Progress is so evident that you can nearly smell it in the gym and I caught myself just standing there at halfcourt smiling like a had won a million bucks.
They are in that age now around 12 where so much happens if you;
- Practise the foundamentals the right way (Especially body, cordination)
- Correct the little things that make the big things happen
- Keep them happy so they work harder, give the carrots
- Start demanding high focus in drills, technic
And what has happened after the last tournament that we played 2-5 januari is that more than half of the team (16 players) has started to practise by themselfs before, after and other practise free days to improve themself. That skyrockets their development of course and combined with the normal practises they improve so much they can recognize it themself and normal reaction to that is that you practise even more.
Some have more than doubled their hours because of that extra practise they do and thats one more for a old coach to smile about.
As a coach is sometimes hard to understand that WHAT you say even the shortest sentence ever can have so much impact on the kids. In that tournament in lund I had individual talks with the players and the day after we had a game again and one of the players was totally transformed. He was a new player I would say....
He came to my later on with a smile and said to me; "You that you said to me about believing in yourself and so on, thats why I played better this game"
He has continued after the tournament to be another player and all it took was one 5minute talk, well we all know it doesn`t come that easy in every case.
By the way I wrote some months ago about that the team will start shooting much better after new year and my prediction is spot on, its starting to rain now with the correct techniqe. Next step is the make it rain in games, so by march we should be in "hand down, man down"
mode.
