To begin the activities portion of the camp, we began stretching in a circle. I chose one kid to be the leader of the stretches today to try and instill a sense of leadership. I plan on picking a different kid every day so that every kid gets this experience. After stretching for about 10 minutes, we then warmed up by doing the traditional 2 line warm up drill to get the blood pumping and their legs loose. Once everyone agreed that they were loose and ready to go, they began the 3 stations. The 3 stations are 3 different drills designed to improve strength, speed, and quickness. The 8 kids were broken up into 3 groups. Each kid did each drill for 1 minute. Only on kid went at a time in each group and when the group with only 2 kids was done and waiting for the 3rd kid in the other two groups to finish, I had them shoot 5 free throws each because it is very important that when you are tired you shoot free throws. When the others groups finished I had them do the same thing. For every missed free throw, each kid had to do a full sprint. I feel that by enforcing a punishment will maintain the focus of the players and also put the drill into a more game like situation.
When the free throws and sprints were finished with I let them have a 5 minute water break to reward them for working hard and also because it was hot out and it is important to stay hydrated. I am a strong believer that by rewarding kids for working hard, in return they will always work hard because it shows that you appreciate the effort that they are putting forth. If you have punishments and no rewards, the relationship weakens. So, after the water break it was time to go over help defense and the "behind the scenes" mechanics that make it so effective. Today was the day to exercise how to play fundamental "off the ball" help defense. To make this concept easy to learn, I used sayings that help remember timing and positioning. For example, when the ball is on the other side of the court and your man is on the wing, there is a term called "being on the nail." The meaning of this saying is to emphasize getting to the middle of the lane to stop dribble penetration. Being on the nail is referring to the nail in the middle of the foul line that extends down the middle of the entire court. Having something like this expression makes playing help defense much easier because it is like a reference point. We practiced the rotations and slides over and over again until all of the kids understood and were able to play in each position of the drill.
After the team defense portion we started doing one on one defense. I am a strong believer that defense is the key to winning so today was a very important day in the sense of instilling principles and basic slides. There were 4 drills to improve the individual abilities of the players and their defensive skills. The drills consisted of lane slides and one on one zig-zag drills. In between each drill I had the kids hydrate themselves because playing defense for an extended period of time gets exhausting and it is necessary to stay hydrated. After these defensive drills they shot free throws again.
The last thing we did to end the first session was a shooting competition and the loser ran a suicide. This all ended at around 5 in which I did the same exact thing with the second session. The later session didn't get out until closer to 8 o'clock because the shooting competition took longer because for some reason the kids couldn't make their shots.
This day was an overall productive day and I am feeling positive about the future of the camp.
2 comments:
TRAVVVVVVVV whats good homeless... dude i heard 5 star called u to hold their camp since they saw your little blog things... keep up da good work u SERBIAN
Good work Coach.
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