WrestlingGear.com Newsletter - "Coaching Youth Wrestling" In Focus
July 29, 2003
==========================================================
This month we have decided to make Title IX an important part of who we are. Concern for the way wrestling and other Olympic Sports are in jeopardy is a great concern of WrestlingGear.Com.
Starting August 1, we will start giving to Title IX via one of the Title IX organizations. It will be similar to other companies like Target that reinvest in their communities. Our community is nationwide - so we will give to Title IX issues.
This week I sent out another email to send or call the White House to let them know what you think about Title IX. Any time you can take the time drop the President a note - please do so.
Take a look at themat.com - they have a lot of information about Title IX - another program is on the chopping block.
Now back for the coaching stuff...
We have Coaching Youth Wrestling excerpt for this months coaching tips. If you have written an article or put together some tips for your wrestlers, send it to us. If we put it up on the site or via email, we will send a $25 gift certificate as a thank you.
Take a look at all the wrestling products we have. As always if you see a product we need to add, let us know. That is how we have found out about a lot of the top products we sell on the site. Also, let us know any other suggestions you have.
Forward this onto to other coaches and please pass our name around when others are looking for gear. We always look for feedback from our customers...keep in touch and let us know if we can help you...
Take care...
Jeff Pape
P.S. I was told its important that you have our email address in your contact list so our emails do not get thrown into your junk mail. You can update your profile to make sure you get all the emails you are interested in. Click the link below to edit your profile. You can also unsubrscribe there as well...
Gable Advanced Wrestling DVD available on WrestlingGear.com!
----------------------------------------------------------
Master even the most challenging wrestling moves by watching this new DVD from Dan Gable.
The Zadick brothers, Bill (a former NCAA champion) and Mike (a three-time All-American), demonstrate the techniques and tactics that will provide you the perfect blueprint for every maneuver. The On Your Feet program covers techniques from a standing position, including the stance and ties used in setups, headlocks and bodylocks, double-hand drills, breaking ties on defense, single-and double-leg attacks, tosses, and special moves. On the Mat teaches techniques from the top and bottom position, including arm bars, near wrists, arm and leg turks, sit-backs and sit-outs, rolls and granbys, hip heists, counters and pins, switches and stand-ups, standing rolls, and clearing legs and ankles.
Click here to order Gable's Advanced Wrestling DVD:
http://www.wrestlinggear.com/flypage.php?productid=230
"Coaching Youth Wrestling" by The American Sports Education Program
----------------------------------------------------------
Helping Athletes Improve Skills From Chapter 5: Teaching and Shaping Skills
Coaching Youth Wrestling, by the American Sport Education Program
Helping Athletes Improve Skills
After you have successfully taught your athletes the fundamentals of a skill, your focus will be on helping them improve that skill. Athletes will learn skills and improve on them at different rates, so don't get too frustrated. Instead, help them improve by shaping their skills and detecting and correcting errors.
Shaping Athletes' Skills
One of your principal teaching duties is to reward positive behavior--in terms of successful skill execution--when you see it. An athlete takes a good shot in practice, and you immediately say, "Good shot! Way to set up your shot and drive through the finish--nice job of staying off your knees." This, plus a smile and a thumbs-up gesture, go a long way toward reinforcing that technique in that athlete.
However, sometimes you may have a long dry spell before you have any correct technique to reinforce. It's difficult to reward athletes when they aren't executing skills correctly. How can you shape their skills if this is the case?
Shaping skills takes practice on your athletes' part and patience on your part. Expect your athletes to make errors. Telling the athlete who made the great shot that he did a good job doesn't ensure that he'll make that takedown next time. Seeing inconsistency in your athletes' techniques can be frustrating. It's even more challenging to stay positive when your athletes repeatedly perform a skill incorrectly or lack enthusiasm for learning. It can certainly be frustrating to see athletes who seemingly don't heed your advice and continue to make the same mistakes. When the athletes don't seem to care, you may wonder why you should.
Please know that it is normal to get frustrated at times when teaching skills. Nevertheless, part of successful coaching is controlling this frustration. Instead of getting upset, use these six guidelines for shaping skills:
1. Think small initially. Reward the first signs of behavior that approximate what you want. Then reward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. In short, use your reward power to shape the behavior you seek.
2. Break skills into small steps. For instance, in learning to defend a double-leg shot, one of your athletes does well with her sprawl, but her cross-face is inconsistent. Reinforce the correct technique of her sprawl, and teach her how to make more consistent cross-faces. When she masters that, focus on getting her to go behind for the takedown quickly.
3. Develop one component of a skill at a time. Don't try to shape two components of a skill at once. For example, while hitting a switch, athletes must first clear their arm, then move their hips away from their opponent in a side hip-heist. Athletes should focus first on one aspect (clearing the arm), then on the other (moving the hips away from the opponent in a side hip-heist). Athletes who have problems mastering a skill often are trying to improve two or more components at once. Help these athletes to isolate a single component.
4. As athletes become more proficient at a skill, reinforce them only occasionally and only for the best examples of the skill behavior. By focusing only on the best examples, you will help them continue to improve once they've mastered the basics.
5. When athletes are trying to master a new skill, temporarily relax your standards for how you reward them. As they focus on the new skill or attempt to integrate it with other skills, don't be surprised if the old well-learned skills temporarily degenerate. This is normal.
6. If, however, a well-learned skill degenerates for long, you may need to restore it by going back to the basics.
Coaches often have more skilled athletes provide feedback to teammates as they practice skills. This can be effective, but proceed with caution: You must tell the skilled athletes exactly what to look for when their teammates are performing the skills. You must also teach them the corrections for the common errors of that skill.
We've looked at how to guide your athletes as they learn skills. Now let's look at another critical teaching principle that you should employ as you're shaping skills: detecting and correcting errors.
Detecting and Correcting Errors
Good coaches recognize that athletes make two types of errors: learning errors and performance errors. Learning errors are ones that occur because athletes don't know how to perform a skill; that is, they have not yet developed the correct motor program in the brain to perform a particular skill. Performance errors are made not because athletes don't know how to do the skill, but because they make a mistake in executing what they do know. There is no easy way to know whether an athlete is making learning or performance errors. Part of the art of coaching is being able to sort out which type of error is occurring.
The process of helping your athletes correct errors begins with your observing and evaluating their performances to determine if the mistakes are learning or performance errors. For performance errors, you need to look for the reasons that your athletes are not performing as well as they know how. If the mistakes are learning errors, then you need to help them learn the skill, which is the focus of this section.
One of the most common coaching mistakes is providing inaccurate feedback and advice on how to correct errors. Don't rush into error correction; wrong feedback or poor advice will hurt the learning process more than no feedback or advice. If you are uncertain about the cause of the problem or how to correct it, continue to observe and analyze until you are more sure. As a rule, you should see the error repeated several times before attempting to correct it.
Correct One Error at a Time
Suppose Jack, one of your athletes, is having trouble with his front headlock. He's doing most things well, but you notice that he's not scoring as quickly or as easily as he should be from this position. He gets to the position quickly, and his shoulder is pressuring the center of his opponent's back, and he also has control of his opponent's chin. But often when Jack gets to the front headlock, he loses his footing and drops to his knee, sometimes just to adjust into position but long enough to keep him from getting control of his opponent's near arm. This leads to Jack being unable to spin quickly behind for the takedown, as his opponent is adjusting to the position. What do you do?
Because athletes learn more effectively when they attempt to correct one error at a time, decide which error to correct first. Determine whether one error is causing the other; if so, have the athlete correct that error first because it may eliminate the other error. In Jack's case, dropping to his knees may cause him to miss controlling the near arm, so you should correct his dropping to his knees first. When neither error is necessarily causing the other, correct the error that will bring the greatest improvement when remedied. Correcting one error often motivates athletes to correct other errors.
Use Positive Feedback to Correct Errors
The positive approach to correcting errors includes emphasizing what to do instead of what not to do. Use compliments, praise, rewards, and encouragement to correct errors. Acknowledge correct performance as well as efforts to improve. By using the positive approach, you can help your athletes feel good about themselves and promote a strong desire to achieve.
When you're working with one athlete at a time, the positive approach to correcting errors includes four steps:
1. Praise effort and correct performance.
2. Give simple and precise feedback to correct errors.
3. Make sure the athlete understands your feedback.
4. Provide an environment that motivates the athlete to improve.
Let's take a brief look at each step.
Step 1: Praise Effort and Correct Performance. Praise your athlete for trying to perform a skill correctly and for performing any parts of it correctly. Keep the praise simple: "Good try," "Way to hustle," "Good stance," "Good position," or "That's the way to drive through."
Make sure you're sincere with your praise. Don't indicate that an athlete's effort was good when it wasn't. Usually an athlete knows when he has made a sincere effort to perform the skill correctly and perceives undeserved praise for what it is--untruthful feedback to make him feel good.
Step 2: Give Simple and Precise Feedback. Don't burden an athlete with a long or detailed explanation of how to correct an error. Give just enough feedback so that the athlete can correct one error at a time. Before giving feedback, recognize that some athletes will readily accept it immediately after the error; others will respond better if you slightly delay the correction. Try to determine which type of athlete you're dealing with.
For errors that are complicated to explain and difficult to correct, try the following:
1. Explain and demonstrate what the athlete should have done. Do not demonstrate what the athlete did wrong.
2. Explain the cause or causes of the error, if it isn't obvious.
3. Explain why you are recommending the correction you have selected, if it's not obvious.
Step 3: Make Sure the Athlete Understands Your Feedback. If the athlete doesn't understand your feedback, he won't be able to correct the error. Ask him to repeat the feedback and to explain and demonstrate how it will be used. If the athlete can't do this, be patient and present your feedback again. Then have the athlete repeat the feedback after you're finished.
Step 4: Provide an Environment That Motivates the Athlete to Improve. Your athletes won't always be able to correct their errors immediately even if they do understand your feedback. Encourage them to "hang tough" and stick with it when corrections are difficult or they seem discouraged. For more difficult corrections, remind them that it will take time, and the improvement will happen only if they work at it. Look to encourage athletes with low self-confidence. Saying something like, "You were defending against the attacks much better today; with practice you'll be able to block those shots and set up your own attacks." Such feedback can motivate an athlete to continue to refine his skills.
Some athletes need to be more motivated to improve. Others may be very self-motivated and need little help from you in this area at all; with them you can practically ignore step 4 when correcting an error. While motivation comes from within, look to provide an environment of positive instruction and encouragement to help your athletes improve.
From Coaching Youth Wrestling by The American Sports Education Program. Excerpted by permission of Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL.
Read more by ordering "Coaching Youth Wrestling" - Click Here:
http://www.wrestlinggear.com/flypage.php?productid=168
PRE-ORDER YOUR COMBAT SPEEDS TODAY!
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit WrestlingGear.com now and pre-order your pair of 2003-2004 Combat Speeds. Yes, they are back and are available for pre-order today! Order now and get a free shipping upgrade.
Click here for more information on the Combat Speeds!:
http://www.wrestlinggear.com/combatspeedwrestlingshoes.html?nl
IN CLOSING
----------------------------------------------------------
This is an opt-in email list. We use a double opt-in formula for you to be added to this list so you will only be added after you send us an email and then we will send you an email verifying being enrolled.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Remember to forward this to your friends and family that may be interested.
As always, let us know what you are up to or if you have something you would like us to highlight on our web site...
Good luck - remember to set your goals and work hard to achieve them...
-Jeff Pape
Owner/President - WrestlingGear.Com, LTD
http://www.wrestlinggear.com
http://www.illinoiswrestling.com
LAST CHANCE TO VISIT WRESTLINGGEAR.COM CLICK HERE:
http://www.wrestlinggear.com/index.html?lastchance
==========================================================
WrestlingGear.com
9729 W. Grand Avenue
Franklin Park, Illinois 60131
Web Site: http://www.wrestlinggear.com
Phone: 800.565.0995 Fax: 630.832.0505
