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and respect your privacy. 1. Welcome from the Coach With your help, I intend to shift the game and help players and coaches everywhere re-discover the Lost Art of Shooting. Thank you for reading this and subscribing to it and sharing it with your friends. Tom Nordland There are innumerable examples of disappointing shooting ("disappointing" is a euphemism for "lousy"), more all the time. I could spend the next three years continuing to talk about the failure in this most critical part of the game. But it just hit me recently that it's time to "get off it!" It's time to focus more on what's possible and less on the problems! In one of my recent newsletter articles I talked about how a Conversation FOR something is much more powerful than just talking ABOUT something. When you talk about a subject, it's almost always about the PAST, how you can't do this, or you didn't do this, or they didn't do that, or it's about attitudes you had growing up, or this bad experience or that good experience, sometimes about successes, sometimes about the failures, etc. etc., on and on. It can go on forever, explanations, stories, reasons, excuses, justifications, etc. And it never solves anything. It isn't powerful, that kind of conversation. But a conversation FOR something takes on a whole new dimension! It's about POSSIBILITY, about what you intend to happen, about ideas and practical ways to solve problems, ways to get out of situations that are not working, ways to sustain growth and development. In a word ... it's about the FUTURE! LET'S START A CONVERSATION FOR GREAT SHOOTING! These past 32 issues of the Newsletter have been entirely from my perspective, from my point of view. From here forward let me engage you in a shared discussion and Internet conversation about what's possible! Let's spend more of my writing energy and more of your reading and reflecting energy on what we would like to see happen to help the game of basketball. My focus is going to be in working with and developing both players and coaches at all levels. In youth basketball is where the skills of the game need to be introduced, so that is the most important area, and it's where coaches are the least trained and experienced. We need them to be as skilled as possible in developing their young players, and what better skill to know how to teach and coach than shooting? But coaches at all levels can help their players learn. If a player is motivated and can be coached in the power of awareness and simple observation of what's happening, learning can happen dramatically at any age. COACHING KIDS I will continue to focus in this area to educate and train players at all levels in how to shoot more effectively. This is an area of great joy for me, but it's limited because there's just one of me. I need to develop coaches to see and do what I see and do. I need to multiply my efforts. Players who have purchased my video or attended one of my clinics will have a place to go on my website to be refreshed and inspired. They'll also be able to participate in a Discussion Group on shooting and what's being learned and discovered. It's one thing to be introduced to a new way to do something, but it's another thing to actually take it to the level where it's learned and trusted behavior, the "default" method. I'll be working to develop a structure for people to plug into that will increase the chance of this new method really staying with them and transforming their basketball. COACHING COACHES A major emphasis for me starting this year is to train and empower coaches everywhere to learn how to facilitate the learning and coaching of the great skill of shooting. I intend to train as many coaches as I can using additional Swish videos (one on coaching, for example), a "Coaches" section on my Website with special coaching articles, a Discussion Group on shooting coaching, video clips and video analysis, DVD, and other new technologies. I will also be leading coaches' training sessions both here in California and across the country as I travel. A REVOLUTION I want to lead a revolution in the coaching of shooting! A revolution is possible because the method of learning and coaching this skill I've (re)discovered is not complicated. If it were, I wouldn't think for a moment I could train people without actually being with them in person. But the Method is both simple and natural. Players and coaches can "get" it quickly. And I can coach them more via their own experiences and awarenesses, and less from my own words and examples. Once they understand it and can demonstrate it, they'll see this method is the way the few great shooters in the game shoot. Early and quick confirmation that the Method works makes the whole job easier. DESPERATELY NEEDED The great game of basketball needs this desperately. The games I see in person and on TV are getting very ugly, and they all look the same. The offenses and defenses have evolved into futility. Players running all over, banging into each other. Plays are run and then shots are missed. Low scores. Unsatisfying games. Occasionally we see a fantastic game, but the norm is a parade of missed shots. The slam dunk seems to be the only gratifying thing left to most players at the higher levels. I wish it could be made into a one-point shot. That would go a long way to restoring the value of outside shooting and returning the game to the beauty it used to have. Refereeing seems, to me, to favor the defense these days, allowing hand checking, grabbing, bumping, slapping, and even jumping in front of people to draw fouls. This interferes with the flow of a game and throws teams off their rhythm. The result is ugly basketball, mostly physical contests that reward strength, brute force and individual glory moves over grace and teamwork. I feel picks and screens are a lost art with most teams. There are the exceptions, like the great Princeton teams under Pete Carill and NBA teams like the Boston Celtics of old and the Utah Jazz of recently. However, most players run picks and screens like they're just pretending to get in someone's way, instead of as powerful openings to shooting and scoring. I think this decline in offensive moves is related to the decline in shooting prowess. What's the sense in running great plays, or making the effort to set a great screen, when the shot is missed anyway? But if a team has really good "team" shooting, meaning most of the players are pretty good at putting up their shots, then they become dangerous. Teams like Gonzaga come to mind. This summer I saw an amazing Ukrainian team at the Summer Pro League in Long Beach that had a number of great shooters and they all could fire them up pretty well. They shot over 80% from the line. They weren't quite as gifted and strong physically as some of the American teams (their center was 6'9" but only 210 lbs.), but they were a delight to watch and they won more games than their physical appearance would suggest. I get excited about this "Cause" because I can see what's possible. I can see how every member of a team can be taught the simple shot preparation and shot motion I coach. They can be trained to make a good to high percentage of shots from any spot on the floor within range. Several players from any team will have the extra awareness and drive to become excellent shooters. If that team can then learn effective plays and simple pick & screen motion, jump shots and free throws (set shots, too) will rain down from heaven. They'll be able to score at will, and, when fouled, make 75-95% of their free throws. They'll start to win more games, but, more importantly, the game will become fun again. Players' self esteem and sense of team will skyrocket. When second and third string players can score some baskets, it elevates the joy and sense of team for everyone! And if you're cooking on all cylinders, blowing teams out, the subs will play a lot more minutes! Maybe sportsmanship will be elevated, too, as games will be won more by skill and teamwork than by physical intimidation. WHAT DO YOU NEED? I've got a lot of ideas about how I can convey my Method of shooting to you and train you. I'm working now to develop them. To help that process along, I would like here to ask you to communicate to me (and through me to the whole newsletter family of over 1,250 people) what your thoughts are about the decline in shooting and what's needed. I can supply the coaching methodology, so assume that this simple, powerful way to shoot is available in some form. But tell me what you feel is needed to take what you learn and help make this "revolution" possible. The old way of coaching shooting has to be challenged, for one thing. If a method hasn't really worked to develop shooters, how can we shift away from it and adopt something that does? STEP OUTSIDE THE BOX Surely you've been doing some thinking about how things could be different. What's been happening with regard to shooting hasn't worked for a long time. More of the same instruction is not the answer. A new approach is needed if we are to return the game to the marvelous team sport it used to be, exciting, fast paced, beautiful, inspiring, inviting teamwork. With a shooting method that really make a difference, what would you do with it? To what lengths would you be willing to go to pursue it? What's needed to inspire players to want to learn this powerful approach and coaches to strive to learn to coach it? Where is it most needed? How can a groundswell of belief and support be created? WHERE WOULD YOU START? Please write down your ideas about how a Method like mine could be introduced to the game at the level you coach. What kinds of media and instructional material are required? How much should it cost? Some of you may see the future a lot clearer than I can. I'm working as hard and fast as I can to prepare for this campaign to shift the game, but I can use your help. This year will be a pivotal year. Thank you for describing what it is you can see and how we will get there. Next month I will share the ideas and proposals you send to me. In the next few months on my website, and as I begin to travel the country in the spring, I will be putting into operation the ideas and approaches we jointly come up with, and I look forward to meeting many of you. Thank you. EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO BE TRAINED If you want to be coached in how to teach
and coach the "Swish" Method, please email me (Interested
in Coaches' Training). I will send you some "homework"
to get you started, and then we'll plan to work together in the
coming months to make that happen. Thanks. I invite you to bookmark my Website (Swish22.com) 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 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 my site and my
video. Send them the URL (http://www.swish22.com) and let them
know there's a proven method for better shooting. I am gearing up to travel and coach kids and coaches this spring, summer and fall. See my Website for the latest news about Clinics, Camps and Coaches' Trainings across the country. If you'd like to organize a clinic or camp for me, please call or email me. I'll be scheduling Coaches' Trainings at each stop as much as possible, too. Stay in touch for them. Here's a direct link to the Clinics &
Camps page:Clinics
& Camps ***Important: Please note that when you "subscribe," Topica, the company that manages the free list for me, will send you a "confirmation" email and offer you two ways to "confirm." I SUGGEST YOU USE THE SECOND OPT ION! The first option is to click on a link to Topica where they will ask you open a free account with them. This is okay to do, as they have good free mailings lists, discussion groups, etc., but I think most of you just want to subscribe to the newsletter. You do that most easily by the second option, just REPLYING to the email. That's all you need to do, no need to key anything. Click on this email -- it will start the subscription process: Subscribe me. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this Newsletter, just send a blank email to the following: Unsubscribe me ------------------------------------------------------------ |