EXPERT SESSIONS AND ADVICE FROM QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED GRASSROOTS RUGBY COACHES
Do you remember being taught to swim? Or did you take your kids to swimming classes? Although my own kids have passed this stage, I see that there’s far more paraphernalia around the pool than when I was learning. They seem to use all manner of floats and tubes to help. That’s on top of armbands.
We did have armbands in my day. In fact, my first official sporting success was in swimming when I came third in the U5 one-width school race. That there were only three in the race and I didn’t finish wasn’t important.
We also had floats that were a standard size whatever your age, build or ability. Now these floats are used to help isolate different elements of the stroke – for example, you might rest your left arm on the float to work your right arm. It’s argued that this will lead to a more efficient use of the limbs for each style of swimming.
Not everyone believes this is the right way to coach swimming, or indeed any sport. Concentrating solely on one aspect of a mechanical body action might mean the participant compromises another part. Adjusting one part of your action might impact on another part. If you isolate the action, you can’t tell how it might work when you put everything together.
Take a spin pass. If you work with a heavy ball, you might overcompensate for the weight with your shoulders or hips, whereas the idea of the weighted ball might be to isolate the work of your wrists and forearms.
Another argument is that you can throw a baby into a pool and he’ll swim naturally. Why isolate the skill when you can create a learning environment that allows the participant to learn by doing, failing and succeeding?
But just as we wouldn’t throw a 10-year-old non-swimmer into the deep end, we’re more careful when it comes to areas like tackling.
Let’s face it, artificial aids will make it artificial. The more we can keep it real the better.
Here are two sessions to use which either use pads to start the process, or get straight into using contact. However each one builds the level of intensity to develop confidence.
Andy Pollard, head of safeguarding for Yorkshire Rugby and former police officer, argues that safeguarding goes beyond a tickbox exercise. Ignore the full implications and your club could suffer. More importantly, your players may fall into the cracks too. MORE
If we want to maximise learning and engagement for players, we need to kick queues to touch and offer them a practice environment that will capture their imagination and help them improve as rugby players. But how do you coach without queues? MORE
Don’t you just love it when someone tells you that something you’ve always believe to be true is wrong. I’m not talking about all this post-truth nonsense which seems to invade our media channels these days. I’m talking about the sort of information we’ve held as common practice and then passed this onto our players. Water intake or hydration is one such area. Making sure we are properly hydrated is not an issue. How we go about it, or what the signs are, these do need revisiting. MORE
In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about thinking. It’s reflecting on a decision, working out how to make it better next time. What does that mean and look like for players? MORE
in Blog, Rugby coaching
In my previous article, I outlined how I set up my Veo for games and training. I've now had a greater opportunity to use it for recording games. Again, I come at this without much recent experience of using video analysis software. I don't have much time to sit down and code games. Instead, I will mainly use the footage to pick out some key points to help inform my coaching and to share moments with the players. MORE
Spaced learning is probably something you’ve already encountered in life without ever really realising it. It's the idea that it's easier to learn a topic or skill when it’s broken down into shorter periods or chunks. MORE
