d_p_pank’s BodyBlog

If you are a newbie to my little blog, I’m coaching two soccer teams this fall. One is my usual boys team that I know and they know how I work. I can basically continue with skill development to prepare them for Jr. High. I’ve got them under control.  My other team is a girls U12 team. This is a new experience. I’ve learned so far that skill development is going to be secondary. Upon a few optional summer workouts, I noticed that my biggest challenge will be getting all the girls up to game play speed, develop confidence in themselves and know that anything is possible if they are willing to work hard and listen.

That said this blog was inspired today when I was reading through a blog that discussed how some women just don’t have self confidence and put themselves in very scary situations.

That being said, I’ve learned that encouragement on my girls team goes a long way. I’ve tried to teach them to push themselves to do things the right way. I’ve stopped them when I notice they have developed improper techniques. I’ve also learned that by doing this I need to take a minute to show them what I need them to learn to do.

The real test comes this weekend as they will play their first 3 games for me! I’ve implemented long stretching before and after practice for the first time for a lot of them. I’ve worked on all their shooting skills, and now a lot of them are getting their first nicknames ever. I’ve modeled  a lot of their nicknames after national team players, that I think they all have similarities in their playing style.

If there is anything else I need to know that you have experience firsthand in dealing with coaching the ladies, please let me know.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.