Practical 1

We did our first practical session the other week , it was really enjoyable but at the same time quite informative and an eye opener to what sometimes it requires to put on a effective session. It reminded me of some of the things that we take for granted as accomplished sportsmen/women that are actually for the purpose of this weeks session when we were focusing on coaching very young children maybe 4 or 5 years old , were actually very difficult skills that have taken years to develop or us that we take for granted.
We discussed in the session stripping back games to the very basics of movement looking at creating games that the youngest of players could play. For example we devised a game similar to bench ball but using a bean bag , as to use a ball of any kind is assuming that the children have developed skills of passing and have developed advanced levels of spacial awareness. When if you think about it children at that age have very limited spacial awareness and if you asked a 4 year old to throw a ball to you from 10 yards away they would probably struggle. Therefor we eliminated the need for these skills so that we could focus more effectively on the principles of invasion games. It was a useful first session that we were going to progress on next week. This session all so helped me work on one of my weaknesses as it required to think about the game from a participants view , which of course would seem fairly difficult , but if I was to look at it from my own players perspective it would be a simple task so it helped me think about devising a session from the players ability point of view , not mine.