- Jul 4, 2012
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Tackling and Kicking
If you don't want to read an essay please stop reading now and don't worry about commenting.
I have been listening to a lot of professional sports people regarding the approach to overcome mental shortfalls in sports.
It has been said that to become professional/elite at any one thing you need to do on average at least 10,000 hours of practice/training... Why?
I would like to discuss why it is so important to ensure our players develop good techniques and habbits and practice enough to transfer them into the "muscle memory" in terms of tackling and kicking (field kicking and goal kicking) and then keep practicing!
It has been said that in extreme stress, either physically or mentally, the body acts automatically. As much as we all believe, in a stressful situation, that we would all act logically it is not always true. A prime example is aeroplane seat belts. Did you know that in plane crash simulations passengers and pilots often cannot open their seatbelts? This is because for the majority of our lives we travel in cars and are used to the car styled seat belt mechanism. In a highly stressful situation our brains are often incapable of thought, and we resort to what our body has always done and despite the aeroplane seat belt machanisms being very simply...we can't do it when the plane is crashing....Another example is the police officer who practiced for hours disarming his colleague and immediately after the drill he would return the gun back to the man....They would do this for hours, taking it in turns. Later on in a robbery, the police officer disarmed a bandit only to return his weapon to him immediately after...not good!
Where does this leave us?
At the start of the year I heard Mark Williams say that it is not good enough to go out and have kicks on goal...you need to go out and make every kick at goal as if you are kicking after the siren to win the flag. It may be difficult to kick a goal in a home and away match, but after you have won Richmond a flag 1000 times with kicks after the siren it wouldnt be so tough would it?
We are all highly critical of our ability to tackle and kick the footy...We see improvement in weeks after we pay particular attention to it during the week....Sooooo...
Why don't we have experts from Rugby, Judo, Jujitsu whatever...training our guys at EVERY training session???
Why doesn't each player take 100 shots at goal after training whilst all his team mates are throwing things at him, putting him off, making noise???
I am aware that there is only so much our boys can do at training...but until we tackle, tackle, tackle thousands of times at training, tackle every session we will never improve...because inevitably under the stress of playing in big matches (this year see Collingwood/Geelong/Essendon) we will need to tackle automatically, without thought! And obviously the same thing with kicking.
Training structures for close games etc is all well and good, but I would have thought drumming the basics such as tackling and kicking into players would make the result look after itself.
If we get 10,000 hours of tackling/kicking into our group I dare say we would never have to mention it again. Get it done Dimma!
If you don't want to read an essay please stop reading now and don't worry about commenting.
I have been listening to a lot of professional sports people regarding the approach to overcome mental shortfalls in sports.
It has been said that to become professional/elite at any one thing you need to do on average at least 10,000 hours of practice/training... Why?
- The first reason is obvious, if you try something for the first time...you are no good at it...but as you do it more you learn from your mistakes and change your technique.
- The second reason, which is often less well understood, is getting your brain to act independently of thought. You practice a technique until you transfer an action into what we call "muscle memory", (the body appears to automatically perform the action).
I would like to discuss why it is so important to ensure our players develop good techniques and habbits and practice enough to transfer them into the "muscle memory" in terms of tackling and kicking (field kicking and goal kicking) and then keep practicing!
It has been said that in extreme stress, either physically or mentally, the body acts automatically. As much as we all believe, in a stressful situation, that we would all act logically it is not always true. A prime example is aeroplane seat belts. Did you know that in plane crash simulations passengers and pilots often cannot open their seatbelts? This is because for the majority of our lives we travel in cars and are used to the car styled seat belt mechanism. In a highly stressful situation our brains are often incapable of thought, and we resort to what our body has always done and despite the aeroplane seat belt machanisms being very simply...we can't do it when the plane is crashing....Another example is the police officer who practiced for hours disarming his colleague and immediately after the drill he would return the gun back to the man....They would do this for hours, taking it in turns. Later on in a robbery, the police officer disarmed a bandit only to return his weapon to him immediately after...not good!
Where does this leave us?
At the start of the year I heard Mark Williams say that it is not good enough to go out and have kicks on goal...you need to go out and make every kick at goal as if you are kicking after the siren to win the flag. It may be difficult to kick a goal in a home and away match, but after you have won Richmond a flag 1000 times with kicks after the siren it wouldnt be so tough would it?
We are all highly critical of our ability to tackle and kick the footy...We see improvement in weeks after we pay particular attention to it during the week....Sooooo...
Why don't we have experts from Rugby, Judo, Jujitsu whatever...training our guys at EVERY training session???
Why doesn't each player take 100 shots at goal after training whilst all his team mates are throwing things at him, putting him off, making noise???
I am aware that there is only so much our boys can do at training...but until we tackle, tackle, tackle thousands of times at training, tackle every session we will never improve...because inevitably under the stress of playing in big matches (this year see Collingwood/Geelong/Essendon) we will need to tackle automatically, without thought! And obviously the same thing with kicking.
Training structures for close games etc is all well and good, but I would have thought drumming the basics such as tackling and kicking into players would make the result look after itself.
If we get 10,000 hours of tackling/kicking into our group I dare say we would never have to mention it again. Get it done Dimma!
