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By Tom Nordland, Shooting Coach Swish International, Inc. Issue Number 107 -- March 2008 Tel: 888/SWISH-22 (888/794-7422) or 831/338-4647 Email: Tom@swish22.com
============================================ IN THIS ISSUE ============================================
1. Welcome from the Coach 2. Purpose of this Newsletter 3. What a Difference Shooting Can Make! 4. Ever Wonder Why You’re “Streaky?” 5. You Could Call It “Enlightenment” 6. More Testimonials 7. KIDS’ KORNER 8. New Banner Ad for the Swish Videos 9. Shooting Clinics & Camps 10. You Can Republish Articles I’ve Written 11. Get the Swish Videos 12. Some Powerful Testimonials/Photos/Videoclips for Swish 13. Please Bookmark this Website 14. How to Subscribe / Unsubscribe 15. Contact Information
************************************************* PLEASE NOTE: For these archived Newsletters, I'm just including the heart of the Newsletter, those sections that are instructional, not contact information, outdated clinic info, etc. *************************************************
------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Welcome from the Coach ------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to my free Monthly “Swish Release” Basketball Shooting Newsletter. Each month I write about the skill of shooting in the game today and how it can be more effectively learned and coached. If you like what I'm saying, please tell others about it and suggest they subscribe, too. Remember: Great Shooting CAN be taught!
------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Purpose of this Newsletter ------------------------------------------------------------
This newsletter is a vehicle for communicating what I know about shooting and for a conversation on how shooting can be improved. 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
------------------------------------------------------------ 3. What a Difference Shooting Can Make! ------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: The NCAA Playoffs -- shaky shooting is too often the norm these days, but sometimes the shooting can be brilliant as with the performance of Stephen Curry of Davidson and in the incredible Stanford-Maryland women’s game!
First, it was a great joy to watch the great team play of Davidson and their star shooter, Stephen Curry. Stephen’s second half performances will be remembered for a long time. He scored 30 points against Gonzaga and then 40 points against Georgetown, the points mainly in the second half, as I remember. He racked up 33 points against the Badgers, outscoring them in the second half all by himself, 22 to 20, shooting 11 for 22 for the game and hitting six 3’s.
The Davidson run ended against Kansas in a nip-and-tuck seesaw battle 59-57. Curry got 25 points, usually while being double- and triple-teamed. A last second, open-but-contested three by Jason Richards could have won the game, but it wasn’t to be. Congrats to the tough Kansas team. They played well and deserved the win, but you can guess who most of the country was pulling for. We love “Shooters.” But how to develop more of them? (I know a way...)
HOW CURRY SHOOTS: A few things stood out in my observation of Curry’s form. Most importantly I saw his ultra-quick Release and his relaxed wrist and hand. He was also shooting from an open stance, all things I teach. I teach a quick Release for most shots, but not quite that quick. He was on the border of losing control it was so quick, but he’s a master of that motion and it allowed him to get shots off most players couldn’t do. Shooting so quickly put control more in the power of his bigger muscles of the legs and middle body. His control of accuracy and distance was a function of creating and using inertia in the setting and release of the ball, and in the relaxed wrist and hand, minimizing variables. And I’m pretty sure he was varying the arch to fit the moment. Bravo Stephen!
TWO GAMES COMPLETELY OPPOSITE: I was shocked by the difference between two games in the Elite Eight last weekend. On the men’s side was the matchup of Memphis and Texas, and the other was that between the women of Stanford and Maryland.
The Memphis-Texas game was a fierce defensive struggle the whole way between two of the top teams in the country. The commentators noticed how “long” Memphis was, meaning the length of their arms, I think. It was physical. There was a lot of what we used to call “fouls.” The ref’s these days let players get away with murder on defense ... pushing, grabbing, pulling, holding players back, jumping in front of them to draw charging fouls. I wish the refereeing could be changed to penalize the defense for excessive physical contact. Teams like Memphis and Southern Illinois University make up for poor shooting with this kind of intimidating (and exhausting, I imagine) defense. It doesn’t do anything for the beauty of the game.
Memphis, one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the country, had an amazing evening at the Line: 30 for 36 (83%). That was completely out of character, as their performance was ~58-59% for the season. They were obviously “sky high,” out to prove to the country they were an elite team. Job done! Congratulations to them. Now let’s watch to see if that performance from the line is sustained. I doubt it.
ONE OF THE BEST GAMES I’VE SEEN... The Rutgers-Stanford women’s game was terrific, one of the best I’ve ever seen. I wish I could have seen it in person. The shooting was extraordinary! Candice Wiggins of Stanford scored 41 points, and Kristi Toliver of Rutgers scored 35 on 14 for 21 shots. Both stars’ teammates came through like crazy for their respective teams, too. There were a total of 20 3’s, but 14 of them were for Stanford, and that was the major difference. J.J. Hones scored a career high of 23 (17 in the first half, including four 3’s). The team made 14 for 28 from beyond the arc. Kayla Pedersen made 3 for 3. The two teams traded three’s for awhile there in the first half. As I recall the stats, I think Maryland was shooting over 60% from the field at a point in the second half and were behind by 10 points! Maryland was hot, but Stanford was hotter.
Ann Killion, a sportswriter for the San Jose Mercury News (Stanford territory) described it this way: “Wiggins led her team to an eye-popping 98-87 victory over top-seed Maryland on Monday at Spokane arena. She and her teammates shot Maryland right out of the gym.” “Eye-popping” is a great way to say it. My eyes were riveted on the screen and almost popping out of their sockets. In the second half, Toliver, considered one of the best point guards in the country, came alive with 24 points with her hard-to-guard way of shooting (a quick, high wrist flip, even falling back sometimes). She was fantastic, but Stanford players didn’t waiver and kept the pressure on. It was definitely their day, a thrilling game. Both teams were extraordinary. Congrats to both.
CURRY ELECTRIFIES THE GAME! It was so cool to see a shooter get so much attention and perform so well. It shows how awesome the game would be to play and watch if there were more shooters. If Davidson had had two Curries, they could have made the final four and maybe won it all. One can be double- or triple-teamed, but not two.
------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Ever Wonder Why You’re “Streaky?” ------------------------------------------------------------
You’ll probably be a streaky shooter if...
• You “Square up,” thus losing the power, alignment and naturalness of an “Open” stance and stepping in to shoot (remember: it’s a one-handed motion, not two!) • You shoot at the top of the jump and the smaller upper body muscles are doing all or most of the work • You flip the wrist • Your shots are flat and hot (caused by the two items above) • Your hand action (one or both hands) causes side spin or a dead ball or excessive spin • You’re a two-handed shooter (especially difficult with movement) • You don’t generate and use any Inertia* as you set and shoot the ball. The ball is either brought off line up to the Set Point, from where the Release starts, or you bring the ball to the Set Point first and then add the jumping or down-up power (the shot is out of sync), or you bring it up there and then stop and restart, thus losing any Inertia. • Your Set Point is not in line with your shooting eye • Your arm-straightening motion is variable in speed or tentative • You shoot from way back overhead, thus making it more of a throwing motion with shoulder, arm, wrist and hand involved • Your Release is a complicated motion and/or variable in speed and force • Your arm action is unstable, the arm moves off target or pulls back or stops short • Your Follow Through is uncertain or not connected to the basket and held a bit after the shot • You watch the ball in flight, taking your attention off the target
* Inertia is the energy generated when an object is put into motion. One reading of Newton’s First Law of Motion, also called “The Law of Inertia,” says, “An Object in motion and in line tends to stay in motion and in line until affected by an outside (or unbalanced) force.” If you get the ball moving and in line with eye and basket before the Release, and then keep the Inertia going as you shoot (only changing the direction of the Inertia as you switch from setting to the Release), accuracy gets much easier. Check it out. Shoot with no Inertia, then shoot with some, then a lot of Inertia. Which feel more accurate, easier to control?
------------------------------------------------------------ 5. You Could Call It “Enlightenment” ------------------------------------------------------------
I look at what I'm teaching to the basketball world as a form of “Enlightenment.” I'm exposing you to more possibilities than you currently have, and with possibilities, there's choice, and choice leads to learning and change and growth. It’s like shining a light on a part of the forest that has been dark for a long time. You’ll see things, you’ll feel things, you’ll hear things, and you become able to learn something new.
My Dictionary says the word “enlighten” means, 1. to free from ignorance, prejudice., etc. 2. to inform.
I feel I'm doing that, informing you of different possibilities, perhaps brushing away some ignorance by challenging long-accepted shooting “truths” that don’t work very well. Some people call me a “shooting guru.” In Hindi, I'm told, the word “gu” means darkness and “ru” means light. The combined word, then, means “One who leads you from darkness to light.” Thus a cool way to say “teacher.” That's what I want to be, a teacher who can help you escape darkness and confusion about how to shoot a basketball. As a teacher, I can help you replace misinformation with the clear understanding and simple execution that makes becoming a pure shooter a real possibility.
With this in mind, I'm showing you a simpler way to approach the skill of shooting. That skill has been in bad shape for many years. It's become a Lost Art, as we all know. Now we have the case of players who couldn't shoot themselves trying to teach the skill, and a whole curriculum has developed that isn't working. One of the Sweet 16 teams coaches said, after losing and his team shooting badly, “I just don't know how to coach that stuff!”
Some think that applying “pressure” to the players in practice (running laps if they miss, making the whole team suffer, one NBA coach said he fined them for missing) will help. But does it? The state of the game today shows it doesn’t.
Another “hot” thing these days is the “Pre-Shot Routine.” Coaches tell players they “must have a pre-shot routine,” something to calm their minds at the Line. And so everyone has some kind of ritual they go through (some are pretty silly), thinking that’s the answer. But is is? Don’t the lousy free throw shooters have a ritual?
IT’S THE TECHNIQUE! Learning might be part of the problem, with the short attention spans of kids these days, the striving for immediate success, the focus on the slam dunk and the heroic 3-pt shot, but the fault is also in the things that are/are not being taught. The main problem is physical, it’s in the technique of how the shot is powered and controlled. It’s in the alignment of the body and ball, in the Release and the height of shots and control of distance, it’s in the details. Improving the mental stuff can help a little, at times, but if technique isn’t there that works, the mental stuff will eventually fail.
DIFFERENT, BUT NOT STRANGE OR WEIRD! What I teach is different from what most people are teaching, but it’s not different from the style and form of the great shooters. Thus, SWISH is a path toward understanding and learning the things that work well, not something strange or weird. That’s what makes this so fascinating, so much fun. Once you “figure” it out, a high percentage of swishes is available to anyone with reasonable talent and strength who makes the effort. And success comes fast. It doesn't take thousands of shots to learn this simple stuff.
COUNTERING THE MYTHS OF SHOOTING ... WITH REALITY! If you've read my stuff over the years, you know what I teach. You also know I'm challenging the many so-called 'truths” of shooting which are more like “myths.” One of my coach friends told me that “You have reality on your side.” By that, he went on to say, one can present all the ways to shoot, all the variations in stance, footwork, power, how to release the ball, how to create spin, how to control distance, etc., and everyone would basically choose the SWISH way of shooting I advocate because, in the world of reality, it just plain works most effectively!
You'll also find this is the “easy” way to shoot. Whereas most coaching today teaches a complicated, “difficult” way to shoot by involving too many muscles and too many instructions; (“Square up, place the fingers here or there, elbow directly under the ball, flip your wrist, shoot at the top of the jump, finish like this, keep the same trajectory, point the elbow at the target, etc.”), SWISH is simple. Also, I am not going to suggest that you waste your money on gadgets, shooting aids or mechanical devices that tend to only complicate things. All you need is one of the SWISH DVDs (or both), a basket, a ball and a desire to improve. Remember, SWISH is the easy, simple way to shoot!!
Another example of the reality involved here is that you can see SWISH in the best shooters we’ve ever had and have: Chris Mullin, Jeff Hornacek, Diana Taurasi, Steve Kerr, Lauren Jackson, Detlef Schrempf, Cynthia Cooper, George Gervin and Becky Hammond, to name a few. If you can find slow-motion clips of them shooting, you’ll see the relaxed wrist and hand. You can see they’re not wrist-flipping and they’re not squaring up.
I hope I don’t come off as too opinionated about this stuff. I just happen to have been given a great “gift” to see shooting like few people ever have. My thoughts and writings come from deep experience, both from doing it myself and observing others. For 18+ years now, since my high school shot came back to me, I’ve been studying and simplifying the teaching of shooting. I’m constantly refining what I say, write and how I teach, but the basic message hasn’t changed. I’ve just come to see more and more layers.
AND FINALLY, AS I ALWAYS SAY, DON’T JUST BELIEVE ME! Don’t just believe or disbelieve what I say. Check it out with your own experience of both shooting and teaching/coaching the skill. If you can’t find some truth in it from your own experience, then doubt it or reject it. But I feel if you really give it a good shot and pay close attention, I think you’ll see the simple reality -- it works like I say it does. And you’ll start seeing examples that support that decision everywhere.
----------------------------------------------------------- 6. More Testimonials ------------------------------------------------------------
“My shooting always has room for improvement Tom. But I feel much more confident in knocking down the 10-to-15-footer. A "trey" is still beyond me - it's probably all mental there. And my f-t's are better - from 65% to now 75%, and sometimes better.
“I find that I must ‘re-learn my shot’ each time -- as you have stated. Per your instructions, I start in close, with no leg action, then work my way back. I like to end that ‘warm-up’ with 10-20 free throws -- which is about as far as I'd ever attempt a jumper. I find that I probably think too much on f-ts -- need to just "let if fly"!
“If I do it properly - all the elements that are in the method - the shot goes better. I also find that I must concentrate on doing that in my warm-ups -- do it The Right Way. Then that carries over better into the game.
“One [of many] ‘conventional wisdom’ items that I see my coaches teaching is "1-hand shooting" -- where the player does essentially the same start-in-close-and-work-your-way-back approach as in Swish. But I have a hard time with the 1-hand method. I think coaches do it because it forces concentration on the movement of the shooting arm and hand. However, in a game, we do NOT shoot with one hand. Also, to shoot with one hand, one must start with the shooting hand way under the ball -- just to hold it -- and this is also not how one actually shoots. So I think this 1-hand approach teaches the wrong thing -- it doesn't replicate a game-condition situation.
“In every drill that occurs when I'm around, I endeavor to replicate a game condition -- be it ball-handling, shooting free-throws, or rebounding, or whatever. Practice in isolation, in a situation that doesn't replicate a game, is counterproductive, I think.
“The other major item of puzzlement is [as I have mentioned before] the resistance of coaches to trying the Swish approach. My only explanation is that they all think they have a corner on how to shoot. For me, as one expert said, ‘I am not young enough to know everything!’
“They'll offer excuses [‘Well, it's good for free throws, but limits shooting off the dribble because the shooter isn't squared up’, etc., etc.] - even though the visual evidence doesn't support their conclusion. Very puzzling!”
- - Jack F., Lafayette, CA
--------------------------------------- “Tom, I will gladly forward success stories to you . I expect many. The reason I felt your DVD a "must have" is that I read a detailed article on your philosophy. I got my best player to work on it. He had been using a 2-handed set until this past fall with a lot of success. Now in 5th grade he was struggling mightily with the 1-handed set shot. I worked with him for 2-hours and he took to your "open stance - relaxed wrist" method immediately. For him, being able, again, to line up the ball with his eye and the basket was the answer. The immediate improvement was almost unbelievable. I look forward to the DVD. Take care.”
- -Mark G., Carlsbad, Calif.
--------------------------------------- (In a prior Newsletter, I asked my readers to email me and tell me which stance they advocate and teach. I’m really interested in this because how you stand affects the whole shot. I also asked them to tell me also WHY they advocate what they do. What do the stance and footwork accomplish for you?)
“Tom, I’m a big proponent of the open stance. The reasoning is that by using the open stance the all the critical body parts are lined up with the hoop. With a square stance, something has to be out of alignment and most likely it will be the arm and hands, e.g. all the twitchy muscles that are hardest to control and most likely to make a shot go astray. The boxer analogy you wrote about is good -- more power equals better shooting.
“Here's what I do with my players. I tell them that when coaches, parents and other well meaning people tell them to "square up," they don't ‘literally’ mean for you to square your shoulders to the rim. They mean get to a good comfortable open shooting stance position, i.e. don't twist, rotate, shoot off balance etc. My hope in doing this is that no mater what is said to the player they will hear - ‘Get to my comfortable open stance.’”
- - Tom S., Sonoma, Calif.
--------------------------------------- “Thanks, Tom. Please send us the second Swish 2. We'll give it to our basketball coach.
“Just a bit on Kate, the older sister. She went through Swish in Augusta, GA, before her 7th grade year. She went on to score 1,658 career points, despite increasing defensive attention from the other teams. This past season, her senior year, Kate shot 49% from the field, 41.7% for 3 point attempts and 72% from the free throw line. Her shooting percentages were pretty consistent for the past 3 years. Kate often commented that Swish was the most helpful basketball training she went through.
“We'll keep you posted on the younger sister. We enjoy reading your newsletters.”
Abby L., Williamson, GA
------------------------------------------------------------ 7. KIDS’ KORNER ------------------------------------------------------------
Following is a wonderful, remarkable statement about the process of instruction and learning. One of my mentors gave this to me years ago and I pass it on to you for your future understanding. Save it and pass it on to people whom you intend to teach or interact with as you grow up.
This is how I strive to coach shooting, that YOUR (the student’s) experience is paramount! What you see and feel (and hear, etc.) -- that is, your experience -- is what will develop you, not my words or demonstrations. What I set up and say can lead you toward and into the experiences, but they are best left at just that, a direction for learning. If it become my experience and not yours, then the learning is lost.
I use the word “Awareness” to describe the process of the senses that will teach you. In this way, you “explore” and “discover” things. It becomes YOUR truth, not mine. If I’m a good coach, I’ll point out the areas to be explored and maybe a sequence, but then I back off and let you and your incredible body-brain-nervous system take over. These words say it better than I can:
“Don’t impose on me what you know. I want to explore the unknown And be the source of my own discoveries.
“Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
“The world of your truth can be my limitation; Your wisdom, my negation. Don’t instruct me; let’s learn together. Let my richness begin where yours ends.
“Show me so that I can stand On your shoulders. Reveal yourself so that I can be Something different.
“You believe that every human Can love and create. I understand, then, your fear When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
“You will not know who I am By listening to yourself.
“Don’t instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you.”
by Humberto Maturana (Google him to learn more about his teachings.)
------------------------------------------------------------ 8. New Banner Ad for the Swish Videos ------------------------------------------------------------
We’ve been working with a graphic designer to come up with a good banner ad. This is what we’ve come up with, an animated gif. View it on this page, Banner Ad (http://www.swish22.com/imgs/swish_banner_generic3.gif), and if you’d like the gif, let me know and I’ll send it to you.
HELP ME PROMOTE THIS GREAT SHOOTING METHOD! If you love my coaching and videos, help me promote this way! Your webmaster could place this banner on any of your webpages and write the simple html to display it and link it to “http://www.swish22.com.” Be sure to say something “personal” about your experience with the Swish Method, too. Personal recommendations are much more powerful than banner ads, I feel.
We’re also working on a long-overdue re-design of the Swish22 webpage. We hope to get that running in 2-3 months. I can’t wait...
************************************************* End of archived Newsletter *************************************************
(c) Copyright 2009 Swish International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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