Are you running ‘static’ sessions? Regular PDP contributor and founder of TOVO International, Todd Beane explains the dangers of static sessions and gives some practical advice for coaches to move towards ‘solution’ based sessions.
There are voices from locker rooms of false wisdom suggesting that to train we must we must suffer through some rite of painful passage. It is a very macho and misguided notion of how we must make “suck it up” to stack up. It also tends to justify horribly boring training sessions.
This rationale leads into sessions that are flush with drills, drills, and drills. Drills that we would not inflict upon ourselves but willingly do so on young children.
They are static: lacking movement, development or vitality. Do you run static sessions?
Ask yourself:
- Are your players in lines waiting to perform?
- Are you using hoops, sticks, ladders and other gear to mask mindless drills?
- Are you doing exercises that take longer to explain than to perform?
- Are your players just passing catatonically from cone to cone?
If I am honest, I have run mundane sessions. As a young coach, I was taught that order was effective team management. As a young teacher, I was taught classroom management. But neither “teams” nor “classrooms” need to be managed. Instead, players on those teams and students in those classrooms needed to be challenged and inspired.
I justified my trainings with league wins and playoff appearances.
But in the classroom, I decided to close the door to venture beyond the curriculum into the minds and hearts of students. I did this in part to prove to myself first that learning could be fun – even for teenagers who would rebel against authority by nature. I would read the standard curriculum profoundly enough to ignore it.
Did I mention that I closed the door? I did so to ensure that our classroom was a sanctuary of intelligent exploration and not a rote memory lab. And then I found the courage to do the same on the training pitch.
I started questioning my “A” License curriculum. I set out to create more dynamic, innovative and practical trainings. We refused to drill ourselves into cerebral oblivion. We engaged, we competed, we learned. The players did not want to leave the pitch; I did not want to leave the pitch. I played in the scrimmages (I was a lot younger then) knowing full well that was not proper protocol. Other times I just sat on a ball and observed (also not proper protocol). We played so many revisions of “next goal wins” that we would play deep into the dark. The parents would be waiting and we would make them wait until that golden goal was scored – and it had to be good one (conveniently defined as a goal score by the squad on which I played).
I guess what I learned most is that there is no room for static in solutions.
Solution soccer requires vitality and energy. We activate talent when the brain, body and heart journey on a road to rigor. Perhaps I did less than a traditional coach but we accomplished much more – together. My kids found power in their ability to see and to solve, no longer dependent upon my sideline instructions.
It is not a matter of throwing caution to the wind; it is a matter of our students sailing toward self-actualization. They do not do so in a static state. They do so eager to move, to develop and to express their unique vitality.
STATIC SOCCER TEST
Feel the Session
Put yourself and other coaches through your own training. Sounds a bit odd, I know. You will feel what it is like to be subjected to your own training session. If you are bored, imagine what your youth player feels. Are you required to think or only to execute?
Film the Session
Have someone film you and your session. Go home in the privacy of your own home and watch it – all of it. Again, look at the faces of the players. Ask yourself if they were merely following your commands or thinking for themselves.
TOVO TRAINING TEST
During our coaching courses, we employ a functional checklist and work with coaches to evaluate the training session activities. We call it the “3C Checklist.” It is a checklist that aligns perfectly with our ambition to develop intelligent players. We believe that top players are athletes of great cognition, competence, and character.
- Cognition: Does the activity require players to engage a purposeful thinking process?
- Competence: Does the activity require a series of technical actions and a deep understanding of spatial relationships?
- Character: Does the activity require the player to compete, working through self-regulating challenges?
Of course, this is only a start. But if we are to demand intelligence on the pitch we must train intelligence.
“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.” – Piet Hein
Solution: the act of solving a question, a problem.
Notice it is the “act” of solving – the very process by which a player will confront the next challenge and be confident to put forth purposeful propositions. They may or may not get it right, but they will hone their capacity to take action.
In the end there is nothing static about our brilliant sport so perhaps there should be nothing static about the way we prepare to play it.
