All opinions expressed in the blog are solely mine.
On the Aaron Sorkin production, "Newsroom," the second principle reads, "is this the best possible form of the argument?"
MVB 25 won't have a new 'ship' because the current one is fine. What happens every year is that the crew changes, bringing their own strengths and needs, hopes and dreams.
How do teammates and opponents view MVB and you?
Milwaukee Buck Thanasis Antetokounmpo said, "If I could take one guy from the Celtics and never have to face them again, I'd choose Payton Pritchard." He also said, "Forget about the buzzer beaters. When all of them don't have it or are not feeling it, [Pritchard] is the guy who is always feeling it... he's a dawg... I study the game, and I see this guy playing 1-on-1, he just has so much love for basketball. That's dangerous."
PARENTS: You are your child’s most important teacher.
- If you Blame others, your child will. - If you Complain, your child will. - If you Make Excuses, your child will. - If you Point Fingers, your child will.
Parenting is hard. Sports parenting can be even harder. Families want what is best for themselves. That's rational, expected, and hard to accept at times.
Imagine that the coach had to satisfy every parent with "enough" playing time, role, and recognition. There could never be enough to go around.
And that's the unresolved dilemma, the problems of 'economics', the allocation of scarce resources. That's what makes coaching hard.
Protect your process. Excellence flows from process. Dan Brown, author of The Davinci Code, writes 365 days a year starting at four A.M. He finds a spot free of email or Internet and phone and plies his craft. Brown points out that an author should have one key worn more than others - the delete key. Brown tells us to be demanding about our practice and gentle about the results. He once wrote 150 pages and tossed them because 'they were bad'.
What is your process? That's tricky because there's a "home" process, school process, and volleyball process.
Focus on the volleyball process. A written process beats a mental one.
1) Consider strengths and weaknesses of our 'core four' - skill, strategic understanding, physicality, and psychology.
2) Write them down. It's your draft. Nobody else needs to see it.
3) Begin your revision. "I need to work on my outside attack." Be specific. Consider the "Feynman Technique" of Richard Feynman, one of the greatest teachers ever.
“When Feynman faces a problem, he’s unusually good at going back to being like a child, ignoring what everyone else thinks… He was so unstuck — if something didn’t work, he’d look at it another way.”— Marvin Minsky, MIT
Name it.
Explain it.
Research.
Review it.
Author David Mamet reminds authors to "kill your darlings," poorly written or unnecessary content.
4) Practice it. Coach John Wooden described the learning process - explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition x 5. More quality repetitions produce more quality results.
5) Review your practice with tracking and perhaps video.
Are you contacting the ball too low, allowing more blocking?
How good is your contact with the ball?
What sound does it make?
Are the hard hits hard and are you using "thumbs up" or "thumb down" to direct your attack?
Are you getting desired 'spin'?
Make practice relevant to your role. Anna Burns shouldn't invest much time on spike footwork. She should practice setting and 'out of system' passing, receiving, digging, hitting downballs, and serving.
