The Four Laws of Learning Applied to Basketball

The Four Laws of Learning Applied to Basketball

-Shaquala Williams

Skill Development is a never-ending commitment to filling the gap between what a basketball player is and has the potential to be. Skill development is a learning process for players; and since good coaches are teachers first, understanding the most effective ways to teach is a great way to get the most out of players and good professional development tool.

Edward Thorndike, a Psychologist who specialized in the learning process and how to learn best in educational settings developed the “Laws of Learning.” These laws are fundamental principles of the learning process, proven to make learning more effective. Four of the “Laws of Learning,” have great parallels to coaching and highly useful for a better understanding of the most effective ways to coach players.

1. The Law of Exercise = Quality Repetition
Practice does not make perfect, but meaningful practice and repetition lead to development and improvement. Meaningful practice means players have greater focus on proper technique, acceptance of feedback and desire to correct any errors or weaknesses. Quality repetitions help athletes retain information longer, so skills eventually becomes second nature.
Focus on the quality of repetitions, not quantity

2. Law of Readiness = Engagement and Investment
Just because a player is present, does not mean they are engaged. Individuals learn best when they are physically and mentally prepared to learn. Engaged players find value and purpose in what they are doing, which keeps them motivated. Engagement made me think of a video from Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban, who compared investing time vs. spending time. When players are engaged, they are invested in their improvement.
Ask players drills they like or skills they would like to improve. This creates ownership and increased ownership creates greater engagement and investment.

3. Law of Primacy = Create Good Habits the First Time
Doing something the wrong way, creates bad habits. Players retain the first thing they learn more readily, so teach it right the first time. Focus on details and correct technique. Early in workouts players should be kept at a pace that allows emphasis on technique. Increase speed as skills are mastered because doing something full speed incorrectly, does not develop good habits or improvement.
Detail – Master the details
Speed – Perform full speed with correct technique
Contest – Perform vs. game like conditions

4. Law of Intensity = GS3
The Law of Intensity states higher intensity material is more likely to be retained. A clear, vivid learning experience teaches more than the same boring routine or experience. Make workouts visually game like by using cones, garbage’s cans or chairs. Push players out of their comfort zone to grow; choose goals just beyond their present abilities and make workouts game like.
Game Shots
Game Spots
Game Speed

Over-Coaching

"I think just about all teams are over-coached.  They have a lot of defenses, but not one which they do particularly well.  They have several offenses, but too often fail to take advantage of openings and mismatches.  They have handfuls of out-of-bounds plays but seldom screen well or make sharp, well-timed cuts. 

I don't think there's a grand formula for how many offenses, defenses and special plays any team should have.  But I do know that most teams spend too much time going over movements and not enough time imporving their execution.  I am often astonished watching TV and seeing big-name college teams look completely baffled trying to attack a common 2-3 zone."

 - Dick Devenzio, Runnin' The Show

Jody Conradt Keynote Address

4/27/2012

Below are some notes I took from Coach Conradt's keynote address at A Step Up coaching symposium in Dallas this weekend. Watch for much more A Step Up information over the next few weeks!


This is a PROFESSION; teach one, reach one- each one.

Coaching is not just recruiting; what's most important is being a student of the game; setting your self apart and rising above. Coaching is teaching- be a lifetime coach.

Be a giver.

"Opportunities don't go to the best kept secret"

Make no mistake...coaching is a winning business. Accept the challenge. (Win every day, all day, in everything you do).

An important element of leadership is helping others love our passion for women's basketball.

Recruiting
-Culture is defined as the core values on which something is built. This is the hard part...trying to get your student-athletes to use their talents to be part of the team.
-Team is defined as a group of people brought together with common purpose.
-Need to lead SA's to "doing the right thing" by promoting and upholding standards of the team.
-Consider the PSA's culture when recruiting them to your team. Evaluate their home life and high school experience (AAU is temporary; mostly in the summer, limited practices, etc)

Important Player Qualities:
1. Focus/Intensity/Passion/Willingness to commit to goals and achieve them/Natural enthusiasm
-need athletes who believe its fun to compete in practice!
-todays athletes don't want to compete and make each other better....they're afraid of making each other "look bad" (it's almost like you need alter egos in practice so kids can leave emotions at home).
-It's up to us to create an environment where competition is fun and healthy
Remember....life's not fair; accept responsibility (the ABILITY to RESPOND! Event + Reaction = Outcome).
 
2. Willing to accept their role
-What happens when you wine and dine a player, then they sit on the bench their freshman year?
-Who on your team OWNS rebounding? Steals? This must be developed by coaching staff through repeated emphasis.
-The best compliment a player can get... "When you are on the floor, everyone plays better"
-As a coach, avoid saying "my" team. It's the players team! Help make them feel that way- allow them to create team rules. This creates a sense of ownership and shared responsibility. Avoid calling them "kids"- this is a built in out for immature behavior and other ills! Think of the qualities we hate to see in kids....do we ever display those? Lead by example!
-Selfishness and ego will kill teamwork more than anything.
 
3. Communication- listen, sense, feel.
Women are more preoccupied with relationships than achievement; they want to please their peers more than adults.
Often, a roommate or teammate will be the peril of one's academic/basketball woes. Ask the player- have you talked to this person about the issue you are having? Odds are there is a lack of communication.
-Create an environment of communicative efforts!
-Give examples of situations and ask the team to answer. For example: Your teammate is in the parking lot/cafeteria/room with their boyfriend or girlfriend. They show up to workouts late and tell the coach that they were finishing a test and talking to a professor. The entire team knows where that athlete was but the coach accepts the tardy excuse and moves on. What do you do? Answer: the team should police, protect the team and uphold its standards. Teammates should let that player know that is unacceptable behavior and if it happens again then there will be more serious consequences.
In life there are consequences just like in basketball- when you foul 5 times, you're out!

-Leadership is an art, not a science. Need to learn when to nudge and when to show...when to hide and when to be visible...when to use the stick or the carrot...when to shout or whisper.

Chemistry fits in with confidence. You have to like the sense of team and environment. Understand your team members! Encourage confidence in each other- it will only help you! Respect- don't have to like everyone.

Important qualities in assistants:
1. Teacher- on Coach Conradt's staff, no one ever missed more than 5 practices per year. Why would you punish an assistant with that?

2.  Mirror the HC's values

3. Competent piece for the program. What is their expertise and does it fit in/balance out staff?

4. Complete the HC's weaknesses and fill other assistant's voids

 
 Q&A

How do you delegate leadership? 
"If you're a senior, you're a captain"



What is coach's role in promoting the program and growing the game??
Regarding marketing: it IS your job to get people in the seats and newspapers to cover you!
MBB are like bankers...people with lines out the doors, plenty of business.
WBB are like insurance salesmen...must go door to door!

WBB sells on personality and story of players.

Think we do need players names on their jerseys for public recognition.

Contribute or Contaminate

Easy enough: you're either contributing or your contaminating the practice court. Great video.

A great tip when preparing for opponents

I heard this from Nikki Caldwell (LSU):

During practice when you are running your opponent's offense and reviewing individual players' tendencies, keep it simple...

Green Jersey = shooter
Red Jersey = driver
White Jersey = all-around

This is a simple trick that can have a great effect. It can be a challenge to explain to your team that Susie is your opponent's #23 and she is a left handed kid who always takes the ball off the bounce (even though Susie is right handed and her strength is shooting from the outside). Then, during the defense of your opponen't offense, your players forget who Susie is supposed to be and therefore do not guard her properly.

This makes a great transition to the game- you can simply ask your kids: what color is #23? 

Is your coaching style adaptable to the new generation?

Here's a simple fact with huge effects: you cannot coach today's kids the same way you coached a team 10 years ago. Are you making the adjustment?

Below are 5 characterizations from the article The Most Technologically Advanced Yet by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin that pinpoints how today's "Generation Z", "Generation @" or "iGeneration" cohorts (generally born between 1991-2001) experience the world and what effect this has on how we teach and motivate them.

1. Technology has led students to expect instant results for all things, says Daniel Watts, a computer graphic arts teacher for at-risk youth at Elinor Lincoln Hickey Junior/Senior High School in Sacramento. “I gear my curriculum so students can experience success as quickly as possible. It’s motivation for them to want to learn more and take it to the next level.”

How coaches and teachers can adjust: emphasize the importance on the process and focus on small victories every day. Set them up for success- break complex drills/plays into bite-size chunks so they can experience success early; then, challenge them little by little every day, slowly moving them away from their comfort zone.

2. “They need constant feedback because of the immediacy technology has given them,” agrees Duane Mendoza, a technology resource teacher at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard.

How coaches and teachers can adjust:  provide them with a measure of their success every day. For example, 2 years ago I worked out with a great young basketball player getting ready to play for a nationally ranked team in college that fall. One weakness was obvious: the player lacked quickness. The first 20min of our workout was dedicated to improving quickness with line-jumps, defensive slides, and sprints, as well as other basic basketball drills like Mikan layups, x-outs, ball handling, etc. I bought a handheld clicker-counter (I think it's used for baseball) and tallied each repetition in a specified time frame (example: how many right foot line-jumps in 30 seconds? How many slides, x-outs or Mikans in 45 seconds?). As the weeks went on, I charted and graphed the player's progress. I gave them a visual graph showing each workout and the time/number of reps in each drill, and the player could see their improvement day by day!

3. Every generation, for better or for worse, has a set of characteristics that define them. For Gen Z, the dominant trait is that they are masters of multitasking and can talk, text, listen to music and look up information on the Web without missing a beat.

How coaches and teachers can adjust: if you are talking, and one of your players is chewing their nails and not making eye contact, are they being disrespectful? Are they not listening? It seems like this multi-tasking may actually help them focus on what you are saying!

4. Some mental health experts believe that a constant stream of electronic information is causing a form of technology-induced attention deficit disorder. John Raley, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, uses the term “acquired attention deficit disorder” and says that technology is rewiring the modern brain.

How coaches and teachers can adjust:  Drills (for coaches) or lesson plans (for teachers) should be quick, concise, packed with information and have a clearly defined time limit. On the practice court, instead of reviewing 25 minutes of zone defense, it is probably beneficial to break that into 9-10min segments throughout practice.

5. Elias Aboujaude, director of Stanford University’s Impulse Control Disorders Clinic, has expressed concern that young people are losing the ability to analyze complex information.
“The more we become used to just sound bites and tweets, the less patient we will be with more complex, more meaningful information,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “And I do think we might lose the ability to analyze things with any depth and nuance.”

How coaches and teachers can adjust:  vocal teaching, pre-game talks, half-time adjustments, explaining new ideas and concepts, and teaching something brand new should focus on a few simple points and be communicated clearly and simply (KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid).

Vic Shaefer's talk at the Final Four

Below are some notes I took when Texas A&M Assistant Coach Vic Schaefer spoke at the WBCA Convention at the Final Four last year (the day his Aggies won the National Championship!).

-Assistants and Head Coaches can agree to disagree...but, when you disagree, it should be about what we think is best for the program or team.

-The Head Coach should talk to parents about intangibles, but let the Assistants handle the crises that arise.

-Knowledge of the game is so important!! WATCH THE GAME!! (See my post on "deliberate practice" here)

-Professionalism is so important...what you say, how you dress...

-Know you're stuff- we aren't paid to be wrong.

-Be a voice to your Head Coach. Sometimes, bosses need to think it's their idea about a game plan or something that will benefit the team/program.

-Go to work early and stay late.

-Emotionally invest in your team!

-Teach kids to be accountable and to hold each other accountable (it's not personal, only work!). For example, run on the 3rd missed block out.

-It's not WHAT we do...it's HOW we do it

-Trust is the foundation of A&M's defense....tight ball pressure = susceptible to penetration. Need to trust your teammates' rotations, etc.

-Post defense is played 35' from the basket (bump and get position early)

-Make your team uncomfortable in practice so they are better prepared to face adversity in games (and life!)

-Clear minds make plays. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

-A&M has a foundation of the same 3-5 drills everyday

-BE WORTH POINTS EACH GAME (on defense!)

-Defense is a LEARNED response.

Making & Breaking Habits

 The hard must become habit.  The habit must become easy.  The easy must become beautiful.  ~Doug Henning

We are all creatures of habit; basketball players are no different.

Using the left hand on the left side of the backboard...applying ball pressure...sprinting the lanes...boxing out. All of these are habits that can be established or demolished.

Coaches get frustrated when players continuously do the same (wrong) thing over and over again. How do you break the chain?

The answer is simple but the time and focus on the process of forming a new habit is the challenging piece. First, I have a basic philosophy that I cannot hold players accountable for something that I have not taught and drilled. For example- boxing out. Sure, you can preach boxing out for 3 hours every day at practice and discipline the team if they fail to box out. What kind of results will this get you if you do not actively practice boxing out and follow through with reminders? Not what you are looking for I bet.

To truly form new habits for players, you must drill boxing out every day AND make it a point of emphasis during scrimmages, positional work, etc. I'm in favor of having a visual cue at practice with 6 or 7 "priorities" for play on the court that you and the players can constantly glance over at to remind everyone of what is expected (ie, ball pressure, boxing out, communication, etc.).

So, if you want better close outs- drill close outs everyday for 3 or 5 minutes. If you want better ball pressure, then drill ball pressure every day.

EVERY DAY.

I read this story in one of John Wooden's books: members of the media attended UCLA's open practice at the NCAA Championship game. They were surprised to see that 25% of the practice was dedicated to really basic fundamentals: catching and shooting without a basketball, slow and steady defensive slides, ball handling and basic transition drills. The reporters asked Coach Wooden why his team was practicing such elementary drills and his reply indicated that one of the reasons his team was in the Championship game was by perfecting the basic fundamentals of the game by practicing them every day.

EVERY DAY.

Culture beats strategy...All day long!

How Do You Weigh Strategy, Execution, and Culture in an Organization's Success? -Article from Harvard Business School by Jim Heskett

Strategy, execution, and culture: Do we have our priorities right? 

"An outstanding strategy weakly executed will always be trumped by a weak strategy with outstanding execution.

What if you had a plan to be president of the USA? You could have a perfect plan. A brilliant one! One, that if put on practice, it would give you a 100% chance of being the next president of the USA.

There is a catch. It's extremely hard to accomplish and you can't do it alone. Actually, you need the best people available, you all have to be believe you can do it and above all, you have to learn how to work together.

Other than that, the plan is perfect.

It's all about people. It's all about making ideas become reality.

Reality is made of people, doing small things, every day. It's not about abstract ideas that in the realm of imagination look good.

Is strategy good? Of course it is. It gives us a goal, direction, things to care about, helps us to work together.

But it's not everything. And actually, it's not even a must.

You can win without a strategy. You could be lucky. You could have other people who care about you and help you in your objectives. Your competitors could make the wrong choices.

There are an infinitude of variables that just makes every good strategy a good guess.

Strategy gives you an edge, but it's nothing without people (culture).

Communication: Do they know what to say?

A thought occurred to me last night after watching a great, high energy practice: we preach communication, and there was a lot of 'talk' during our practice, but do the kids know what to say?

For example, when moving from one drill to the next, there was a lot of “Let’s Go” or “Keep it up ladies”. That’s talk....and talk is better than silence...but is an even better communication something like “Here we go- fly drill- run wide ladies” or “ADVANTAGE basketball, let’s get lay-ups. Remember to v-cut” or “34 seconds, get it the first time, TOUCH THE PAINT!”?

That type of “pro-active” communication probably comes easier with natural leaders on the floor, but think of how effective communication between drills can set-up a higher awareness and inter-player accountability for the drills. 

If they don't know what to say, teach them what you want them to say.  

10 Proven Teaching Methods for Coaches (Part 2 of 2)

 from Winning Hoops March/April 207

6. Effective Motivation
Find something positive to say ti every athlete at every practice. This satisfies the athlete's need for attention, recognition and appreciation. Be specific with your praise- specific praise is used to reinforce the "WHY" of pracitce. Always attempt to find more positives than negatives while constantly praising effort.

7. The Hoopla of Success
 When an athlete or team finally masters a skill or concept, don't hesitate to stop practice momentarily to recognize the achievment. Praise their effort and remind your players why master of the skill is so critical.

8. Model What You Preach
Most coaches talk to players about certain values and characteristics they hope to see in them. Coaches really are the best positive role models for these values. When stressing good sportsmanship, coach with honor, respect for the game, officials, etc. When stress tenacity, never give up on yourself with your athletes. And, when stressing organization, conduct practices that are structured. Players look to you for guidance, so don't say one thing and do the opposite.

9. Encourage Cross-Over Sports (for high school)
Coaches who are overzealous sometimes encourage their athletes to play only basketball on a year-round basis. This possibly leads to overuse injuries and burnout. Participating in other sports improves the way your athletes play basketball. The movements and skills required for many sports are similar. Consider the footwork necessary for soccer and basketball are almost identical.

10. Summary
Productive coaching is highly dependent on the coach's ability to teach basketball. Teaching isn't just blowing a whistle, barking out orders and heading home after a couple of hours. Being a good teacher takes time, effort, practice, patience and a passion to make a difference in the lives of your players.

10 Proven Teaching Methods for Coaches (Part 1 of 2)

"Productive coaches spend 75% of their time teaching the sport to their players and the other 25% of the time coaching."

1. Understand Your Passion For Basketball...First.
Before jumping into coaching, coaches first must understand their passion for the game. Having a high level of passion for basketball tremendously influences your energy, creativity and ability to motivate players. Passion is contagious. If one player, one assistant coach or you come to practice excited and fired up, that emotion and passion easily is passed onto every other member of the team.

2. Setting The Stage For Teaching.
Prior to the first practice, meet with your athletes and explain your role as a coach and teacher of basketball. Let them know your purpose is to help improve their athletic skills. Impress upon them that you care about them as people and that you are concerned about their lives even beyond athletics. Feeling cared about makes a player more coachable- effort and concentration increase. If you care enough about them, they'll walk through walls for you. Part of you caring is to work through players' mistakes. Tell them mistakes are part of the learning process and the only true mistakes are ones of lack of effort or concentration- both of which are easily corrected.

3. The Importance Of "WHY"!
Don't assume players know why you are asking them to practice a certain technique or to perform a skill drill. Explain how everything has a positive effect on their ability to play. Be as detailed as possible.

4. Fundamentals First, Then Complex.
Know the fundamentals of the sport you teach. This enables you to design practice for your players' appropriate skill level. It also becomes easier to assist an athlete who cannot perform a certain skill. After grasping the fundamentals, players move on to practice drills focusing on more than one skill at a time. Don't expect to each complex basketball skills to players that have not mastered the basics. 

5. Use The WHOLE-PART-WHOLE Method.
In anything you do- offense, defense, showing film or diagramming plays- this method is priceless. It is often necessary to teach skills in parts or steps. Once again, in-depth knowledge of fundamentals gives you an advantage. Teaching a skill in part keeps the player motivated because he or she is forming a mental checklist for performing the skill correctly (educators refer to this as "task-analysis"). Moving from one step to the next puts the focus on process and progress, which allows you to praise the player for grasping a skill and working with the player in areas that need more practice. A good barometer to know if a player is mastering a certain skill is to see if that player is teaching the skill to another teammate. 

4 "MUST HAVES" in Your Drill Work

1. Weak Hand Development

2. Footwork and balance emphasis

3. Playing through contact

4. Contesting shots

-Kevin Eastman

The Theory of Two

It takes 2 minutes to show you a new skill.

It takes 2 weeks of practicing the skill before you are comfortable.

It takes 2 months of consistent practice and execution before it is "game ready".

Rebounding & Defensive Balance

While on offense, your players know what to do- they have plays to execute and patterns to run. When a shot is rebounded by the opposing team, your players know what to do- they sprint back in transition, protect the hoop and match up defensively. But what do your players do when your team takes a shot and the ball is in the air? 


I'm a huge proponent that rebounding balance leads to defensive balance. Most teams will simply "crash the boards" in an attempt to gain an offensive rebound. I believe this isn't good enough; a few adjustments can have a huge impact.

I would teach my players the following:

1) On offense, when the ball is in the air, the 3 4 and 5 players should sprint to the rim, with their hands up, and form a "rebounding triangle"; one person centered on the hoop and the two others on either side. It doesn't matter who is in which part of the triangle, as long as we have a triangle.

2) As the 3 4 and 5 are sprinting to the rim with their hands up to form a rebounding triangle, we would ideally like to have our 2 guard play "safety" by patrolling the free-throw line for long rebounds. There are three reasons for this- one, how many rebounds is your 2 going to get in the paint? Second, the 2 will be more likely to get long rebounds and also tap-outs from missed rebounds inside. Finally, if possession changes, the 2 will act as the first line of defense to prevent a fast break attack (and they also may be able to pick off outlet passes).

3) The final piece is your point guard. They should be at or beyond the 3 point line to play "protector".

The 2 and 1 are interchangeable, depending on who takes the shot.

So, now what we have is strong rebounding positioning with our 3 bigs balancing their positions inside while one guard is seeking long rebounds/picking outlet passes/slowing down transition at the free throw line and our other guard is protecting the backcourt and hoop.

Tex Winter: Essentials of Coaching

 Read this post on another great blogger's website. Enjoy!

What makes Tex Winter so great is that his principles regarding the game of basketball remain true no matter what era. Because of his principles, he was able to remain influential as a coach his entire career which was over 50 years. Here are Tex Winters Essentials of Coaching:




A. The answer to success in coaching does not lie in some form of super strategy, or some ultra super plan.

B. Success, overall, does rely on basic sound teaching abilities. The ability to teach the fundamental skills (basic basketball) to the individual athlete is critical. Your players must understand that their natural ability can take them only to a certain level.

C. Athletes must strive to break those physical barriers of endurance, speed, coordination, reflex action, jumping ability, etc., to truly become a better athlete.

D. As coaches we must develop and organize out of season programs that promote greater total development of our athletes, so that they can break those physical barriers.

E. Total preparation of the mental, emotional and physical aspects of athletes then permit greater technical preparation.

F. A player has not learned a fundamental until it becomes second nature (a habit). Automatic reaction is the goal of skill execution. No thought process necessary: react.

G. Basketball is a game of total quickness; a game of reaction.

H. Athletes are in the process of learning and have not learned a skill until they can perform a skill correctly and quickly while involved in game situations, automatically.

I. The coaching objective is accomplished through continuous repitition of drills and exercises.

J. Practice does not make perfect--only if the proper techniques and mechanics are being practiced. Proper techniques become movement habits.

K. Repetition must be done with high levels of interest, enthusiasm and in an exciting manner until it becomes an instinctive reaction.

L. One thing that highly disturbs me is the fact that I see so many bad habits being practiced today at all levels, from the junior high to the professionals.

M. We must demand correct execution of basic skills.

N. Design practice time and situations so that it provides the technical know-how for the individual and the team of all the phases of the game that we plan to use in the total game plan.

O. Practice sessions must be so designed to lead to superb physical conditioning. Basketball is a game that cannot be played properly, unless you are in the very best possible physical condition.

P. Evaluate your practices to determine if they are designed to prepare the individual player; physically, technically, mentally and emotionally. If these factors are included then we should be able to visualize victory

You haven't taught until they have learned...

The title of this post is from a book by the same title written by John Wooden. I hope you enjoy this post because I think it's one of the most important ones I've put up here!

When I was getting my Master's Degree in Education, I did a project focusing on the different ways that people learn. Essentially there are 3 groups:

1) Visual learners
2) Auditory learners
3) Kinesthetic learners

Visual learners learn by seeing; auditory by hearing; kinesthetic by doing.

Coach- you have 15 players on your team. I can guarantee that you have at least one of each type of learner on your team. Are you maximizing your teaching effect?

Here are some ways to incorporate techniques to suit each student-athlete's hard wired learning system:

For VISUAL learners:
1. Bring a dry erase board to practice and keep it on the court. When you are going to put in a new play, take 5 minutes to first draw it out.
2. You can give players a DVD showing the offense you run, drills they need to execute, etc.
3. You can give them a playbook packet outlining your offenses, BLOB's, drills, etc.

(also, have you heard the saying "it's not what you teach that matters, but what you emphasize"? I'm an advocate for having a board/signs on the court with reminders for the players of the habits you expect from them. For example, I would write box out/rebounding triangle, keep offense out of the paint, help and recover, etc. The point is that student-athletes, you and your staff will see your points of emphasis constantly, forming a mental tattoo of what's most important to you.)

For AUDITORY learners:
1. As you draw the play, you should be talking it through. Dictate to the team the movement, screens, etc. Also let them know what you want to cover that day (ie, on this ball screen we are really looking for our posts to hedge hard, guards slide under then recover up and out as out post sprint back to their man).
2. Some kids may honestly benefit from listening to a recording of the coach talking through a play or drill they don't understand; most everyone has an iPhone, iPod or other portable recording device that they listen to on the way to class.

For KINESTHETIC learners:
1. The method coaches use 99% of the time; show the whole-part-whole method on the court. First, run through the whole play. Second, break down the play into different sections to practice. Finally, bring it back together again to demonstrate the whole. These types of learners "learn by doing".

As you are on the court, be aware of the different types of learners. You can even Google this subject and find short 10min tests that your athletes can take that will identify how they learn best.

Practice makes perfect? NO.

From Tom Buchanan...an accomplished author, photographer, sky diving and snow boarding instructor, world traveler and a good friend.

The secret is in developing the proper technique first.

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect permanent.

Quote of the Day:

Repetition leads to habit which leads instinct. This is known as "the third law of learning." You must first develop the proper technique. Begin with knowledge, apply that to technique, and follow up with repetition. Only through repetition will good technique become habit. Only through even more repetition will habit become instinct. The difference between habit and instinct is that habit requires thinking. Instinctive play flows without concious thought. Instintive play is the level that we aspire to acheive and is what separates good players from great players. -- The Teacher, Marvin Harvey

Coaching vs. Teaching

Following up on today's quote, below is an excerpt from an article written by former Duke basketball player and current ESPN analyst Jay Bilas on the difference between "coaching" and "teaching" basketball.

Generally, "coaching" consists of team preparation, the devising of game plans and
schemes to defeat opponents. When you are coaching, you are dealing with strategies,
different offenses and defenses, and putting in plays to take advantage of the skills,
strengths and weaknesses of your players. The measure of a coach is the quality of the
development of his system, and has been distilled into winning.

"Teaching" consists of instruction and training of individuals in the fundamental skills of
the game, and in teaching players how to play, instead of how to run plays. The measure
of a teacher is not in winning, but in the fundamental soundness and skill level of the
players taught. A player with excellent fundamentals and skills can play successfully in
any system.

We are basketball teachers- much more than simply a "coach"! Teachers have a great responsibility to develop and maximize student-athlete's potential; they focus on individual development and team cohesion.

For the full article in PDF format, click this link.