Rethinking CoachSpeak - Part 1
This is part 1 of a series on Coach Speak. Up first - practice planning & design. Specifically: “Daily Vitamins,” and, “Mamba Minutes.”
Practice planning is something that takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. The way we practice, the environment that is created and maintained, and our players’ mental engagement - it all matters. The philosophical underpinning of great practice is something that will be covered in another blog, however, today we want to bring to light the issues, “Daily Vitamins,” and, “Mamba Minutes,” create in understanding effective practice planning and why, in their current practiced form, they are not giving you the highest possible yield.
For those unfamiliar, the two concepts referenced above refer to, in most cases, individual skill building time that is often done on air to rep technique and get players in the groove of their own skill. Understandably, there is some value to this - players get to touch the ball, they may get some shots up, they are doing what they deem to be the best for them.
Maybe our “daily vitamins,” are our every day drills - (hopefully not) three player weave, some form of elbow shooting, maybe “Tennessee Drill,” or, “Finishing School.” What these things lack, however, is the high yield we are looking for in practice. Furthermore, they are used as a crutch, almost as a “routine,” start to practice that seems to indicate that this is why we are good and why we are skilled. If we aren’t finishing well in games - well, it just means we need to spend more time in Finishing School and in Mamba Minutes. There’s nothing inherently wrong in doing that - but it is the highest yield you can get?
As with most things, the question has to be, “why,” we, as a coaching community, have made these things popular and adoptable? Is it the alliteration of, “Mamba Minutes,” in a nod to Kobe who was open about his development coming from playing soccer and playing in general? Or the story about how he was practicing his jab steps at 4 AM that makes the rounds every once in a while on Twitter? Is the, “Daily Vitamin,” just something we do unconsciously - it’s just part of the routine that we don’t really think too much about? If we are doing it unconsciously, is it something we want to be doing? Is our mind engaged in the act of taking those, “vitamins,” just so we feel better about ourselves? That’s pretty much what taking vitamins is. What message does that send to our players? “We do this, even though you’re not engaged in the act of doing it, and when you do it in a disengaged fashion…there’s a penalty for that. We can’t move on until we have mastered our Mamba Minutes.”
Worse, we may stand idly by as coaches and, as if confusing activity with accomplishment, absent-mindedly (just as taking vitamins becomes) keep saying, “good, explode, good!, yes!” in progressively more enthusiastic tones, culminating in an inner competition to change the affect based on the action in front of us. They are ‘getting better,” and, “grinding,” to improve - we are doing the maintenance thing correctly, right?
Does the coach speak get in the way of developing truly healthy (pun intended) habits?
The things we do every single day should mirror, in as close to a fashion as possible, the Essential Elements we have identified for our program. How do we take these Coach Speak terms and actually apply them in a way that moves our program and our performance forward? Does what we do to open practice, or, “pre-practice,” (that will be another blog) give us the biggest bang for our buck for each player’s and our team’s development to our Essential Elements? Do the skills we gain from what is being done now translate to our ability to make decisions, read the game, and understand both team and spatial awareness? What would the difference be if those 10 minutes were spent playing and constraining any number of mental transition games where all players are engaged, on task, and the context is continually shifting…much like the sport (whichever sport you happen to coach) itself?
The idea is not to eliminate those, “vitamins,” or, “Mamba Minutes,” altogether - it is to reshape them in the image of the game. We can get our skill development in a number of ways that push us higher, faster, and with more intentionality than on-air vitamins. We can give our players a higher yield opportunity to get better and maximize their time in practice. Not just the best players - all the players. When that happens, that’s when we’ll move closer to special - like the Mamba himself.
Let’s change the conversation around coaching, educating, and learning. How we do what we do matters. Let’s do it together. click here to get started today.
