FAQ Floorball Drills for 6-10 year olds

Question: Hi Jukka, I am in Calgary working at Hockey Canada’s head office and we just ordered the drill book 6-10 yr olds..is it a hard copy drill book or is it an ebook?  Just wondering when we will get it?
Thanks
Anthony Herrington

Floorball practice drill dribbling

Answer: It’s an eBook, and its delivered “manually” after payment, through e-mail (usually after a couple of hours, like with your order), so there is not a direct download link.
Best regards,
Jukka
http://www.flrball.com

Floorball Team dynamics on practices and games

So far, I have been talking about Steiner’s model in the teamwork part, but of course there are other models that can help you understand your floorball team behavior and development. Below you find a summary of Tuckman & Jensen 1977, team development model.

Floorball game situation drills and practices

Forming – The floorball team members get to know each other and start to identify the task/challenge they are facing and how they should solve it. This is a very exciting phase for each member, although they might have spent one or more seasons together, but when you add or trade/add/remove players or change the task for the team, you will start from the beginning by forming.

Storming – Now the “honeymoon” is over and you will probably or most likely face conflicts and tensions in your floorball team, between the players and sometimes between you and a player (or this will be hidden under the surface). The conflicts can be about roles in the team, behavior, tactics etc. If the conflicts are not handled some teams will not take the next step and be stuck in storming phase.

Norming – The floorball players start to find their places and roles within the team. Roles and norms start to be established and clear for everyone, regarding both the task and social intercourse. Goals are getting clearer and clearer and the co-operation is strengthened within the team.

Performing – Now the floorball team is ready, relations, roles, goals and norms are clear for everyone and accepted. The focus is now the first steps towards the common goal on short and long term, by beating other teams.

Adjourning – The season is over and the motivation is lower than before and the relationship between the floorball players might not be that important anymore, the focus starts to shift to holidays and next season.

Floorball – Conflict Handling

First things first, calm down. An old referee used to tell anyone who would listen to him this one thing, once a floorball coach begins to yell, the discussion is over. Take his advice, speak slowly and speak softly. When conflict occurs, your best bet is to remain calm, remain logical, and speak your piece. Listen to what the other party is saying and take it seriously, and most of all, understand that you will not win most of the time, and it should not be the main purpose.

Working together as a floorball team

So, conflict happens, so now what?  Well, smart floorball coaches understand that in conflict, there is opportunity. During a conflict, the way you act will determine the ground rules for the next dispute. For instance, if during a floorball practice the head coach yells back at a frustrated player, there is a good chance that this player will shut down and stop dealing with this coach. On the other hand, if the coach remains calm, speaks his mind, and deals honestly with the floorball player, the coach will open lines for future communication.

So remember to calm down, conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In conflict, there is an opportunity to exchange points of view. Conflict can be viewed as a chance to learn another point of view.  And besides all that, no one wins them all.

Floorball – Dealing with conflicts

Floorball coaching by its nature can be very stressful. The floorball head coach has agreed to place himself in a situation where he will repeatedly face conflict. Over the course of a floorball season, the head coach will likely have disputes with opposing coaches and game officials, as well as from his or her own floorball players and their family members / parents. No matter what a floorball coach decides to do, it is highly likely that his decision will be questioned or even resisted by someone.

Waiting time at floorball practice before a drill

So what’s a coach to do about this? Well, the first thing that a new coach has to understand is that it WILL happen. It is unavoidable, conflict will continually pop up as long as you are coaching. Quite honestly, if you can’t accept this now… quit, save yourself the mental anguish. But if you decide to remain, then you are going to need some help in dealing with it. Some tools and other posts are found on this site, use the search function or keywords.

Floorball – Repeat mode

Repetition is a powerful teaching method and tool, remember the 10 000 hours of practice or the Pareto 20/80 rule (coming later). Through repetition, a new idea will be integrated as a normal thing, even if it from the beginning was innovative or new. The same goes for floorball practices and drills, repeat, repeat and your floorball players will integrate what you have been practicing on, to the game. We often need to be reminded, rather than instructed?

Floorball skill practice drills

Messi, Eto’o and Ronaldo feints

You can see those incredible feints done by Messi, Eto’o, Ronaldo and others, and we are amazed, how did he come up with that or how was he able to do that? The answer is simple, through repetition and hours of practice, to automatize the moves.

Social facilitation

An aspect to consider when you are introducing a new floorball skill drill, is theopposite of social loafing, social facilitation, it means that we will perform better when we have people around us watching, but there is a but, it’s only easier tasks or well-known activities that is will apply on. When you are learning or practicing a new floorball skill you don’t want a lot of people or team members watching you, it will only make you nervous, stressed and insecure.
So when you practice a new moment, you might split up your floorball team in small groups to lower the physical and psychological arousal level and therefore get a better learning environment. When your players are more familiar with the new floorball drill/technical moment you can start to do the practice in bigger groups in order to raise the arousal level to be more like a game situation.

Youth floorball practices and drills

David Beckham, free kicks

A young David Beckham was practicing free kick after free kick “alone” in the nearest park. Since he was alone, he could practice with a low arousal level, automize and learn the correct technique. If you add visualization to this practice you have a powerfull tool for the future.

He was lucky?

He was so lucky or their team had more luck than us. Have you heard these words? This at least something you might hear many times, when people are successful, but the people saying those words, don’t know what’s behind the luck, hard work and commitment, the more you practice “the luckier” you get.
Look at Mourinho is he lucky or is it luck? For me it’s quite obvious it’s thousands of hours of hard work, learning, studying and practice. Success doesn’t just happen because the stars line up in your team, it’s created. Look once again on the leadership model, can this be your formula for “luck”?

Floorball goal scoring and shooting practices

Is it because we have been lucky? Of course not. It’s about anything else but lucky when you’re talking about my players. “  /José Mourinho