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and respect your privacy. 1. Welcome from the Coach Two new occurrences have happened to help "Forward" the Swish movement! A new article has just come out in the San Francisco Chronicle (the second by Scott Ostler, a top sports journalist), and we've digitized the six minutes of "Bonus" shooting clips that were added to the Swish video and DVD and given access to them from the Swish website. 1) Scott and I had been communicating for a few weeks about a possible story line he had about the Golden State Warriors' shooting ability and why they can't shoot. They were, and probably still are, the "worst shooting team in the NBA." He had the idea of having me give each player a Report Card on how he shoots and what could be done to improve his stroke. The article came out in the Jan. 17th issue of the paper. Here's the URL to the article, "This doc could give the Warriors a shot" Here's the URL to Scott's first article
from Oct. 23rd, 2003, "Jedi
of the jumper could teach LeBron" 2) NEW -- FLASH video technology added to website! "Flash" is a relatively new technology that permits on-line viewing of video clips in quite good definition. We've just recently digitized into Flash format the special shooting clips that appear at the end of the Swish DVD and revised video. These six minutes were added last year to the original 51-minute Swish video. They reveal just how "simple and powerful" the Swish Method is. They show twenty different players from Indiana, Chicago and California shooting "lights out," making swish after swish after swish. To view them, you need to have broadband
(DSL, high-speed cable, etc.), otherwise it will take too long
to run. You can try to view them with dial-up, if you have the
correct "Flash" software, but it's mostly long download
times and then a few seconds at a time of the clips. One mother/coach wrote to me to say, after viewing the Flash clips, "I can't believe shooting can be that easy!" A dad said the clips made the Method much more "encouraging" to his daughter. Here's where to access the clips: Swish video clips
page When you're watching games or practice and want to observe shooting technique and/or try to spot the better shooters, my suggestion is to stay "with" the shooter and the Follow Through, rather than watch the flight of the ball. If you watch the ball, you won't learn anything more than how high the shot was and whether or not it went in, maybe something about spin. But if you watch the shooter, you can learn a lot more. The actions the shooter made can be seen in the post-shot motion of the arm, wrist and hand. If the player short-armed it, you can see the arm stop short of full extension. If the player "wristed" the shot (wrist flip), you'll see that the wrist and hand are tight. If the shot was a throw, you'll see the whole shoulder-arm-hand motion that supports that. ON TV NEED SLOW MOTION You may see other things, too, like the arm moving up or down or left or right in the Follow Throw. You can "just see" the fear and doubt sometimes. How players make some of the shots when these "flaws" are occurring is amazing. I feel it's a testimony to the power of the human will. Players just want it so badly or intend for it so strongly that imperfect technique can still work ... sometimes, for a while. Eventually it will "get" them, but at times it seems to work. CAN TELL IF THE SHOT IS GOING IN OR NOT Something I thought about years ago is the idea of "confidence" when it comes to a skill like shooting. I had the kind of history where my confidence slowly developed and reached a very high level by the time I was a senior in high school. The more shots I made the more minutes I played, and the more I played the better I shot, and the better I shot the more I played, etc. etc., all the way to the State Championship. You could call it an upward spiral of success. I was lucky to have that in my life. I imagine that many kids have the opposite history. They miss a shot or two and then either they, themselves, or the coach get down on them and confidence goes south. Then, with reduced confidence, the performance suffers, and the downward cycle continues. "DESIGNATED SHOOTER" TIME The idea is that for a set period of time, one minute or two or whatever, you allow each member of the team to be THE SHOOTER. The whole team movement for that X period of time is designed to get shots for that one player to shoot (probably stay half court and run plays over and over to make it more efficient. The defense is told NOT to make any adjustments and let that player shoot with minimal interference. FAILURE DOESN'T EXIST! MAKE IT JOYFUL Do this on a regular basis, maybe every day for 5-10 minutes (several players each day). I'll bet the results will astound you! To me, the biggest barriers to learning and successful performing (and fun) are in our own heads. We call them Doubt, and Fear. One of my mentors, Tim Gallwey, called this "The Inner Game," the game you play against yourself. Negative self image can be deep and take a long time to reverse, but maybe it will self-destruct fairly quickly once freedom and joy appear. Just knowing that the coaches and teammates are allowing failure and play and experimentation will open up doors to new possibilities. TRY THIS AND LET ME KNOW WHAT HAPPENS Our souls don't want to live in doubt and
fear. Given a chance, effective performance for all of your
players is possible, maybe even extraordinary performance. At
least everyone will have a lot more fun!!! I just got this heart-warming (to me) email about my Newsletters. I write this stuff pretty easily. It just flows when I start to type. Sometimes it feels pretty good (I'm from the Midwest -- "pretty good" translates to extremely good and maybe even "great"). Other times I can feel like I'm trying to write something of interest, emphasis on the "trying." I rarely know how it's received, though I can tell by the number of subscriptions (~3,700 now) that it's having some impact. "Tom, I just wanted to e-mail you and let know that I read your newsletter every month. I really enjoy it and learning something new from it. I have wanted to order your Swish video for sometime now but have never had the money to buy it since I am paying for college. Hopefully one day I will be able to have enough money to order it and learn more about shooting. However, your newsletters still help a lot. "I really enjoy reading your Kids Korner articles. Even though I am not a kid (I am currently a Senior in College) I still learn something from it. This past month's issue was very helpful and reminded me that we need to be students of our bodies so that we can fix our mistakes and work towards perfection so we can not only be better basketball players but better people. Thank you for all the encouragement I have gotten from you through your newsletters. They have been a blessing." Sincerely, J. Hall Editor's note: I like that "students of our bodies" line. Well said! ------------------------------------------------------------ SEEKING PERFECTION IN THE RELEASE What I noticed the last couple of times is what I'll call "Seeking Perfection." By that I mean that my actions can sometimes be viewed as approaching perfection. When I drain several shots in a row, effortlessly, absolutely dead center, swish, it's a little view of how amazing a body can perform. It'll never be completely perfect, as perfection is a very special word. We could maybe say that "God is perfect," but humans are "imperfect" (at least I am, by my experience). We can have moments of perfect execution or perfect expression, but we will forever interfere with that possibility due to our thoughts, our fears and doubts, our emotions, our programming ... our "humanness." But we can "seek" it, can't we? OBSERVE HOW YOU SHOOT That's because the human body is a terrific Learning Machine. We're built for learning. Our brain, body and nervous system function as an amazing awareness-feedback system, if we're awake and aware. If you see that the ball went to the right, the body will make a correction the next time. (Note this correction will occur only if sending the ball straight is something important to you, something you "care" about. If you don't care, then the body will not be in a mode of correction and learning. It might just be having "fun" and playing.) As you observe your actions and the results, a natural learning is engaged. Even if you don't know where you're going, what technique you wish to change to (the Swish Method is an example of a goal), the body will improvise and improve ... to a point. It's fun, it's exciting. Seeing your body perform anything well, from bowling strikes and getting base hits to serving an ace in tennis or even throwing a rolled up piece of paper into a waste basket, is enjoyable. I feel it feeds the ego, it makes us feel better about ourselves and our potential. If we can't do things well and don't get any better, then we can feel we're not able, not talented, not this or that. So we play games to test ourselves and to grow. SHOOT FOR PERFECTION If you know of a great technique of shooting, then your learning and development will be even more focused. It helps if you're calm and a little detached. If you make a shot, don't get so excited it throws off the next shot. If you miss badly, don't get discouraged. GIVE PRECISE FEEDBACK YOU CAN TELL BY WATCHING WHERE IT HITS CAN YOU BE DETACHED? LET ME KNOW IF YOU DO THIS P.S. Who reads my KIDS' KORNERS? Along that same line of communication to me, I wonder if what I say here is read by many kids. If you read this section, please email me and tell me what you think of it. Am I helping any of you out there understand anything? Thanks much! ------------------------------------------------------------ I invite you to bookmark my Website (http://www.swish22.com) so you can go there easily to catch my latest comments on shooting. You can read about my DVD/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 the new "Flash" clips, plus 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 DVD and video. Forward the newsletter to them and suggest they read it and the many archived issues. The Dec. '04 issue indexes the prior 67 issues by Category, so it's easier to jump around and read what interests you from that Newsletter. Send your friends the URL (http://www.swish22.com) and let them know there's a proven method for powerful shooting. This great game of ours deserves a Renaissance in shooting! Some direct links to my webpage: ------------------------------------------------------------ Tom will be doing some travel this spring, summer and fall for clinics and camps. If you might wish to have Tom do something in your area, contact him: Email: Tom@swish22.com He will send you the Guidelines for his travel. For the latest news about all Clinics, Camps and Coaches' Trainings, go to the Clinics page. If you'd like to organize some shooting
clinics or camps later, contact me. To SUBSCRIBE to this Newsletter, click
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