Jan 28: Day 2 of coaching clinic

Jan 28


Day 2 of the coaches clinic went well. We talked a LOT about the use of skilled warm ups for practice instead of the old run and stretch method. Apparently this was taught to Indian coaches about 30-some years ago and and has ingrained itself in training methods. The coaches seem shocked you can actually train and play effectively without running stretching prior to practice but instead by doing some volleyball activities. Even with Mark and I warming a team up in the afternoon and not stretching them, the coaches were still asking us questions: What about pulled muscles, what about sprained ankles, what about other injuries??? Ugh. Evidently wacthing us and reading about studies that SAY running and stretching are unnecessary aren't good enough. Add in to that that some teams take 30-45 minutes to run and stretch and warm up and that adds up to a LOT of wasted time. Overall the day went well though. The coaches were much more engaged, we went over attacking and serving in addition to covering more theory principles. One thing we found out is there really hasn't been a lot of coaching training here. Many coaches still use the "this is the way I was taught method" and seem very hesitant to change, which is understandable. they seem very open to new methods and when we talked about the benefits of change and being different they really took to that concept.
 
After the clinic Mark and I both stayed around to play with the juniors team and called it a night to try and get a little rest before tomorrow morning since we have an early wake up to help train Team Customs, a group we worked with earlier in our trip. Gnight from India.