Principles, Not Systems: Part 21
Celebrini, Datsyuk, Deception and 'The Inspiration Flywheel'
Me: Who do you like watching?
Player: I like Celebrini, do you have stuff on him? I found your YouTube channel and blog.
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest"
-Confucius
71 White grew up typing ‘Pavel Datsyuk’ into his YouTube search bar.
Taking stuff like this(click to watch video):
And imitating what he saw:
A Flywheel of Inspiration (What most parents don’t see)
Step 1: Learning Deception Requires Live Bait
Step 2: Live Bait = More Failure and Sweeter Victory
The players didn’t want to stop playing in the shaded area, as shown in the tweet below because there was a nice mix of failure and success. It was difficult to make plays but when a player faked their opponent, opened them up and slipped a pass through their skates into their teammate into the middle for a one-timer, you could see the elation on their faces.
Step 3: Sweeter Victory = More Fun
Does the CLA and EcoD stuff make practice difficult by introducing live opponents, competition, timing, scanning, the threat of turning the puck over, pressure and score?
Yes. They aren’t just games, listen to Pavel:
But maybe the most important part of it… The players have fun at practice.
And because of this flywheel effect, when they have fun at practice, this step is not the last step like it might be for many uninspired youth players that aren’t having a blast at practice.
Step 4: More Fun at Practice = More Likely to Practice At Home
They revisited a soccer study in the podcast I linked a few posts ago with Jamie Munro and Brian Kelly. Here’s the essence.
One group of players did ‘fundamentals’ (dribbling around cones, passing through gates, etc) for their training.
The other group played SSGs for their training.
The post-test was to do the cone obstacle courses and technical passing that Group 1 was doing. The results?
Group 2, who just played ‘games’ performed just as well as the Group who studied for the ‘test’ the entire time, and Group 2 touched the ball less!
The question Brian posed after was where more gold existed… Which group do you think had more fun? And which group probably wanted to go home and keep getting better with the ball/puck?
The group that played and had fun…
No ‘grind’ involved.
Pavel was just playing, and he eventually wanted to challenge himself more… 1v1 keep away becomes 1v2, he asks for it, he loves it. He gets better and doesn’t even know it.
Major Source:
If you’re curious about the paper referenced, you can search the internet for it using the title:
Cool little anecdote from Datsyuk on playing in felt boots. There's some wisdom there. In lacrosse, many (or at least some - I see videos frequently) box lacrosse players grow up playing on concrete, with sneakers. Change of direction, sprint speed, agility, etc. are all severely limited by these constraints.
In lax we usually attribute the supremacy of the box lacrosse player's skillset to spacing; they play in tighter quarters and have much less net to shoot at. This is a major factor for sure. But - this anecdote has me thinking that maybe there is some intuitive learning that goes on when you can't rely on your cleats and artificial turf to use speed and agility for gaining an advantage - deception with the stick and eyes and leverage/positioning with the body become the most ready-at-hand tools