A reader of the blog has a problem with one of their players. Specifically, it relates to bad passing mechanics. Here’s the note I received:
“I am a relatively new coach and this is my first season coaching boys. I have one boy on the team in particular that I’m having a hard time with his passing skills. He is doing what I call butterfly arms (Looks like he’s swimming the butterfly stroke) and delayed foot movement during passing. He waits until the ball is almost on him, then swings his arms backwards and around to get them into his hitting stance then leans forward instead of shuffling to get under the ball.
I’ve tried all kinds of passing and footwork drills with him (rolling the ball and having him shuffle to get it between his legs, having him hold his arms out, shoulder width apart and tossing him the ball without requiring foot movement, etc.) and I haven’t been able to cure this extra movement. Needless to say, he shanks a LOT of passes. Do you have any suggestions for drills or repetitions to help this?”
I’m having a hard time visualizing exactly what the problem is with the arms. I think I’ve got a general idea, though. In a case like this my first thought is the player needs to see himself to be able to understand what’s happening.
What I would start by doing is having the player watch some good passers in action. That could potentially be someone on his own team. It could be someone that they play against. Of course, it could also be some prominent high level players that could potentially be bigger role models for them. That stuff should be easy enough to find on YouTube, etc.
Once the player knows what good passing mechanics looks like, I would get them watching themselves pass. You could use one of the apps like Coach’s Eye (I think) that allow you to do side-by-side comparison of video. More than that, though, I’d want to be able to give the lad persistent feedback by using video delay, if you can (ideas for a set-up are here and here). That would let him see himself basically every repetition. He can then compare what he’s doing with what he’s seen is good mechanics. No better feedback than that!
Beyond the video, I don’t think it’s the actual drill or game that really matters. It’s more about finding the right cues to use with him. Those are the things that carry through across all activities, so you can include them throughout practice, which is important. The player needs to learn to pass in game situations, so you need to be able to have those cues established and ready for use.
Be careful, though, and don’t overload the kid. Try to only focus on one or two things at a time. If you have too many points of emphasis it’s not going to work.
See also Are you teaching your receivers to read the server? to address issues of late movement.
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4 Responses
This sounds like a problem of perception.
“He waits until the ball is nearly on him”
He is not waiting. He doesn’t see/track/follow the ball. No amount of ‘mechanics’ training will fix that. He needs to learn where to look, when to look and how to link his movements with what he sees.
The vision thing occurred to me as well. One more reason to get him on video – to see where he’s looking and tracking.
Boys seem to have worse depth perception than girls. So getting behind the ball is similar to tracking a fly ball in baseball. The ball straight at you is the hardest to gage. I follow Karch theory, pick a side, which helps you see the ball from the side and help a little with depth, then also allows for being able to pass a ball that you haven’t been able to get far enough behind with a platform you can set up in combination with three step footwork almost every time. USAV has 2 great videos on this. Not sure if you want me to find them and copy n paste them here.
Steven – Definitely feel free to post the links if you can find them.