Making it Fun Part 3 - Developmental Stages & Levels

Published: Fri, 01/27/17

'The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp.' - Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code

Do you know what athletes think is fun?

Getting better.

Fun games help keep the energy level high in practice and are important, but there is no substitute for the #1 way to have practices that athletes love: They need to feel tangible progress towards getting better.

3 ways you can implement this immediately:

Live by numbers – Create core drills that can be measured numerically. The focus is on improvement.
Developmental stages. Kids graduate from levels by testing out of levels. Instead of belt colors (like in Karate), you can have shirt colors. When they are ready to master a skill, they test on it, and move on to the next level after passing the test. Moving up a level is a big recognition – have some type quick ceremony and do something like ringing a victory bell.
Stuart Armstrong from The Talent Equation is a master on this subject – He says to design your practices like a video game designer:
- Create ‘levels’ that are within their reach, but it’s a big stretch that might feel just out of their reach. So when they figure something out – ask them ‘are you ready for level 2 now?’
- Use terms like ‘power-up’ and ‘freeze’ to mix up games during practice. One team can ‘freeze’ the other team for 5 seconds

Be intentional with your practice design to focus on each kid knowing what their next step of progress is, and celebrate like crazy as kids reach their next level!

Next week we'll wrap up this series looking at 4 additional ways to bring the fun: Small area games, Freeplay, Positive conditioning, & Involving the parents!

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NEW WYC PODCASTS

WYC 104 – Youth Coaching – Allistair McCaw talks 7 Keys to Being a Great Coach

Allistair McCaw is a Sports Performance Coach, Speaker, Author, Coach to Olympians & World Champions, Passionate about improving athletes, coaches & teams. Allistair is from South Africa. His family was very athletic, his mom tried out for the Olympics in the 400 meters. He grew up playing a multiple of sports, he wanted to play professional tennis, but due to financial pressures he switched at age 14 from tennis to running. He was a junior national champion, and went on to become a duathlon competitor. He has since switched to running marathons and just completed his 28th marathon.

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Craig Haworth is the founder of Winning Youth Coaching, a site dedicated to helping coaches and parents make youth sports an awesome experience for the youth and the parents. He interviews coaches from around the world and posts them on his podcast, which currently has over 100 interviews and has been downloaded over 120,000 times. He writes a weekly note to coaches and parents. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and they share the blessing of 3 children and live in Franklin, TN. You can sign-up for his weekly note here, find him on twitter at @craighaworth1, or visit his website winningyouthcoaching.com.

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"

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