Planning
Planning is an important part of marching or any other sport, below is some of the information you should keep in mind when you start planning as a coach.
What information will you require?
- A team list with names, phone numbers, and email addresses
- Relevant information about your marchers; such as, state of health, age, skill level, and experience
- Dates and venues of competitions or training sessions, remembering to check the dates of public and school holidays to ensure there is no clash
- The rules and requirements for your competitions
- A list of your key contact people, such as coach, management team, any relevant clubs, schools or even regional association and more.
If you're coaches Youth or Young Adult marchers and planning a meeting with parents or caregivers
- Make a list of what's needed for the season, E.G. uniforms, subs, equipment etc
- Hand out a list of key dates, practice and training times and relevant venues
- Decide on what extra help will be required E.G. chaperones, supervision support, transport, management support, fundraising etc
- Decide on a system of notifying people if practice or competitions are cancelled
- Establish a "Code of Conduct" with your marchers, management team, parents and caregivers at the start of the seasons. Decide what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behavior
There are also things to consider when you're planning your training sessions. Being well organized reduces the opportunities marchers have for inappropriate and attention seeking behavior. Praising positive behavior can be more effective than punishment. As a coach you should:
- Involve your marchers in planning and decision making
- Keep you explanations short and to the point
- Provide plenty of activity - keep the waiting time to a minimum
- Include a variety of drills and activities that are challenging, but not beyond the skill level of the marchers
- Avoid elimination activities get left out, usually the less skilled which gives them no way to improve
- Choose activities that give a better chance of success and provide plenty of positive feedback
- Ensure that you have enough equipment to go around
As you gain experience in coaching you will develop your own systems and routines for running your training sessions, consider the following:
- Plan in advance for the season and the training sessions
- Prepare a detailed plan for the season and for each session, ensure you know what you are going to do, and what equipment you will need
Ready? Continue on to The elements of an effective training session