Principles of Good Coaching: Part 3
Learn Something New
This is the third entry in a 4 part series focused on the Principles of Good Coaching. Follow the links to read the First Principle, Second Principle and Fourth Principle.
Principle #3: Learn Something New
Every practice, players should learn something new. This principle is easy to understand – players enjoy learning new things – but applying this principle is much harder in practice. John Wooden perfectly captured this complexity when he said “You haven’t taught until they’ve learned.”
The first step, especially for new coaches, is acknowledging that coaching can be scary. It’s common to feel fearful of giving players the wrong information. But improving teams, regardless of their level, requires bravery and confidence and accepting the risk that in the attempt to make things better, you may make things worse. I’ve seen plenty of coaches maintain teams when they’re given good players. They keep the status quo because they believe it’s good enough. But if you don’t teach players new things, they will never fulfill their potential, and they will leave the game unsatisfied.
Be Specific
The easiest way to help players learn is by giving them one specific thing to focus on each practice. Don’t try to teach everything about the game at once – that’s not how mastery is achieved in any field. Instead focus on one concept or technical skill and make it a key component in every exercise they do.
The more precise you can make the learning objective the better. The goal is for players to walk off the field and tell their parents “I learned how to provide a wide pass around a defender,” or “I learned how to make a run down the line.” Be sure to give specific definitions to any term used and accompany it with practical examples so players have a clear idea of what you mean. This creates a shared vocabulary that all coaches and players can use that leaves no room for confusion.
An example:
I worked with a young boys team on “peeling away.” I defined it as “backpedaling away when a teammate is dribbling toward you to make the defender choose.” I prefer this definition because it has three components which doesn’t overload the player’s working memory and gives very specific questions that you can use:
How/what do you do? Backpedal away.
When do you do it? When my teammate is dribbling toward me.
Why do you do it? It forces the defender to decide between pressuring and guarding.
After giving the definition and asking about it, I show the players what it looks like and how it works. Every exercise we do then has coaching points and moments that make them focus on the concept and we begin to examine it in different contexts.
**An immediate example that comes to mind for “peeling away” is Messi’s movement in the 2017 El Clasico.
Giving Examples
Demonstrations are a great way to teach and reinforce your chosen topic and there is a process to it.
Gather the players around, make sure everyone can see what you’re doing, and show them what you want. Give examples periodically, in different contexts throughout the session, and think aloud when you do this. Players need to understand your thought process so they know what information is pertinent and what they can discard.
It also helps to give players one thing to focus on, especially for technical skills. Focus on the first thing they need to do successfully in order to complete the action, and then build from there.
Continuing the “peeling away” example:
I gather my players, make sure they can all see me (shoulder-to-shoulder, sun behind them, nothing too distracting behind me), give the definition, and then ask about it.
Next I tell them to focus on how I backpedal away to keep my hips open to the ball. My assistant coach dribbles at me while a selected player plays defense and I peel away. I narrate my thoughts while doing this so players understand the process: “I’m scanning, I see him dribbling toward me, I backpedal away with my hips open, I receive on my front foot.”
I might do this from a few different angles so players can see it from multiple sides, but that’s it. This whole process should take no longer than 4 minutes if you do it quickly. You then send the players into an exercise where they can rack up their own repetitions – which is when you begin teaching individual players.
Refining Repetitions
Repetition is a key part of the learning process so give players plenty of time to practice. When they inevitably make mistakes, coaches need to seize the moment and show them what to do differently. Young players learn best through observation and imitation so use that to your advantage.
Here’s a quick formula to follow when a player makes a mistake: Say their name to get their attention. Demonstrate what you want them to do. Then demonstrate what they were doing wrong. Finally, give one more demonstration of what the correct repetition looks like.
Same as before, you have the option of using your voice to cue them in on a specific area of focus. This whole process works well because it allows you to quickly make coaching points which gives them more time to practice on their own.
An example: Mia is kicking the ball with her toe instead of dribbling with the top of her foot.
Step 1: “Mia, watch this for a second. Pay attention to where my toe is pointed.”
Step 2: “My toe is pointed down and I’m pushing the ball with the top of my foot.”
Step 3: “This is what you were doing: Kicking the ball with your toe pointed straight forward.”
Step 4: “I want you to try this: Keep your toe pointed down and push the ball with the top of your foot.”
That’s it. It’s clean and simple, and allows you to give good information succinctly.
Structured Review
Review is a large part of the learning process but often gets overlooked in sports settings. A cognitive trap that coaches fall into is seeing a player successfully complete an action in practice and then thinking “Perfect! They’ve learned how to do this!” But this is not real learning.
As an example, take a minute and memorize six random numbers. Two minutes later you should be able to repeat the numbers back perfectly, but at the end of the day you won’t be able to.
It’s the same concept on the field. Coaches have to incorporate review sessions into their season planning so players can encode information into their long-term memory – not just perform it on the day.
A lot of learning theory has been incorporated into these suggestions, but generally a good strategy includes alternating between topics on a daily or weekly basis.
If you have three training sessions a week, the first practice may focus on 1v1 defending, the second session may focus on finishing in the box, and the third would return to 1v1 defending. This pattern would continue through the next week, possibly even further, until you move on to two new topics to alternate between.
The other option is to switch on a weekly basis. The whole first week focuses on 1v1 defending, the next week focuses on finishing in the box, and then you continue alternating between these topics every other week.
This can become surprisingly intricate because none of these concepts exist in isolation. In a session devoted to 1v1 defending there will still be moments where players finish inside the box. So choosing the best review strategy depends on the number of training sessions you have, player preferences, and the topics you choose. But using any of the two review strategies mentioned above is better than simply jumping from topic-to-topic every week based on what you saw during the last game (at least for youth players).
Wrapping Up
In order to truly teach something new, coaches need to exploit how players learn best. Be specific to layer mastery, use plenty of examples so players can learn through observation and imitation, give feedback while maximizing the time they spend practicing, and review topics constantly to ensure information gets stored into long-term memory and becomes practiced unconsciously. Players enjoy learning, and if you package it in a way that’s fun for them and lets them spend time with their friends, then you are well on your way to being a good coach.
This is the third entry in a 4 part series focused on the Principles of Good Coaching. Follow the links to read the First Principle, Second Principle and Fourth Principle.