Class Management: Importance of having stations

This article will focus on two things to help with class management. First is the importance of making stations to keep the students productive. Secondly is how to set up stations to manage the class time more effectively.

Importance of making stations:

I have heard some coaches don't like stations becuase they want to work with one student at a time to make sure they are doing things correctly. As far as the rest of the students is concern, they are standing in line watching and listening (in which you hope they are). I have found in this case that kids are getting bored and focus is lost on the task. Therefore, the coach becomes a babysitter. By all means the kids want to learn and have fun!

In the past of my coaching career, I have learned the importance of making stations to help keep the kids productive and moving. All at the same time, I learned to make lesson plans before class started so the class can run smoothly. Nothing more irritates me to set up and discussing a plan during class time wasting 5 minutes of the student's time. 

Time is also important here in this case. You wouldn’t want to have 10 students standing in line waiting for their turn when the event last for 15 minutes.  Let say a student got three tries per turn and you spend about one minute per student. That leaves the last student waiting for ten minutes to get a turn. Most of the students in the class will get at least one turn and three tries. Now let just imagine how much a student can learn in ten minutes if you had stations!

How to make stations:

Depending on your gym class program and how the gym is set up, you may need to start being very creative making stations so the students are getting more turns. Everyone is different when it comes to making stations. Stations can include a drill for a skill, practicing the skill they have mastered on their own, conditioning, flexibility, reviewing a skill from the previous class, and working on skills with a coach (coach’s station).

Over the years of coaching, I have found that this rule of thumb in making stations has worked for me.
     
1.      Have at least 2-3 kids per station.

2.      Have at least 3-6 stations.

3.      Stations should last about 30-45 seconds (this is about 3 tries per turn at the coach's station). This allow the kids to not to get bored and/or getting out of focus on the task.  In this case if you happen to give a long feedback then you may need to keep the feedback short (that is another topic coming soon).

4.      Stations should be appropriate based on level ability.

5.      Always make sure you can see all of the stations. You should always have your back facing the wall. If you can’t see all of the stations then either adjust the stations or adjust yourself (a really good reason to learn to spot on both sides).

BEST OF LUCK!
Thomas Hamblin

A new change

For those who like to follow my blog, I thnakyou. I have recently made a change for the Tumble Tuesday. The first Tuesday of every month will be Tumble Tuesday. Tumble Tuesday will be the drill of the month. rather than every Tuesday (drill of the week).

Best of luck!

Tom

What is the purpose of doing drills?

   
The purpose of this article is to identify the purpose of doing drills. Just about in any sport you ever engaged to, you did some drills. You may not call them drills but rather calling them warm-ups. Have you participated in any sports other than gymnastics? If so, I'm sure you have done drills! Example, when I was in the sixth grade I played soccer for my school. I had to do drills for passing, striking, and dribbling. Why the drills? To develop proper skills to increase performance, build confidence, and minimized injuries!

Deconstructing the skills:

    No matter what sport you may be engaged to, there are always drills involved to help us learn sport skills to increase performance and confidence.  In gymnastics, the purpose of doing drills is to learn the breakdown of the skill before putting it all together. While our brain controls the body movement, we learn by organizing information to understand what it is that you are learning to do.  Since gymnastics skills require a high concentration of technical movements, I deconstruct the skill. I break the skills into parts and make them drills to allow the athletes to organize the process of learning parts of the skill. In the course of time, the athlete will begin to put things together to achieve their goals.

Drills to control the intensity of the workout and motivation:

Other reason for doing drills is to control the intensity of the workout. I tend to do drills on an easy day or challenge day. Not to say that I don’t do drills on a hard day. On an easy day, I use drills step back to work on improving the overall skill without having to do the entire skill. Challenge day is a fun day for athletes since it’s motivating them be excited to come to practice. I tend to take a day to introduce upper level skills using fundamental drills that lead up to the skill. They really love that day!  So put the FUN in fundamentals!

Importance of drills for skill development:

     Over the years, I have heard from coaches and athletes themselves hate doing drills and some actually love doing drills.
     It is common for those who don't like doing drills since they don't have the time to learn or simply impatient that they go right at the skill. They are more than likely have no plan of action for the season or lack of knowledge for skill development preparation. This belief leads to poor performances, injuries, and lack of confidence. In most cases, athletes that are not properly trained leads to the lack of quality movements in which result of poor performance. This brings a lot of doubt in the athletes' minds that may results lack of confidence in themselves and their coach.  I have seen athletes get injured due to the lack of physical preparation of the skill. So these athletes are out for 4-8 weeks and do rehab for another 4 weeks or so depending on the injury. That is about 3 months out of their training for skill development! In some cases athletes are out longer since they are rebuilding their trust of the coach and themselves. This can be very frustrating to athletes and coaches so they won't last long in the sport. So what is your choice, train healthy for three months working toward the skill or be out for 3 months or more due to an injury (physically and mentally)?  While injuries can happen drills can help brings the athletes back while they are doing rehab.  Be careful not to have them work thru the injury. Only do what doesn’t interfere with the injury.

As one of my favorite saying: “If you don't have time to train, then you don't have time to be injured.”
 
      For those who loves doing drills, it is common that coaches makes a program for the season (off season, pre-season, season, and post season (championships)) to make time for drills to properly train the athletes. This belief leads to increase performance, minimize injuries, and increase confidence. This helps build the coach/ athlete relationship through trust and confidence. Athletes tend to stay in the sport much longer not having to deal with many injuries due to improper physical development. These athletes are also capable to learn more advance skills in the future quicker due to the nature of the fundamentals from the previous drills they learned in their program. Thus, increase of performance!
   
Conclusion:

     While some coaches makes mistakes using drills just to keep the athletes busy, drills could be treated as such to be productive (using proper mechanics of the skill) to allow the athletes to learn the skill more effectively and safely. Take the time to go back to analyzed your program and make changes to make time for drills. It’s the matter of being very creative. This can only help to develop safer and healthier athletes in the long run in their developmental training stage.

Best of Luck!

Welcome to Tumble Tech!

     Hello, welcome to Tumble Tech! The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas in drills for skill development, strength and conditioning, flexibility, training/class management, coaching experience, achieving your goals, and much more.

     If you are involved or like to be involved in men's and women's gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling, acrobatics gymnastics, cheerleading, and diving this maybe for you. The information may give you some ideas what you can do to make your team and program more productive.

     Coaches all have different programs based on time, space, and level of the athletes. We all make the best of what we have and at the same time it can be productive. While many ideas and opinions are great, please keep your comments clean and professional.

    Every Tuesday is Tumble Tuesday! Tumble Tuesday will discuss drills ideas for skill development.

   Thanks for visiting Tumble Tech. I wish you and your team the best of luck this season!