Training - Saturday, Jan 27

Today the goal was to introduce triangle defending movement to the girls.  I once again brought Jon Schaefer in to help lead the session.

What I call "triangle defending" is simply three-man coordinated defending.  Buzz Lagos was a huge proponent of teaching this type of defending, and we worked on it constantly year after year with the Thunder.  Though while going through it, I always thought this process was unique to Buzz's style.  It was only after taking some coaching courses and doing some reading on my own that I found out it was a common theme (pressure, cover, and balance).  However, as I mentioned before, I think Buzz was one of the best teachers of the game and the concept of "triangle" shape worked well for me, being the spatially oriented guy that I am.  I don't know if I would have grasped the concept as quickly if it were explained as pressure, cover, and balance.  Thus, I want to explain it to the girls from the "shape" end of things. 

After some possession play warm-up, we got right into it.  I ran the first exercise, one that Buzz would take the Thunder through in prep for the triangle defending session.  The girls worked in groups of three; one director and two followers.  The director started a few yards behind the followers who started 5 or 6 yards apart from each other.  Both followers would always face forwards.  The director's job was to direct the two followers by loud, sharp, vocal commands.  Each command was two words - the follower's name to get their attention, then a direction (forward, backward, right, left).  The director was responsible for directing both followers and staying somewhere in the vicinity of the two players (moving with the players as opposed to standing still).  For example, Nash was directing Bidi and Scratch.  Followers moved relatively slowly (as opposed to sprinting in the direction given) and must keep moving in one direction until told otherwise.

Nash: "Bidi right! Scratch forward!" (Bidi shuffles right, Scratch jogs forward slowly)

Nash: "Bidi back! Scratch left!" (Bidi starts jogging backwards slowly, Scratch starts shuffling left)

And so on.

Girls rotated director and followers every few minutes.

Coaching points

• Short, sharp, commands
• "Wake her up" with your voice
• Directors should be aware of both players, aware of your shape

It's tough for many of the girls to project their voice in the manner that I want, so we tried a few minutes with the rule that when a girl spoke, IT WAS AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS! 

This was a pretty entertaining and useful exercise for the girls.  I had to remind some of the sharper joksters in the group to not try and make a follower run into another follower, or into a goal post, or the side of the dome, but it made for some good laughs.

We then moved into 3v3 to endlines where we could begin to address team shape against opponents.  We finished with some 10v10 play against the U13 White team.