E38: Strategies for Working with Mixed Skill Levels From the Coach Perspective - Maccabi Series

Strategies for Working with Mixed skill levels from the coach perspective - Maccabi Series

Transcript

Jennifer is focussed on winning the gold this year. Tina just wants to have fun Rachel wants to make sure she doesn't make a mistake and Sarah doesn't want to let her team down.   This is John's first time playing this sport; Ethan has been playing since he was 4. Jacob just wants to be on the same team with his friends and Michael won't have fun unless he wins every game.

Do any of these scenarios sound like the team that you are on? Does it sound like the team that you are coaching? The Maccabi games bring athletes from and coaches from many different backgrounds and levels of experience together for something that goes beyond just competing. 

Today we are going to focus on four components for a successful practice with mixed skill level athletes and some tools that you can use.  These tools can be used in by any coach in all sports. Most of the examples I will use today will be volleyball specific examples.

The first thing to think about is giving all the players opportunities for success, regardless of their skill level. How can you do this you ask? That is an excellent question. One thing you want to do is challenge the players at their own pace. Give them opportunities to self-measure success. For example, have them try to do a skill such as passing the ball on the wall.  Challenge each player to pass the ball as many times in a row as possible.  Once they have finished their first round and the ball has hit the ground, have them try to beat their last score (or their highest score, depending on how many times they do it).  You can also start adding things for them to do once they reach a certain number.  For example, after they hit 20 times in a row, they can pass to themselves and then set to the wall and vice versa.  This can also be done with a partner.  

The second thing to think about is to give the athletes challenges that are skill-level appropriate.  This can be done with progression drills.  Many of the drills I do with all of my teams are progression drills.  You start with a single skill, for example, partner passing on the same side of the net, then you progress to partner passing over the net.  The next progression would be to add a server so that there is a server, passer, and target. You can then add having the target set to the passer who will go outside to approach, jump and catch the ball.  Depending on the skill level, the final progression can be having the passer hit the ball line instead of catching.  One of the things that I like most about progression drills is that if you start the drill at too high of a progression you can always take the drill back a step. For example if you start a drill that requires a rally with a serve and the serve receive is not passing well, then you can back up the drill up so that it is coach initiated instead of being initiated with a serve.

The next thing to think about is focusing on specialized training and individual challenges that lead to team success. As the coach, it is important to evaluate the individual players, not only their strengths and weaknesses, but their personality characteristics, learning style, etc. You want to make sure that you are challenging the less experienced players, while also keeping the experienced players engaged. This can be achieved by breaking the teams into groups.  You can have one group doing footwork or ball work or hitting in the cage while the other group is on the court or field working on game-type strategies and then switch the groups.  These stations can be timed so that each group gets the same amount of work in each station.  This also allows the coach the opportunity to focus their feedback on different skill levels at different times. Another thing that you can do is choose a skill the more experienced players need to work on for part of practice and focus your feedback more on those athletes for that drill; then choose a skill that the less experienced athletes need to work on and focus your feedback on them during that skill.  During this time, you can also have the more experienced players help facilitate the drill.  Whether it is hitting to them, or serving to them, providing feedback or helping with some other sport-specific component of the game.  

Finally, and most important, celebrate the small victories and have fun! The best way to do this is to plan the practice ahead of time. Think about what you want your coaching points to be for that day and how you're going to cover these points for the different skill levels. Make sure that the athletes have a good understanding of what you will be discussing, touch on what you were going to cover before practice starts and then review after practice and ask questions about what the key takeaway points were. Is also important to provide individual feedback to each of the athletes (See Episode 36 on the compliment sandwich). When you are giving feedback, be sure to be specific with the praise that you give as well as the correction. The thing that is good to do is to do spotlights at the end of each practice. This is the time when the players can Spotlight a different player on the court another player on the court on the team for something that they did that day. The spotlights can be go specific or maybe they had a great attitude or they were hustling or they did something that stood out to the player. The athletes the opportunity to Get noticed by the other players and develop a sense of teamwork and camaraderie. 

One other point I would like to discuss is who you have at practice.  In addition to mixed skill levels, you may also not have your entire team with you for your practices. How do you make the most or practice when you have half of two different teams playing together? Here is one drill that you can do specific to volleyball. We are working with 2 teams and this week we had 7 girls at practice. I am fortunate to have three other great coaches that I am working with so we had 6 of the girls play on one side and the seventh girl played on the other side with two of the coaches and we played mini games to 7 points. In order to adjust for skill level, players were put in different scenarios. For example the strong servers when they were on the side by themselves they served the mini games to 7 and the group of 6 worked on serve receive. Strong hitters and middles when they were on the single side by themselves hit Ones or Twos for their minigame to 7. When the stronger servers were serving, the stronger passers were in the deeper part of the serve receive where the ball was more likely to go. When the servers that tended to serve short were serving, then their fellow teammates were serve receiving in that part of the court. Even though the teams were mixed the drill was set up in such a way that the more experienced players ended up hitting or serving to their teammates. This way you can both challenge the more experienced players while also including the newer players and providing them an opportunity to play against the players with more experience.  This can also be done if you are the only coach, where you can play on the side with the one player, or you can have the single player try to play the ball out by themselves.  You can also initiate a free ball after the initial serve or hit so that the team of 6 has the opportunity to get in more reps.

To Review, The Focus four for working with a variety of skill levels on one team are:

1. Give all players opportunity for success regardless of level
2. Challenges that are level-appropriate
3. Practice in smaller groups to allow for specialize training, challenges, and team success
4. Celebrate the small victories and have fun

Which one of these will you use in your next practice?  Try incorporating one of the focus four this week and see what happens! For assistance with practice or additional tools to help you working with athletes of mixed skill levels, contact me at RattoConsulting.com.  If you or your organization are interested in hosting a workshop or virtual seminar on this or any other sports psychology or performance optimizing topic, please email me at Laura@RattoConsulting.com. 

The Maccabi games are an annual International Event where jewish athletes from all over the world come to compete in these games. This olympic-style competition include Sports such as baseball, basketball, flag football, ice hockey, soccer, volleyball, dance, Esports, golf, tennis and swimming just to name a few. This event also includes community service and brings together players from all over the world for a week.  For more information visit jccmaccabisd.org.

"Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t." Rikki Rogers