So I am watching one of my athletes in a recent shootout and I noticed that she would often miscalculate the time she had to hit the oncoming shot. This resulted in her moving to the ball way too early. To combat this I put her at center court and hit a shot off the back wall. I then made this athlete wait until I said “go”!
The results were amazing. She was surprised she could start so late and still hit good shots.
Moral of the story? Think about moving to ball to hit it, vs moving to the ball to kill it or hit a clean pass. How can you practice this? Simply by doing the drill above plus the use of your imagination. Think of this another way-Ever notice how the best players seem to have all day to hit the ball? That’s because they can and maybe you cannot play pro level but you can improve your timing!
I see many drills being posted but they all seem to have some glitches–for example–killing setups off the back wall. Good but what about the horrible technique used to do accomplish this drill? Veteran players watch for these movement issues and know that in a game with a match on the line those rollouts with bad form become skippies or left up pumpkins to rekill in the front court. The good drills are probably not posted for the public. Some of my top secret drills have drifted out to the public over the years but I keep inventing more drills. Plus the nuances of each drill are important.
How do I invent them? I watch my athletes and try to come up with why they lost and what I can do to help them win.
That leads to new drills for my monthly athletes!