OUR COACHING PHILOSOPHY
Our first responsibility is to guide our athletes toward becoming amazing people who can thrive in life, achieving success in school, work, and family. We don’t think this has any connection with how many matches or tournaments they win, but rather the type of person they are learning to be. Let’s face it, the highest levels of our sport are for the very few, so the rest still have to be able to get a something out of their time in our gym.
Our approach is pretty simple.We create a talent development environment where we teach the athletes to become better together. They will have internal competition, but instead of creating a culture around “I want to succeed at the cost of you”, we create a culture around “I want to succeed together with you, so we can keep on pushing each other”. We have a long-term perspective. We know that winning matches & tournaments is fun, but we refrain from pushing physical and isolated practice down the players’ throats, all in hopes of winning a championship, and then seeing a majority of them burn out 2 years later
We aim to keep as many as possible in the sport for as long as possible, in the best environment possible. We do this by being flexible within the club, giving each athlete the opportunity to learn according to their current level, physical growth, cognitive and social development, motivation and education. We emphasize an accepting and mindful approach to mental development, where we teach our athletes to accept the thoughts and feelings that are a part of elite sport (and life) and to focus on acting, performing and living according to their personal values. So instead of creating a false sense of control and confidence, we teach them to manage anxiety, uncertainty and frustration, without acting on those feelings.
We empower players to learn through playing the game rather than simply giving over their power of exploration and self organization to someone else. Coaches are here to maintain the game, to draw lines of behavior and keep players within those lines. We guide development through external focus, autonomy, and enhanced expectancy. Unlike many volleyball programs, we do not believe there is one right way to do things. For us, the fundamentals of the game are the connections between the players and opponents, and how to strengthen or exploit those connections to inspire adaptation.