2011 NCAA DII Final Four, 2010 AVCA Midwest Region Coach of the Year, 4x GLIAC Coach of the Year; over 300 career victories
Often times coaches do a great job of preparing their athletes' bodies for practice but neglect to engage their minds as well. In this video, 2010 AVCA Midwest Region Coach of the Year Chris Gravel shows many exciting examples of how to warm-up not only the body of an athlete, but the mind as well.
Watch as Coach Gravel gets his players moving and gets them mentally connected to their teammates through a variety of basic passing drills. These are not your ordinary one dimensional ball control drills that every coach has put their players through. The drills in this DVD will help train movement during a variety of environmental factors with the goal of getting players to remain low even in times of transition and uncertainty.
Taking some well-known drills like partner passing, shuttle and diamond passing, Coach Gravel makes them his own by demonstrating variations that create chaotic situations for players. Gravel may not have invented any of these drills, but he puts some amazing twists and variations into them that will help you get the most out of your warm-up progressions.
He challenges the players mentally as they are engaged in the ball control drills, forcing them to move while processing communication between coach/player and player/player. By changing the drills on the fly, Gravel demonstrates how you can teach players to identify and prioritize a variety of sights and sounds while maintaining proper movement and staying low.
Your players will learn to always be aware of their surroundings and learn to respond to verbal cues as they are participating in the drills. Gravel can pull a player out of the drill to give them individual instruction and the team adjusts to the missing player. As the drills progress they become more game-like and more complex.
The game clips that Coach Gravel includes at the end of the video show how his team has been able to take these skills right into a high level game and come out on top!
This volleyball DVD is a perfect example of how to create a positive practice environment that will engage your athletes, help with communication, and keep them motivated from the beginning of practice to the end! If you want to challenge your team's focus and build strong ball handling for every potential situation, don't miss out on this video.
41 minutes. 2012.
