LTPD
Today I want to chat about Long Term Player Development. This has to ne a god thing as long as it is not just performance focused. Many LTPD plans are focused on performance and goals not on holistic player development. Too many coaches don’t see LTPD as part of there remit when they should.
Alex Fergusson the Manchester United Manager is an excellent LTPD coach. HE has player from 12 and many he takes to the pinnacle of their careers. Often the relationship only stops when one or two conditions are meet.
1.The player fails to maintain the standards Fergusson sets for off field and private life activities. E.g. David Beckham
2. The player is given a choice by Fergusson, you can play as a squad member with limited starts or as you are still a good player move clubs to play as a first choice.
Fergusson will blood a younger player and then remove them form the first team to build on their weaknesses, as he did with player like Wes Brown, he also allows for injuries and drops in performance as he did with Alan Smith and Ben Foster.
Fergusson plays the short game – season by season but has long plans 4 – 8 years for his future teams – he is on his 4th rotation of teams over 20 years – that is Long term Player devlopment. But Fergusson has gives his players exit strategies.
They hit 30 – 35 and they are already working towards coaching awards – look at the number of ex- Manchester United Players now managing in the premiership who all were put on the ladder by Fergusson. Ryan Giggs is the current older player moving on this path.
Now does this relate to Judo.....to me it is about a whole player – I have a student who is currently getting points for his Black Belt, once he get it he will slack off his judo because of exams – but in the next year he will do a coaching award.
So many times we see elite level athletes’ who get injury and leave the sport because the LTPD is focused on performance, at places like Bath the Elite players do degrees laying the foundation of the exit strategy. The problem is Judo like many sports is focused on the Olympic cycle if you might be too old you are out, a dip in form you are out. A true LTPD programme should support during injuries and help develop suitable exit strategies for players.
SO I think:
1. Every player recreational or performance should have an LTPD plan
2. It should reflect the needs and desires of the player.
3. The exit and contingency strategies are as important as the goals and time scales.
4. Coaches should be judged not just on immediate results but there LTPD.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Have a good day.
Marc
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Sunday, 1 March 2009
A bit of History and a Dream
Today I fulfilled a small dream.
I taught at the Budokwai in London.
http://www.thebudokwai.com/
The oldest Judo Club in Europe. I was fortunate enough to be on the coaching team for a training season for Boys attending the Headmasters Conference Independent Schools championship next week.
For those who have never been the Budokwai’s reception is full of photos of the great and good of British Judo from Palmer and Inman to Stevens and Jacks, form Sweeny to Adams they all have trained there.
Watching my boys look at the these and be more impressed by Guy Richie than Angelo Parissi, it made me realise how little they know about Judo in the UK. Now that may be my fault as a coach but how much do we teach our students about the history of Judo?
To me the Budokwai was a place my dad trained in the 1960’s and was iconic in my judo upbringing. It was hallowed ground, I wonder with modern training centres if there will be places like that in the future.?
So perhaps I will dig out old clip on You-tube of Starbrook or Jacks and recount their big wins. I am fortunate I have Jane Bridge as a tutor at Bath University but my students don’t know she was the first ever Female Judo World Champion in New York where she also won the Style Award. Perhaps we have Judo traditions on the mat but it might be time for me to start and let students know about the footsteps they are following in.
I hope 2012 in London will give 1000’s of young judo players an inspiration and the ability to say I remember when I saw....... today I added my own first ...the day i first bowed on as a guest coach at the Budokwai.
It is the small things that mean a lot.......hope you fill a small dream soon they make life feel sweet.
I taught at the Budokwai in London.
http://www.thebudokwai.com/
The oldest Judo Club in Europe. I was fortunate enough to be on the coaching team for a training season for Boys attending the Headmasters Conference Independent Schools championship next week.
For those who have never been the Budokwai’s reception is full of photos of the great and good of British Judo from Palmer and Inman to Stevens and Jacks, form Sweeny to Adams they all have trained there.
Watching my boys look at the these and be more impressed by Guy Richie than Angelo Parissi, it made me realise how little they know about Judo in the UK. Now that may be my fault as a coach but how much do we teach our students about the history of Judo?
To me the Budokwai was a place my dad trained in the 1960’s and was iconic in my judo upbringing. It was hallowed ground, I wonder with modern training centres if there will be places like that in the future.?
So perhaps I will dig out old clip on You-tube of Starbrook or Jacks and recount their big wins. I am fortunate I have Jane Bridge as a tutor at Bath University but my students don’t know she was the first ever Female Judo World Champion in New York where she also won the Style Award. Perhaps we have Judo traditions on the mat but it might be time for me to start and let students know about the footsteps they are following in.
I hope 2012 in London will give 1000’s of young judo players an inspiration and the ability to say I remember when I saw....... today I added my own first ...the day i first bowed on as a guest coach at the Budokwai.
It is the small things that mean a lot.......hope you fill a small dream soon they make life feel sweet.
Drugs in Sport – Biographies
Once again I open my paper to see a story about drugs in sport.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1157606/DWAIN-CHAMBERS-TALKS-TO-MARTIN-SAMUEL-How-drugs-shame-brought-brink-suicide-physical-cost-fight-win-gold-clean.html
But this is a bit greyer than most. It is a review as selection of writings from Dwain Chambers autobiography – Race Against Me, My Story.
Available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Race-Against-Me-My-Story/dp/1905988753
Now fact Chambers severed a two year ban for using THG, he is banned form competing for Britain at the Olympics for life, and he is now back – clean – competing and winning Gold medals as a sprinter.
So the book raises a number of points should an athlete prosper from selling the story of cheating? Or is it part of the life experience and an autobiography can be justified? Should the athletic cheat be covered by the same laws that stop criminals prospering form book deals on bank robberies etc?
All that aside the book appears to be different to many other on a number of levels. The first is Chambers wrote it himself – no ghost writer hearing stories and creating a book that flows in a readable manor, Chambers just has had a friend tidy up the prose, so it is to quote Marten Samuel in the Daily Mail...
“It is , for the most part, a searing, honest account of his life in athletics and time as a walking junkie- Chambers Words – under Conte. Chambers goes further than any athlete in revealing how, why, when and where”
I hope the book will be a deterrent but it also highlights failing in managers and other coaches in spotting the drug use or not acknowledging the problem. Also the athletes mind set that others are doing it so why shouldn’t I.
I think the most telling comment I have read so far is ....
“There will be a lot of people out there cheating, though, people who know how to manipulate teh programme.”
This last statement made me think about all the coaches I have heard talk of “getting in the refs head” it is just playing to the letter of the law, or at the edge of the rules. Is that cheating – if so can one form of cheating or performance enhancement etc playing the letter not the spirit of the law be more acceptable than a performance enhancing drug?
The bottom line is to the average kid who comes to a Dojo to train drugs in sport isn’t an issue, it is only an issue to them when it is normalised in the hero’s or stars they idolised are seen taking drugs of any kind that it has a real impact on them. SO Chambers book I will buy and read, as a coach to see what went wrong and perhaps help me see signs to look out for, as a warning to other players....perhaps someone should send a copy to Mr Phelps.
Phelps and Chambers both part of teh same problem – misuse of Drugs – but is there a consistancey across sports, or sanctions and consequences applied faily to all?
Should Cambers profit form the book? I don’t know, should he have written it? ...yes – and every coach should read it.
Todays rant over, see you Tuesday,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1157606/DWAIN-CHAMBERS-TALKS-TO-MARTIN-SAMUEL-How-drugs-shame-brought-brink-suicide-physical-cost-fight-win-gold-clean.html
But this is a bit greyer than most. It is a review as selection of writings from Dwain Chambers autobiography – Race Against Me, My Story.
Available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Race-Against-Me-My-Story/dp/1905988753
Now fact Chambers severed a two year ban for using THG, he is banned form competing for Britain at the Olympics for life, and he is now back – clean – competing and winning Gold medals as a sprinter.
So the book raises a number of points should an athlete prosper from selling the story of cheating? Or is it part of the life experience and an autobiography can be justified? Should the athletic cheat be covered by the same laws that stop criminals prospering form book deals on bank robberies etc?
All that aside the book appears to be different to many other on a number of levels. The first is Chambers wrote it himself – no ghost writer hearing stories and creating a book that flows in a readable manor, Chambers just has had a friend tidy up the prose, so it is to quote Marten Samuel in the Daily Mail...
“It is , for the most part, a searing, honest account of his life in athletics and time as a walking junkie- Chambers Words – under Conte. Chambers goes further than any athlete in revealing how, why, when and where”
I hope the book will be a deterrent but it also highlights failing in managers and other coaches in spotting the drug use or not acknowledging the problem. Also the athletes mind set that others are doing it so why shouldn’t I.
I think the most telling comment I have read so far is ....
“There will be a lot of people out there cheating, though, people who know how to manipulate teh programme.”
This last statement made me think about all the coaches I have heard talk of “getting in the refs head” it is just playing to the letter of the law, or at the edge of the rules. Is that cheating – if so can one form of cheating or performance enhancement etc playing the letter not the spirit of the law be more acceptable than a performance enhancing drug?
The bottom line is to the average kid who comes to a Dojo to train drugs in sport isn’t an issue, it is only an issue to them when it is normalised in the hero’s or stars they idolised are seen taking drugs of any kind that it has a real impact on them. SO Chambers book I will buy and read, as a coach to see what went wrong and perhaps help me see signs to look out for, as a warning to other players....perhaps someone should send a copy to Mr Phelps.
Phelps and Chambers both part of teh same problem – misuse of Drugs – but is there a consistancey across sports, or sanctions and consequences applied faily to all?
Should Cambers profit form the book? I don’t know, should he have written it? ...yes – and every coach should read it.
Todays rant over, see you Tuesday,
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