The Samurai, the Gamer and the Birthday Boy

You can blame David Letterman perhaps. His Top Ten lists were a staple of his quirky comedy and lead to books, videos and oft imitated staples of our society. While some can be inane and self promoting, some can be useful in our lifelong endeavor to be better at our craft. 

To that end, please partake in these three distinctive lists drawn from three random sources, all offering up nuggets of wisdom for coaches winding their way through the path. 

Musashi 

A mere 660 miles southeast from the site of the (now) 2021 summer Olympics is a small deserted island that is only accessible by boat. It’s called Ganryujima and it is home to one of the most famous statues in the history of Japanese sword art, also more commonly referred to by its age of the culture, the Samurai. 

The master was Miyamoto Musashi, (1584-1645). In this statue, he is battling his final duel, which he wins when he brings his wooden sword made from the oar of a boat down upon his foe just seconds before he was to be slashed. 

Musashi finished his life with a perfect 61-0 record in duels and is widely considered the greatest Samurai of all time. At the end of his life, he wrote a book called the Five Rings where he diligently records his 21 Rules of Life. 

In his disciplined world of life and death struggles, Musashi would never fall in love, never eat good food and never have possessions that weren’t useful. But some of these rules resonate with the ideas that we as coaches both need and should help disseminate toward our athletes. 

1. Accept everything just the way it is. 

3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling. 

4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. 

6. Do not regret what you have done. 

7. Never be jealous. 

9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others. 

21. Never stray from the way. 

While we are not in literal life and death struggles as we face off across the net from another team, Musashi’s rules do remind us that some principles are forever and can help us through our own days of obstacles and help guide our athletes through their life as well.

Gamers 

Watch a player throw themselves into the stands for a loose ball and they are described as “gamers.” But in the 1970’s and 80’s this moniker hbegan to hold a different meaning. Pong turned into Galaga which morphed into the Brother's Mario into the next generation of home entertainment. 

James Paul Gee is considered the Godfather of “Game based learning.” In other words, he sees video games as great learning and teaching methods and recently came out with a list of the 16 principles of good game based learning. While this list has an obvious bias toward video games, some of his principles could be plucked from Coaching handbooks and webinars quite easily. 

1. Players build a sense of identity throughout the video game, either through direct input or an on-screen character they inherit. 

2. Communication occurs between the player and the game.

4. Failing in a game holds few consequences in comparison to real life, empowering players to take risks. 

6. Players have control over the gaming environment. 

7. The gaming environment contains problems that naturally lead into one another, allowing a player's mastery to grow and evolve. 

8. Games offer a problem that challenges students assumed expertise. 

9. Players receive information as they need it, not before, which teaches them patience and perseverance and improves critical thinking abilities. 

11. The game should frustrate the student enough to challenge them but be easy enough that they believe and can overcome the problems faced. 

13. Games force players to expand their situational knowledge and consider courses of action other than linear ones. 

15. In multi player environments, players have different skills, forcing them to rely on each other- a needed soft skill for students. 

16. Competency occurs through taking action in the game, reversing the typical model in which students are required to learn before being allowed to act. 

According to the Entertainment Software Association, 3 out of 4 households have a gamer under their roof and 65% of American adults play video games. While the numbers for Youth Sports continue to disappoint, this faction of society is blooming. Perhaps Gee’s list can help us understand how to better coach this generation and help kids blend the on court with the online. 

A 68th Birthday 

Kevin Kelley turned 68 last month. The founding executive editor of Wired magazine who adds author, photographer, conservationist and other wide ranging interests to his resume’, jotted down his 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice as a birthday present to all of us. 

As you will see, much of his advice would be considered chapter and verse for coaching our chosen sport. 

· Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

· Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points. 

· Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “is there more?” until there is no more. 

· Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at. 

· Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes. 

· Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you. 

· The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth to flossing. 

· Promptness is a sign of respect. 

· The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting be interested. 

· To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is. 

· You can obsess about serving your customers/audience/clients or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further. 

· Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.

· If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting. 

· There is no limit on better. Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can improve with what we start with. 

· When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problem, no progress. 

· Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will. 

· How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely. 

As with any venture in life, there are clues and ideas that surround us, now more than ever. Sometimes they aren’t in places we would expect and we have to secure the miners helmet to find nuggets of wisdom, but they are out there. 

If you have some you would like to share, please e mail us at outreach@azregionvolleyball.

The Poetry of Reality...

April 16, 2020. “The American Medical Association (AMA) believes decisions about public health should be made based on science, evidence and data.” 

April 29, 2020. “Across the country, governors have been forming pacts.Those leaders are highlighting the importance of using science and advice from health officials rather than politics to choose when to reopen the economy.”

April 16, 2020. “The health and welfare of more than 300 million Americans deserves more than political 'instinct.' Physicians and scientists are taught to base all decisions on foundational rigorous scientific principles, the best evidence available and the expertise of medical and public health professionals.”

April 13, 2020. “In separate announcements, the governors said they've agreed to let science, not politics, determine when to lift social and business restrictions.”

April 12, 2020. “Any plan to reopen society MUST be driven by data and experts, not opinion and politics.”

April 15, 2020. “Along with expanding testing and tracing, governors across the country are highlighting the importance of using science and advice from health officials rather than politics to choose when to reopen the economy.”

April 2, 2020. “The COVID-19 pandemic raises our awareness of the importance of science, both in research and international cooperation.”

March 18, 2020. “In a recent column (“I’m skeptical about climate alarmism, but I take coronavirus fears seriously,” Ideas, March 15), Jeff Jacoby sought to reconcile his longstanding rejection of the wisdom of scientific expertise when it comes to climate with his embrace of such expertise when it comes to the coronavirus.”

In the days, weeks and months that follow, as our cities and countries reawaken to a new world, we can take solace in the fact that maybe the idea of science has reentered our global conversation. 

Science has been trivialized by politics, polarizing rancor and mistrust in recent years because the findings didn't parallel the wants of those dismissing it.

But now it is life threatening. People have reengaged with science. They have dismissed claims of quick cures and baseless over the counter ideas to stay healthy. This remerging of science into our daily lives should be used not just to thwart a pandemic knocking at our doors. It should be used for daily decisions and future discussion.

Many of you have heard the phrase "science based coaching" and maybe you have embraced it or maybe you are still on the fence. 

But what this glacially important time in our history has shown us is that the frauds and hucksters trying to make money at the expense of public fear and confusion cannot be taken seriously if science is your basis of information.

As a coach, your principles should be rooted in science, not conjecture or opinion. Find those principles based in science and watch your teams learn more with better retention and transfer and more engagement. 

Let us know if you need information to help you with these decisions. We can point you in the right direction. In the meantime, check out the USAVed website for some insightful science based videos on how our top athletes are trained. 

The wonderful Richard Dawkins quote says it all. "Science is the poetry of reality."

Tribology's secret weapon...

You don’t have to be a tribologist to understand it.

But you are affected by it every day whether you know it or not. And now might be a good time to think about how you can use it to YOUR advantage!

A tribologist is someone who studies the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion. Included in that is the science of friction.

We aren’t talking about friction in the sense of two objects creating heat or how tires grip the road. We are talking about the theory and the uses of just such an idea.

One such company that has embraced the idea of LESS friction is Amazon. It was originally called “Cadabara” but when a lawyer misquoted it as “cadaver” the founder Jeff Bezos went with the less confused Amazon. 

When it started, it was online books, compact discs, computer software and hardware and videos. Part of the idea was to take the friction out of buying these categories. Bookstores often had thousands of books in shelves all over the store and after a drive, 20 minutes searching and then finally asking a clerk who told you they were out of stock, you had spent 45 minutes to an hour trying to buy this book. Amazon took the friction out. Go online, find the book, click it, check out and in 2 minutes the book was coming to your door. 

 In 1997, Amazon’s stock opened at $18 a share. Fast forward 23 years later, the stock is at over $2,400 per share (as of press time). Most all of us now shop on Amazon for almost everything including groceries, clothes, hardware, software and of course, books. One of the big reasons for the success of Bezos’ company is his ability to take the friction out of sales. Find it, one click and it’s on the way to your home. No hurdles, no travel, no friction. 

This idea can also work in reverse. If you are one that wants to stop eating oreos at night before bed, apply some friction and make it harder for yourself. Don’t buy them or have them in your home so if you want them you will have to go to the store before bed, an idea after a long day that is very unappetizing.

If you are using too much social media, apply some friction. Take the password memory off of your phone so every time you sign into a website you have to put the e mail and password in…every time. After a while, studies show, you will not use that app as much if at all.

Our society is so frictionless we rarely even notice. Drive thrus are a way for restaurants and coffee shops to get you to order from them with very little friction: you need not leave your car, it’s put into your hand and now you can pay with the swipe of your cell phone instead of carrying cash or a credit card. Friction free! 

Our daily clicks eliminate friction. Online payments, watching movies or t.v. series with one click, almost any subject in academia is a click of your laptop, register to vote online, talk to friends across the globe, conduct business, it’s all a keyboard away!

So how does this affect us as coaches? How can we utilize the idea of eliminating friction into our Coaching? Dr. Joe Baker says, “Coaches need to stop seeing themselves as transmitters of information and start seeing themselves as architects of the optimal learning environment.” What does that friction free optimal learning environment look like?

Maybe on a visual level, there is a white board with the practice written on it including player names or numbers onto every drill. The coach takes the friction out of every drill and transition to another one by naming the drills so the players recognize them and assigning the players their positions to eliminate the friction and wasting of time. 

On a feedback level, long drawn out explanations will lead to a loss of attention and then the inevitable friction of trying to get that engagement back. Quick cues, little to no extra feedback, one focus and especially not stopping drills to talk to just one player about their improvement.

How can a coach get conditioning into their practice with less friction? Including it into the practice by sprinting to positions, sprinting to shag the balls and sprinting to grab water is an easy start. And then just playing the game itself, which is the best way to get into volleyball shape; play volleyball!

On a learning level however, friction can be a decisive element in whether a player retains and transfers what they learn or not. A drill with just one skill done over and over and over, called a “blocked” drill may disengage an older athlete from what they are doing and now the drill becomes a waste of time for both athlete and coach: no learning is accomplished.

But take that drill and give it extra reps at different skills, add scoring, make it game like and now, with lots of friction applied, the athlete must focus more on what they are doing thus learning at a much higher and faster rate than before. In this instance, friction is a welcome addition to practice.

What other ideas can you think of to utilize friction in your practices, in your season? Not just for you but for your athletes, parents and Club Director or Athletic Director?

There is efficiency to the idea of less friction which saves  wasted time,  spawns practices that move with pace and are able to accomplish more and athletes that stay engaged. The idea of adding friction can help athletes stay involved mentally and physically, reach beyond themselves and retain and transfer what they have learned in practice much more effectively.

You don’t need to be a tribologist to understand the idea of friction, just look around. How did you read this blog? In the mail? Probably not.

Enjoy the frictionless life we lead, use that extra time wisely and take that extra time to make yourself the best coach you can be.

It’s an investment that will never be lost.

Closed for Maintenence...

Take a few minutes.

Relax.

Reflect and react.

Closed for Maintenence

"You haven't taught them..."

There are some coaching principles that we have shared with you over the years of this blog. Some of them might be contrary to what you have learned from past coaches, how you were trained or what your team may have won with and so you discount it for obvious reasons.

But there is one of these coaching principles that is woven into our everyday lives. So much so that we don’t even think about it BUT we use and rely on it every day.

The idea of game like!

My friend Keaton is a pilot in training. He is mid 20’s and loves to travel which has lead to his journey into flight school and soon, perhaps, flying your family on your next vacation. How confident would you be if the only thing Keaton had used in his training was a simulator and had never flown an actual plane before? 

Even Keaton wouldn’t be comfortable with this although it would be much cheaper and less school time for him! "Simulators are a great way to train for flying, however they are not completely sufficient for learning to fly. Even with a full motion simulator, some things just don't substitute for the real thing. Using a standard flight school simulator like a Redbird and even with the full motion on, it is very hard to simulate the feel of a plane bouncing around in updrafts and downdrafts and creating that turbulent feel. The biggest issue probably comes from the layout of the cockpit. In your standard simulator, buttons, levers and switches are in very different locations compared to the actual flight deck of the aircraft. Often times I find myself searching for a button and realize it's not where I think it is and that throws me off a little bit. In my opinion, the best way to simulate flying an aircraft is to actually fly an aircraft."

Bruce Lee was a revered martial artist having learned and even invented different disciplines. But even this iconic master understood the benefits of game like training. “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” 

He also punctuated the idea with this quote about un-game like training. “Too much horsing around with unrealistic stances and classic forms and rituals is just too artificial and mechanical, and doesn't really prepare the student for actual combat. A guy could get clobbered while getting into this classical mess. Classical methods like these, which I consider a form of paralysis, only solidify and constrain what was once fluid. Their practitioners are merely blindly rehearsing routines and stunts that will lead nowhere.”

Let’s take this to our everyday lives. Living in Phoenix in August, how comfortable are you calling up an air conditioning company who will send a repair person out that has ordered “Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Repair” by Roger Fischer from Amazon, all 352 pages, as their primary means of experience?

How reliable is the driver next to you on the 202 that has only read the Arizona driver’s manual and jumped behind the wheel? How satisfied will you be when you leave the Starbucks, drink in hand, made by someone who had only read the drink manual? How much will you pay to see the band that has learned how to read music but never picked up an instrument?

These are silly inclinations but it goes to the fundamental truth, or in this case, coaching principle. We get good at what we do.

Here is where we tend to go into our separate corners; the Blocked army vs. the Random army. It has to be one or the other of course because Coaching is ONLY black and white. Right? 

Of course not and we are not suggesting that you throw a bunch of 9 year olds out on the court with a ball and say play and expect much productive to happen! What we are saying is quite simply this: Your players will learn more about playing the game of volleyball if they train by playing the game of volleyball. (You can insert ANY sport in place of volleyball or for that matter, almost any skill!)

There is one other ancillary benefit to training more game like. Players love to play! If you think I’m wrong, then let me ask those of you who play on an Adult team in our Region or beyond. How many practices did you have this season? How many drills did you run? 

We love to PLAY this game. Players will learn more, be more engaged and will be able to train more WITHOUT a coach and learn intrinsic lessons that will make them better. 

One of the tragic parts of being in Coaching Education is when we see nodding heads in our IMPACT or CAP classes and then we head to the gyms to see our wonderful enlightenment being left in the manuals.

The greatest teacher probably in the history of USA Volleyball, Director of Sports Development John Kessel still struggles with this as he talked about recently on the Coach Your Brains Out podcast. “I’m still learning because I’ll do what I think is a pretty good clinic and if I come back and watch them a week later and it’s like, ‘Did you go to the clinic?’ I haven’t seen any change! So my biggest weakness is still as a teacher. As (John) Wooden says, ‘You haven’t taught them if they haven’t learned,’ and I’m saying learning is happening because they change or they do it more effectively.” t taught them..."

So we want to end this with one simple request for your next practice, something that is easy to do and a start toward a game like practice. Everything comes from over the net. Passing drills, games, etc. Every ball comes from over the net to a player. Put this into your next practice plan and you are well on your way.

Training in reality is a staple to the success of whatever we choose to do. Very few people on the planet can pick up three balls and start juggling or put on a pair of ice skates and not fall a few times. We learn by doing, by failing, by going again. Let’s play volleyball more, not just for the good of our teams but for the good of our sport!

Five...

For some of with extra time on our hands these days, we can take a few minutes and continue to open our minds about our profession. Watch, listen or read when you have a few minutes or a spare hour, but here are a few things we liked recently.



"I didn't believe in running for conditioning. In other words, I didn't believe in making them run a mile at all, or laps, or anything. But we ran plenty in our practice periods."

America's greatest coach, John Wooden, was recorded here in this 1993 coaching lecture that is basketball heavy BUT his coaching wisdom and insights are peppered throughout. A great chance to hear an hour from a legend in our profession.

John Wooden YouTube Video

"It's beautiful to have a goal. I think it's more beautiful and more powerful to have a vision."

Kerri Walsh Jennings talks about her journey, her obstacles and her career with former USC player and now podcast host Victoria Garrick's RealPod. (There is some language that my be unsuitable for all audiences, listener discretion is advised)

Kerri Walsh Jennings on RealPod

"I don't think I ever feel good. I just think about how I'm screwing up and how I could have done better."

In this candid interview, University of Georgia and Canadian Women's National team coach Tom Black talks about building his programs, what goes into those builds and how he continues his coaching journey day by day.

Tom Black Interview Part 2- 

Tom Black Interview Part 1- 

"If you are fortunate enough to be called 'Coach,' carry that moniker with pride. Seek out education and mentoring and do everything in your power to make sure that my child, and every child, has fun playing the sport with you because they feel valued and accomplished while learning to be competitive."

Jennifer Etnier's article, written from a Parent's point of view looks at youth coaching and how when it's done badly, it can ruin an athlete for life. A great perspective from the other side of the mirror.

Your Kid's Coach is Probably Doing it Wrong

"No matter what the trauma was they were recovering from, they said, 'When you are grateful for what you have, I understand that you understand the magnitude of what I've lost.'"

In these uncertain days ahead, it's good to get a quick lesson from Dr. Brene' Brown's Netflix special, "The Call to Courage" which will help any coach deal better with athletes, parents and life in general. A great funny and provocative hour or so. Once again, there is some language that my be unsuitable for all audiences, listener discretion is advised.

Brene' Brown: The Call to Courage

If you find anything you would like to share with Coaches in the Arizona Region that you felt was helpful or inspiring for you, please share it with us at Outreach@azregionvolleyball.org

Gray...

We’re back!

Six months after the last post of this blog, talking about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things and an Arizona coach who had touched so many lives, we are back a little wiser and a lot more open minded.

In December, the Region held its biannual Coaching Education Weekend. This year, the thirst for coaching knowledge was palpable. Over 85 coaches, almost double our highest numbers ever, attended CAP I and CAP II at the new Region facility. And another 26 coaches attended the Gold Medal Squared Beach Clinic at Mesquite Beach a few miles away. Almost all of these coaches had been to at least one Region IMPACT class if not several. And at the end of the clinics, we asked the coaches to give us their “a-ha” moments, those things that they had never heard of, never thought of, never realized until that weekend. One of the things that popped up, especially in the beach side, was the idea of “Guided Discovery.”

Wow, this new concept of guided discovery! It opened so many coaches’ eyes and gave them a new way to teach skills and give feedback to their athletes. Guided Discovery!!!

We have been teaching that in IMPACT since 2010!

Once we picked ourselves up off the floor, it was time to take a hard look at what we were doing wrong in our Coaching Education. We talked about Guided Discovery at great length at every IMPACT session but for whatever reason, these coaches had never heard of this before, or it didn’t resonate with them in the least until they heard it that second weekend in December.

So, holding up the mirror, the following came to thought: the instructor was not good. The way it was presented was not good. The idea of so much information crammed into 4 hours was not good. Or maybe, FORCING a coach into education was not good. It also could have been a combination of all the above.

But most of this group of 100+ coaches in December WANTED to be there, many paying their own way to hear the wisdom and experience of the Cadres. The feedback we got from the weekend was outstanding. The coaches said they learned a lot, enjoyed the discussions, wanted more. Was this the difference?

The more we thought about it the more we came to some other conclusions that shook the foundations of who we are.

First, USA Volleyball teaches and coaches based on science. This means there are lots of academic papers read, some studies done for USAV, books are consumed, authors and experts are gleaned and podcasts and videos are mined. In the search for science to make our athletes better, USAV leaves no stone unturned. And because of this, we can be perceived in coaching and learning situations as if we know all and you must hurry to catch up with us in our expanse of knowledge.

But the truth is, there are people that coach the same way they did 20 or even 30 years ago and they still win. There are people that will only drill in practice and punish their athletes and play to win at the expense of an athlete's growth, and they are still successful. And there are still coaches out there with little to no knowledge who allow their players and sometimes parents to dictate lineups and practices and they can still win a bunch.

So do you really need all of this? These guidelines, this science? These principles? Do you really need Coaching Education at all?

What do you see above?

Some see the black, some see the white. It seems that coaching at times is these extremes. It's either BLOCKED training or RANDOM training, there IS no in between! There is either DRILL-centric coaching or PLAY-centric coaching, no in between. Use boxes, don't use boxes, use cones, don't use cones, on and on and on and on.....

If you look back at the picture, what is the color you see the most?

Life, relationships, the United States, the World, Volleyball...it's NOT always black and white although we often make it out to be through ego or financial or status gain. You can train in a random way but still use some block training. Someone that uses a box in practice to protect their blockers weary legs isn't committing a felony. A coach that goes through a practice without a game isn't a terrible coach. And in the end, talent trumps most everything on a competitive arena.

So...if we have in any way made you feel in our Coaching Education that you are a sub par coach, out of touch, not up to date on the newest science and information or just someone that puts band aids on his team's problems and never sees the big picture, we sincerely apologize.

The gray is that you are coaching kids that quite possibly, if you weren't there doing it they may not have an outlet to play. You are giving of your time and resources and that is laudable. No matter how you are training, if your kids can't wait to come to practice then you are doing something right!

We hope in this gray you understand that we never want you to stop learning. The phrase "lifelong learner" is thrown around a lot but maybe more than anything it should be a "person with an open mind for life."

Going forward, this blog will be a place for resources. Open them, don't open them, it's up to you. We are committed to getting more guests for our successful audio interviews and we will continue to mine the labyrinth of content that is relevant and necessary. And along the way, we won't demean you or make you feel less than the coach that you are. We'll provide information for you and it you are interested, awesome. And if not, that's okay too.

Coaching is gray. Coaching isn't easy, it's constant hurdles and holes, discomfort and discombobulation but it's also life changing when it's done for the right reasons.

We're sorry we were away for a while, but we're back. As always, if you have any comments or things you would like us to investigate, let us know at Outreach@azregionvolleyball.