I considered myself pretty lucky for stumbling upon the video included below. A long time social media friend happened to post it on his Facebook wall, maybe not knowing that an old hockey coach like me would go nuts when he pushed the "Play" button. For sure, it's another of those outside the box things I just love, this one including some awesome ideas for stickhandling training.
-- Dennis Chighisola
Outside the Box Stickhandling Training
Maybe I ought to begin by sharing with members the way sparks often go off in my head when it comes to outside the box kind of things...
Sooner or later, Brenda is going to understand how it often works with me... I mean, we will someday be driving somewhere and all of a sudden a short bout of daydreaming will lead to a great new drill idea. At yet other times, I'll be wandering the aisles of a building supply store and see some odd shaped thingamajig -- of plastic, metal or whatever, and envision it being part of a great new training gadget.
Okay, before I go off on some other thoughts, how about taking a look at what reminded me so much about that somewhat outside the box stickhandling training...
http://coachchic2.s3.amazonaws.com/AsianBBKids.flv
I don't think there's an awful lot to say about that video, but...
Can you appreciate, like I do, that drilling a whole bunch of kids at once gets a ton more done than if kids are working from lines? (God, herding kids around like marching robots is so youth hockey, and doing things spread all around like those little basketball players is exactly how I've done a lot of my drilling.)
Imagine if you can, a whole team of stickhandling hockey players spread in the same fashion -- around a zone on the ice, outdoors in a parking lot, or on a gym floor. Also imagine the work getting done -- with everyone doing a drill at the same time, rather than one at a time.
As for the music, well... I've actually done that a number of times, in a number of venues. In The MOTION Lab, I had hockey players and lacrosse players dribbling to the tune of the Harlem Globetrotters' theme, "Sweet Georgia Brown". For our off-ice dynamic warmups, my junior high and high school kids did something I call the "Russian Square", which was also performed to music of gradually increasing tempos.
Then, let me suggest one other thing that's going on in the above video... A lot like I'd do in my kids' stickhandling or warmup routines, I guarantee you that the coaches are calling out commands for the change of drills. They don't have to pause for a half-hour of talking between exercises, but instead just keep going for quite some time without skipping a beat.
Oh, by the way... I couldn't help take a few folks to task when I shared my friend's post on Facebook, especially when it came to some regular commenters over on a hockey coaches and drill forum. For, thinking outside the proverbial box on anything hockey related seems a chore to some of them.
Anyway, while on this subject of outside the box stickhandling ideas, I'm reminded of my Chopped Stix gadgets that I'd often mix with the kind of training I've talked about here. Coach Chic.com members can see their video by clicking that earlier link, while non-members can discover a little more by going here: Coach Chic's Chopped Stix.
Okay, one last thing... What the teaching coaches among us should know instinctively is that kids (of all ages) hate structure. Hey, they get it in school and lots of other places. That's only one of the reasons that a lot of my skill training uses a minimum of structure. Trust me, that there's always been law and order when this old coach has been in charge of a session, but the players don't have to recognize it as a burdening structure.
*
Having watched the above video a number of times more since publishing this post, I'm sensing a bunch of new ideas coming on. So, when I am ready, I'll put a link to "Outside the Box Stickhandling Training - Part 2" right here.
