Focus on your process
the rest takes care of itself.
We all have our processes. The cycles, the rituals, the steps. The things we do to accomplish the things we love to do. Coaching kids is no different. Whether we do it formally and intentionally or at the last minute racing from work to practice (and then practice to dinner), coaches go through the same four steps for every practice they run: Plan, run, reflect, reinforce (or, “PR3” for an easy short-hand).
The deliberate practice cycle
The reason we made the Perfect Practice app is to help you make your coaching process faster, more effective, and easier. Our goal is to give back time and brain space normally spent on important but lower-level coaching chores. This allows you to focus your big brain on the more meaningful (and more fun) parts of coaching. Even better, you will help your players master the new skills of their sport more quickly and more completely.
“Without dreams and goals there is no living, only merely existing, and that’s not why we are here.”
Mark Twain
The first step in PR3 (aka your “practice cycle”) is to plan: What is it you are going to practice? This is an important tenet of purposeful practice because without a goal, you and your players will float, undirected rather than stride forward. A good practice goal is:
A small component skill of a larger skill: At its simplest, this means you practice a skill that can be achieved in the allotted time you have. More importantly, it means your exercises are focused on narrow, targeted micro-skills that once perfected lead to the logical next micro-skill. Think of just the toss in serve. Or, just the snap of a wrist in a throw.
Slightly outside the player’s current capability level: If something’s too easy we get bored, too hard and we get discouraged. We want to be challenged just enough to have fun overcoming the challenge. Planning for this becomes especially important when you have a team of disparate experience levels or ages. As coach, you have to keep all of them engaged at the same time so they become neither bored nor discouraged. You can use stations and groups to isolate different skill levels. But don’t isolate your more advanced players from your newer players for the entire practice or you will struggle to build a complete team.
Building toward performance in the game: If a player’s mechanics are solid, try speeding them up or combining with other skills they will use in a game situation. This is different than simply running a scrimmage, which is easy to allow. Instead, distort the rules to exercise and improve capability. Run every play to the left (or right). Start on third down or with two strikes. Have every player drop and do two pushups when you blow the whistle.
Instantly quantifiable: Practice works when we know whether we are doing something right … otherwise it is not practice it is play. There’s nothing wrong with play. But you signed up to be a coach not a babysitter. Quantify the outcome you are looking for in a way that is easily understood and measured and help your players focus on how to achieve their desired outcomes rather than what not to do.
“Having a vision for what you want is not enough. Vision without execution is hallucination.”
Thomas A. Edison
The second stage of your practice cycle (and the first “R” in “PR3”) is to “run” an effective practice. This is, of course, a million miles easier when you have taken the time to plan the practice. Down to the last minute. When you are coaching young athletes, it is imperative to help them stay focused and avoid distractions.
To make the execution of a perfect practice second nature, you and your assistants will internalize a number of good habits:
Demonstrate the drills and actions you want your players to execute visually, audibly, and physically
And before your demonstration, tell your players clearly what to look for
Insist every player execute the drill correctly
Explain the why but sometimes get the body to act first
Feedback will work when it is …
Immediate
Positive
Targeted on the solution
Focused on one thing at a time
Understood by the player
“True nobility is being superior to your former self.”
Ernest Hemingway
Step 3 of your practice cycle is to “reflect” on the practice. After every practice and every game, we all consider questions like these: What went well? What surprised me? What didn’t go as planned? How can I make each drill better next time? What is each player’s next skill or component skill?
Spoiler alert, coaches aren’t the only ones who obsess over improvement. We all do. Assistants coaches. Players. Parents. A good coach embraces their feedback. Your assistants will have insights from different backgrounds and experiences, maybe even different sports. Be open to their ideas because we all can learn something from anyone. Your players will only ever truly improve when they take ownership and responsibility for their own development. Show them respect when they step up and share a thought with you. Your job as coach is not to tell them what to do. It is to help them decide what to focus on next, how to define success, and how to achieve it.
Reflection is an important bridge between this practice and the next. It is also key to our improvement as a coach. Finally, it is a great life skill to help your players acquire early because it improves self-awareness, our sense of control, communication skills, decision making skills, and accountability … all keys for a successful and happy life (in addition to career in sports).
"You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way.”
Michael Jordan
Now we come to the final stage of your practice cycle: “Reinforce”. Just because we executed a skill properly a half-dozen times in practice doesn’t mean we have built a habit. That takes thousands, if not tens of thousands, of repetitions. In all kinds of situations. Under all kinds of pressures.
More importantly, we must perform each of those repetitions correctly. Otherwise we are simply building bad habits we will eventually have to break before we can rebuild the right ones.
Make sure that whenever a player is practicing a skill, they are practicing the right way. With helpful feedback. Trying to get just a little bit better. As Coach Wooden says, that’s the key to success: “Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvements, one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts.”
With young athletes, that means you have to give their families and friends the knowledge to augment practice time in their backyards and driveways and playgrounds. Think of the parents as your extended coaching staff rather than just chauffeurs to- and from- practice. It also means you have to help your players give themselves permission to try new things. To fail. And to learn from their failures. In other words, help them practice.