Somebody posted in a coaches group asking “What conditioning penalties do you implement and for which actions ? (Tardies, unexcused absences, missed serves, drop balls, and so on)” My reply to that submit was:
Subsequent to none. If you’d like penalties for recreation components (e.g. missed serves) issue them in to how your rating/depend. For off-court points I search for one thing that contributes to this system to make up for what was taken out of it. Didn’t get your bodily paperwork in on time? Spend an hour serving to the coach with their stock.
Like many coaches of my era, these types of “conditioning penalties” have been common apply in my early profession. In any case, that’s what I skilled as a participant and noticed in different coaches. It was the default setting in my teaching mind. As such, it was the go-to, notably within the fast choice second when one thing unfavourable simply occurred on the courtroom. (See Why Do We Suppose Bodily Punishment is a Good Instructing Device in Sports activities?)
I’m not that coach anymore. Haven’t been for some time.
It was a course of, however gone are the times once I routinely assume I have to make the staff do sprints for one thing like letting a ball drop. I’ve been moved on this path by plenty of elements. Studying about analysis findings on punishment is a part of that. Wanting laborious at what these punishments truly do almost about the athletes bodily is one other.
And a giant one is studying to take the emotion (and to a level the ego) out if it. They aren’t making volleyball errors on function. They aren’t making an attempt to make me look unhealthy. The errors are normally coming from trustworthy effort (particular behavioral points apart). Why ought to I get indignant, except it’s at myself for not doing my job effectively sufficient? Particularly if I’m additionally yelling at them.
Then there’s additionally the query of issues extra deeply to know the basis trigger. For instance, as a substitute of soar straight to punishing the end result of a ball dropping base routinely on the belief of a unfavourable perspective or lack of consideration, I take into account whether or not there isn’t as a substitute an issue with gamers studying the play and/or realizing whose ball it’s. In different phrases, I attempt to deal with the illness, not the symptom.
So now, once I see the next I can’t assist however wince. Somebody posted it in response to the query I began this submit with, saying it got here from a school (JUCO, I feel). It got here within the type of a graphic with that faculty’s branding, which I’ve stripped out.
I’ll say, the primary one does line up with the form of factor I talked about in Non-volleyball penalties. I’m a bit stunned that the one on Examine Corridor hours doesn’t match that form of philosophy. Similar with the one about gear.
An enormous stunner is the mile rule for missed apply. In case you’ve learn my submit on volleyball gamers doing the mile, you’ll have a good suggestion of my response to this. Somebody misses volleyball apply so you have got them do one thing that’s truly detrimental to their growth as a volleyball participant?
The late for apply suicides may, at a sure level, begin stepping into the realm of being abusive. Even when it doesn’t, relying if you do them, they might negatively impression the participant’s means to coach successfully.
Additionally, I would like conditioning to return from what I do in apply, not from punishments. Actually, if I’m punishing with further conditioning, I very seemingly am over-conditioning the participant(s).
Punishments as Penalties
Now let me get in to this complete use of “penalties” when folks actually imply punishment. Every part on the listing above could also be a consequence. They’re additionally, nevertheless, punishments. Utilizing the time period “penalties” doesn’t change that reality, and everybody is aware of it.
This isn’t me saying there must be no penalties. Fairly the opposite. There are penalties all over the place. You hit the ball out of bounds you lose the rally. Perhaps you lose the set, and probably the match. Or perhaps you get knocked off the courtroom since you’re enjoying Winners. These are penalties too. They’re simply non-punishment penalties.
So the query then turns into, as coaches, how can we make the most of non-punishment penalties to encourage the actions and behaviors we wish (sure, penalties could be optimistic!), and discourage these we don’t? Significantly when it has to do with what occurs on-court.
Give it some thought in your personal teaching.
P.S. No, I don’t have punishments (by no matter identify) for dropping video games or different competitions in apply. I favor to give attention to “towards” motivation slightly than “away from”.
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