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A variation on this is to demonstrate along with the telling. This is usually more effective than just telling, but it's still required that the student see and hear what to do and then learn to do it. This way of coaching works, to some degree, and it's easy. We all probably experienced this kind of teacher or coach. And oftentimes the coaches who're telling you what to do can't do it very well themselves. They "know" intellectually how to do it, knows some rules about it, so feels they can coach it! When it's intellectual learning, then it's harder to see what the student is getting. When it's a physical thing, it's more obvious: the student and coach can see the result of the effort. From my experience the last 20+ years teaching golf and tennis and now basketball, I've been well coached in a different approach to coaching/teaching. This approach takes the point of view that the student is a genius and fully capable of learning if given the right environment and experiences. You might say humans are "Totally capable (to learn) ... and they interfere." The interference might be a physical limitation (poor eyesight, a strained knee, an injured back, etc.), and it could be mental (doubt in oneself, fear of performing, extreme self-consciousness, short attention span, etc.) It can also be an external influence -- instruction that interferes with natural learning. With this point of view that the student is the teacher, it's the coach's job to set up the environment for learning and find ways to describe, demonstrate and otherwise lead out and enhance the experience for the student so learning can happen. You might even say it's for the coach to "get out of the way" so learning can happen. Learning occurs in an arena of awareness rather than in an arena of being told what to do. My "Coaching 101" article goes into this in more detail. (http://www.swish22.com/coaching101.html) Read now the remarkable discoveries of this coach when he tried a different way to coach his granddaughter: "I took a year off from coaching after some disappointments in 2001. I didn't get the high school job I wanted, but did have a successful year coaching 5th and 6th grade girls. "Being out of coaching for a full year was agony for me, though, after a few months, and became unbearable when I went to all my Granddaughters games last Winter and had to observe the team playing with almost no shooting skills and no coaching to be seen either. "Nevertheless, I began coaching Ashley, who began 5th grade last Fall, late in the summer and she made the 7th Grade team easily. I started her on the Swish Method, and for some reason, she did well at first, then didn't improve for a while. I then went back and tried some of the old ideas I learned from Ace Hofstein, a shooting coach who uses the square up method to teach shooting. Same problem.... "Then I read one of your articles that was on your site in the coaching department, and you said that the coaches job was not to correct, but to act as a guide to make the player aware of her body, the flight of the ball, and to encourage them to think about what happened when they shoot and how it felt, and to be aware of what was happening and to do what seemed natural within the general framework of good shooting principles relating to using a constant, pure release, and using UP-Force from the legs and body and the angle of the shot to determine distance for the shot, etc. "I had had a somewhat frustrating day (for us both, I suspect) with Ashley that day and I decided to change my approach from saying "Shoot higher!", "Use your legs"!, "Follow through"!, etc, etc, and instead, I told her that today we were going to just have her shoot and she would think about her shot and say what she felt and what she thought might fix the problem if she felt there was one. "It was an amazing thing! She was relaxed, and when she missed a shot she thought and then talked about what she thought happened. I nodded and said nothing , or said "Ok", and she shot again. The only thing I did was from time to time reinforce the simple ideas of a simple pure release with a relaxed wrist, catching the wave of the UP Force, and that higher shots saw a bigger target. No suggestions were made at all about a particular shot, I just listened most of the time and rebounded and threw her the ball. "The result was that she was swishing shots within 15 minutes with a set point over her head at the free throw line and from the elbows. She just turned 11 and is 5'3" and wiry and slim, unlike her ole Grandpa (me). I used this method on a 10 year old the other day in a 20 minute session with a similar result, though we used a low set point that allowed her to just see the basket over the ball. "Tom, you have found an important principle of shooting here. Not only are your mechanics of shooting sound, but the more important thing is to teach self discovery and the body's ability to learn if it is not interfered with too much by a coach's constant admonitions to do this and do that and the other thing. "Your personality lends itself well to that style and it was natural for you to adapt it, but in my case, I always love to correct and demand it be done my way as a coach. I had to learn that sometimes it is better to provide guidance than a detailed rote routine to memorize, specially in something that is so tied to the state of the mind and ones self confidence like shooting. I know that you know these things, but I want to encourage you anyway, because I have tried it both ways and have seen how much wiser your philosophy is on this matter." -- M. Burke, Murphysboro, IL GAME 5, DALLAS VS. SAN ANTONIO LOOKED LIKE THEY HAD IT GUNS NOT FIRING I expected this might happen because I can see how "streaky" the Spurs shooters are. They don't have a truly great outside shooter in the top 9 players. Steve Kerr is the team's best shooter, in my opinion, the only "pure" shooter. But he didn't play for some reason. Parker can make the outside shot at times, but his stroke is very wristy and flippy and thus streaky. Genobli's stroke is very good at times, but it's not a sure thing and he missed all three he put up in the last quarter. Jackson and Bowen have been performing quite well at times, but the strokes of both players are questionable. Bowen's troubles at the free throw line highlight how inconsistent his stroke is. Jackson takes the ball back a bit far, inviting a throwing motion, but he has a fairly repeatable release action. However, in this game he missed his only two field goal attempts in the 4th quarter. Robinson is a poor outside shooter. Missed free throws, usually a problem, weren't the problem this time, but had it come down to free throws, they could have lost it that way, too. DANGEROUS SHOOTERS FOR DALLAS There were also turnovers, steals and lose-ball fouls that quarter in Dallas' favor, suggesting they wanted it more than the Spurs. NO "PURE" SHOOTERS FOR SAN ANTONIO Dallas, meanwhile, had three guys who wanted to shoot every time they got the ball, and La Frenz is a pretty good shooter, too. With the outside shots failing time after time, and Dallas' double and triple-teaming defense neutralizing Duncan, the Spurs were in big trouble. The Mavericks shooting machine pulled away for an easy win. Coach Don Nelson and his staff deserve a lot of credit for the offenses and defenses (and spirit) of this dangerous team. Their ace-in-the-hole is their stable of "shooters." GAME 6, SAN ANTONIO VS. DALLAS DALLAS COULDN'T MAINTAIN A LEAD, FELL APART KERR'S SHOOTING WAS THE PERFECT ANSWER A FEW PLAYERS HAVE FLAWLESS TECHNIQUE POSTSCRIPT
I bring this up because it's part of the theme of Section 4 this month. I included there an email I got from a coach from Illinois that talked about how he shifted the way he taught his granddaughter and the amazing results they (student and coach) got in a short time. YOU CAN LEARN REMARKABLE THINGS ... WITH
AWARENESS EXPERIENCE IS THE TEACHER When you want to accomplish something like improved shooting, you need lots of awareness to help your body learn what works and doesn't work. Errors or misses are a critical part of the learning. You cannot expect to perform perfectly from the start. Don't expect to make all your shots and then get mad if you don't. Misses are expected. Your job is to stay present with what's happening. As soon as you see and feel how misses happen, they will go away because the body is getting good feedback and learns. It also helps to stop the judgments that are so easily called forth, like: "I'm no good," "I can't do anything right, "I'll never get this," "That was terrible," etc. Instead just be into raw, unadulterated* experience. When you are truly "present" with your experience, you cannot but learn. Being present means being aware of what's happening. The more the awareness, the more the learning. It helps, of course, to know where you want to get, and that's where a good coach can show you how to do something. (My video accomplishes that, too.) But then, for the learning, it's the experience that matters, not the coach's wonderful words. Enjoy your summer. Play a lot of basketball and be sure to spend most of your time practicing and playing (experimenting). Don't just play games every chance you get. Work on your shot by yourself and with friends, as well as on your other skills. Test yourself from time to time in games, but not all the time! A game is all about performance, how good are you. In a game there's no room for experimentation and play. You can't run something over and over to help you "get" how to do it. Mistakes and misses are not welcome, as they are in practice. So spend a lot of time practicing and being aware of things and you'll learn a lot. (A funny aside: I used the description
"raw, unadulterated" experience above. I just looked
it up and the word "adulterate" means "to make
inferior, impure, by adding an improper substance." It's
almost like having an "adult" say something that interferes
with your learning would adulterate it, make it impure and inferior.
It's not always negative, of course. A lot of us adults have
helped young people learn, too. But some of us, and I include
myself, have interfered with kids' learning, too, sometimes.
You'll just have to forgive us. You'll probably find yourself
making the same mistakes when you go to help or coach someone
else or your kids. It's just part of being human.) 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 this page: Clinics and Camps Some of the players' clinics that are open
to the public (all Coaches' Trainings are open): If you'd like to organize some shooting
clinics or camps, please call or email me. I'll be scheduling
Coaches' Trainings at each stop as much as possible, too. 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
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