I became a coach of FUJ’s B team
Introduction
FUJ is the best Czech team in Ultimate Frisbee right now. I have been part of the team for 3 years and it has been decided that I (along with my teammate) will coach the recently grown B team of ours. If you want to know what Ultimate Frisbee us read this. If you want to read about some of our achievements this season read this, or this
Why me?
Our team didn’t have any “growth policy” until recently. We have only been concentrating on the competitiveness of our team and wasting time with new players wasn’t really consistent with our goal. But as time went by, more and more the ream realized that we will die out, if we won’t keep trying to recruit new members.
But still…Why me? I only play for 3 years and there are plenty of guys that would be more suitable for the job for sure. The argument behind that was that I know more enough to help them grow. It would be a waste of time of more skilled players, because they actually wouldn’t be able to convey much more than I am. Also in few years I will probably be part of the coaching squad of the A team after the generation of current coaches retires. The sooner I learn HOW to coach, the better.
New experience
So here I am thrown into a position that I know very little about. The closest thing to this experience was during my DOTA 2 e-sport times, when I was leading our team. But that was more about understanding the strengths of our team and picking the right heroes into it, while I had to be able to guess what our opponent will want to play and counter them. Everyone was very skilled on their own, so there was no coaching from my side whatsoever. I do believe though that the skill of getting to know our strengths and weaknesses will help me in the coaching career too.
Training plan
My responsibility is to teach those guys
- How to move
- How to throw the discs
- How the game works
- Basic tactics
Movement
The global rule for most of the sports, the more physically ready you are, the tougher opponent you will be. Ultimate is though not only about raw power, but also atelicity. One has to know how his body work in order to be effective. I was thinking that we should not only muscle up, but since lot of those guys have never player any other sport, it will be super important to concentrate on agility training too (ladder drills and it’s like).
Throwing
As every can imagine, without throwing well, there’s nothing one can do on the field. On higher levels of the game, the offence should have over 95% success on their passes. Good teams rarely throw away anything. Even though there are some drills how to improve throwing, this part will be mainly on their commitment and how often are they willing to go out and throw (they should do that every day of course:D)
Basics of the game
I will have to teach them the basic principles of the game. Since there are no referees, I will have to teach them the most important rules and how to apply them. Among other principles are for example – DO NOT slow down when the disc is flying at you, NEVER stop playing until the disc is on the ground (the wind can force it up in many situations), be FAIR when making calls and so on.
I do not only want to teach them direct stuff about the game, but also HOOK them to the game. Find everyone’s interest and somehow show them, that they can fulfil it in this wonderful community. The game has everything – friendship, competitiveness, parties, clever people…you name it…
Basic tactics
If those guys are supposed to be ready to join the A team, they will need to know all the tactics that the A team uses. There will be no time for our coaches and even for the players to waste precious minutes of out trainings to re-clarify what is everyone supposed to do when the tactic is called. Hopefully they will be so motivated to play that they will not mind me teaching them like in school what they are allowed to do and when.
Plead for help
As I said, coaching is a really new thing to me. The main purpose of this article actually is to gather some feedback. Are there any coaches on Steemit? Or at least guys with some coaching experience? Is there anything I missed and should definitely concentrate on? Let me know about your experiences and what you think I should change in my overall coaching plan:)
