Reflections on a challenge
I recently gave myself a mini coaching challenge and I'm sharing my reflections with you.
At a recent session, I arrived with no plan. This was intentional. It was a challenge I gave myself.
I’ve done the challenge before, but not for a season or two. So here’s what I noticed, how I did it and my reflections:
The preparation
Rocking up to a session without a plan, doesn’t mean you don’t do any work. Prior to the session I thought about what focus I wanted to have.
I wanted the session to be about catch/pass. I knew this would be a good focus for the players attending.
It woudl also enable me to give whole team and individual challenges quite easily. I could also run multiple activities without much set up.
I also let the players know prior to the session that I was giving myself a challenge in order to keep working on my coaching practice, just like the work on their skills.
When the players arrived I told them my challenge. I mentioned that it was going to mean that I would have to really tailor what we were doing based on what I saw about their catch/pass.
The session
In a normal session, with a plan, I adjust what we do and what challenges are given based on what I notice. However, a no-plan session really challenges the in-action reflection of coaching.
Reflection-in-action is a term taken from Schön’s model of reflection. It’s a two-part model: reflection-in-action (in the moment) and reflection-on-action (after the moment).
Having no plan means you have to really focus on observing in the moment and being decisive about what actions to take next purely informed by what you’ve spotted.
Reflection-in-action is a vital skill for coaches who want to be adaptable to the people in front of them, provide challenge to all participants and differentiate activities to suit everybody. This is because by definition, reflection-in-action occurs in a timeframe in which action can still make a difference to the situation unfolding in front of them. - Mark Scott, UK Coaching
Prior to the session I had an idea of what positives around catch/pass and areas of improvement that I would see.
However, it’s important to not let that prior assessment completely govern what you do. Otherwise there’s no point in a no-plan challenge, as you’re not testing you’re own reflection-in-action.
As well as using my own reflection-in-action abilities, I also relied on the players. I asked them what they had spotted before sharing my own reflections.
We zoomed in on the catch/pass skill in our discussions, but we also zoomed out to ensure players understood the importance of improving actions surrounding the catch/pass.
Most of the zoomed out conversations focused on the feel of the attack: how stop and start one period of attack felt, compared to when we had made some catch/pass adjustments.
The first 24 hours after the session
Part of my reflections after the session is writing this article. What stands out to me is the importance of giving yourself challenges to continue to develop your own practice, and sharing it with the players.
It also reinforced the importance I place upon of players’ feeling and how something feels when asking for player’s feedback and why I value it.
My immediate reflections is that I got the balance of coach and peer feedback right for the session.
I also felt that using a standard touch game as a baseline activity to start the session worked well. I’ve used this method before when coaching with no plan.
I find it helpful to establish what the players have brought with them to the session. This helps you to see where the players currently are, instead of purely basing decisions on what they did last week/last month.
Lastly, limited and consistent messaging across every session is important. I’ve found it to be especially important in a no plan session. Limited means keeping your key points to 2-3 things across the session.
Using the catch/pass example, those messages could be hands up or catching away from the chest.
Limited the number of messages means you reinforce them multiple times, and it doesn’t get confusing for you (with no plan or peice of paper) or the players.
What’s next?
I’m looking to do more challenges. If you’ve got any suggestions or challenges you’re giving yourself, pop them in the comments.
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