clinics or camps, contact me. I'll be doing some sessions around
the country this year. I'll also be scheduling Coaches' Trainings
at each stop as much as possible, too. Stay in touch for them. To SUBSCRIBE to this Newsletter, click
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