Don’t Forget the Basics

By Bob Whitcher | Jan 26, 2010 in Blogs Bob's Blog for Parents

If you have a daughter who shows a love for this game - then I am here to help. Most of us come to this sport having zero knowledge of what we should be doing to help our kids excel - or get the right breaks. I will try to help you here with advice and answers, for both the novice parent and the seasoned pro. I'm a father of two girls who have gone on to play in top Colleges. My guidance comes from both experience and having colleagues who coach at prominent Universities. So feel free to comment, ask questions - and lets Blog!

I’m going off of my typical subject about recruitment with this blog. But not too far off. If you read my last blog about expanding your College Choices – then you’ll see why this is important. Learning and training the hockey Basics.

But I don’t hear too much about the basics in our sport. I believe this is because in the US we put too much focus on hard work and sweat in a training session. I believe the reason we put so much focus on these training attributes is because we have, as a national body, limited ability to understand the motor skills of our sports skill-sets. It’s easier to run a hard training session than a smart one. Especially at a time when our kids need it the most – and that is at the very beginning of their learning. They typically are being taught poorly, or not at all, by very young or inexperienced “coaches” during these early stages of development. At a local high school, the freshman coach didn’t know how to play the game. OK – many of our US coaches are great at COACHING for team dynamics, motivation and general tactics – but what about how to hold a stick? Or how to strike the ball for power and accuracy? How to pass to your right?

This is one of the reasons that the USFHA has introduced the COACHING ACCREDITATION program and training courses designated as Level I, Level II, Level II and Level III+. This is an initiative to get all of the USA’s field hockey coaches teaching and/or learning the correct techniques along with a consistent curriculum to help US players develop the foundation needed to play the game at its highest levels – and to keep up with the rest of the world’s hockey community. If you didn’t know, while the US has made great strides in the past few years – we are still way behind when compared to Holland, Germany and Australia, just to mention a few.

Every sport emphasizes the Basics. You hear even with the pro sport teams who have gotten off track – they need to go back and practice the basics. So, what are our Basics?

The Ready Stance or Neutral Position
Receiving
Dribbling or moving with the ball
Passing

We start here, with the first step – the Ready Stance or Neutral Position.

Think of the Ready Stance or Neutral Position as you would when you watch a Tennis player waiting to receive the serve – or a baseball player in the field just before the pitch. Even a football player’s stance on the line of scrimmage. Well we have one too!

Watch this 3 minute video – outlined by Thomas Tichelman, a former Dutch National Team Coach and FIH Developmental Coach (and World Camp USA co-owner) – he’ll show you the correct way for this positioning and at the end a great drill that can be done inside in a small space. Practice this drill – and you will “own” this stance – and then we’ll show you how to use it in the next steps for: receiving, dribbling and passing.