Reflection and retirement.

Hello all

I'm going to write my final reflection from my experience in sports coaching pedagogy in semester 1 at UC. The footy is finished for the night and Geelong have won once again over the bomber an unfortunate win as the cats are looking to be the in form team of the year so far let hope they peak to early, for the swans sake. Now back to this subject, for me it has been a great subject to lead into the finishing of my degree because it gave me a new insight of how to look at the working world and what is ahead of me. The final video which Keith posted http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=xmpYnxlEh0c&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxmpYnxlEh0c really made me think about the things that are ahead of me how things are going to be boring but you have to get past those things and continue to think for yourself and not slack off and become another drone of the world. As the guy said in this video it isn't going to be easy and sometimes you will get sucked into what is happening around you and worrying about what other people are doing and how little it effects you but how you make it effect you n such a big way. This really is something I want to try and get rid of out of my thought process and start thinking about what new things I can do or how I can create new and exciting things.

I really hope that I am able to force myself to continue on with the blog as it really does make me think better and I am able to reflect on what is happening in my life. What I need to do is find more great articles and things to think about and reflect on. I have joined the world of twitter and it is providing me with a lot of great material

 I have really started to adjust to the life of social media and I am embracing it. I joined twitter in the last month and am like how it works and how news is transferred via it. Although at the moment I am mostly following AFL, NBA and Football teams, players and their competitions themselves I'm sure ill come along better things to follow as time goes on.

One of the big things that has been happening in the twitter world well the world altogether is the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson one of the greatest football managers of all time, a legend of his era. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/10048642/David-Moyes-appointed-as-Manchester-United-manager-to-succeed-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-live-reaction.html Now this made me think about what Ferguson would do in his free time and I bet he doesn't give in to worrying about what boring things people are doing around him. His mind would be constantly thinking about what is happening n his club and how he can better improve his squad. This is the reason he got so far and stayed at the top of  his proffession. So now it's time for me to do the same and hey maybe one day ill fe myself managing a club like Manchester United, we can only hope.

Thanks for all the interesting posts it has been a wonderful experience learning from Wagga with you Keith and ill be sure to follow you on twitter and keep my mind open.

Danie Scroope.

LTAD Canada v Australia

Hello again

I have been reading though the long term athlete development model notes in which Keith put up and found them very interesting. I went back and compared them to my virtual presentation notes which I did on Istvan Balyi's model of long term athlete development. I was happy to see that a lot of the resources which were used I went over in my presentation. The piece in which I found most interesting was http://www.canadiansportforlife.ca/ which is a Canadian website based around this LTAD model which Balyi has created.

The website itself is a great resource for parents, teachers, coaches and all other stakeholders involved in the development of our younger generation. It provides physical literacy guidelines, specific sports program's and even links as to what different physical events might be on in your area. I think this website is an absolutely great tool for everyone and more countries need to copy Canada's approach to LTAD.

The question which ponders on my mind is how can we do this I know Australia is trying to adopt this same kind of model and giving out these same sorts of resources. But is it as well known about? The Australian government has started it's initiative of Active After School which is a great idea and I have taken a few of these classes myself back in Wagga. The only thing I think that fails this program is I believe a lot of parents are only using this program as a means of free babysitting time. How i think it can improve is if these types of initiatives have more parental support. The last point I will make is that I also believe that there should be more compulsory Physical education within class time thought primary and high school. Australia's Olympic chief John Coats https://theconversation.com/coates-olympic-school-push-do-we-need-more-sport-in-curriculum-8781 explained the need for a change in physical education not only to improve our international sports identity but for the greater good of health in general.

Thanks for reading once again.

Daniel Scroope

Time to changes degrees

Today I was watching a video http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA&feature=youtu.be&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdU1xS07N-FA%26feature%3Dyoutu.be all about coding and how computers and technology are taking over the world. My first thought was why am I doing coaching and exercise science at university rather than IT or something computer based? I'm trying to break into a world to get a job in an area that isn't of the highest demand when I could have done IT and got a job in seconds by the sounds of this video. Well then I thought because this interests me and that's what really matters why do something in life if you don't have any interest in it?

My thought process then changed, I was curious to understand how I can start coding something myself. Well firstly I need to start off with the basics so I am going to ask a friend from work who did do IT at uni where to start from.

The big in thing atm are apps for phones and tablets. The next thing I need is an idea. Now my idea that I'm thinking is a program somewhat like easy tag dart fish. This is a simple app that can be used for coding anything. I have previously used it for coding what happens when the ball enters the attacking 50m in AFL games. But I found the program hard to set up and not good when mistakes were made. Also i found when try to out put the code to excel or any other program's didn't produce a readable document so pretty much you were stuck with a coded game on your device that couldn't then be used on a computer.

So my idea is to make  an app that allows users to be able to code games easily, be able to fix mistakes and then the app be able to easily produce tables and graphs inside the app and on excel or other spreadsheet program's. This simple app could change performance analysis for the better it would make coding so much quicker and easier than it has ever been previously. Hopefully this idea comes off the ground as I think it could really help coaches with their objective feedback and maybe make me a few dollars whilst I'm at it.

Thanks again for reading

Kind regards Daniel Scroope.

Video coaching and technology changes.

Hello all.

After completing my video of myself coaching I gave more thought to using video footage to more often. As technology advances and the portable cameras inside a phone or ipad become better and more advanced I was thinking why haven't I been using a camera to simply shoot different skills my athletes perform to teach them. I have used video footage for self coaching a few different times as I am a golfer and it is me of the handiest tools to understand what's going on in my swing. But I noticed simply that when coaching an athlete in my video how to handball I couldn't quite pickup n the technique problem she was having in real time. But as soon as I looked back on video footage once or twice and compared it towards another players technique the problem unfolded so simply. Why had I not thought of this earlier? I always knew team sports were evolving to the point where video footage makes up a big part of coaching so why aren't beginner coaches using it at the basic levels? It's not very hard and it's not like the equipment isn't available a simple phone or tablet is all that is needed. The article http://www.teachthought.com/trends/30-incredible-ways-technology-will-change-education-by-2028/ really stimulated this whole thought pattern in a way that made me think where is technology taking us and how can coaches from a beginners level incorporate it. I believe the key to unlocking technology in coaching is experimentation and communication. The more experimentation our coaches are doing with technology hopefully the better thier communication with athletes and other coaches will be.

Thanks for reading Daniel Scroope

Periodisation

So I was reading the article "Periodization paradigms in the 21st century: evidence-led or tradition-driven?" and I was thinking about how I have gone about the periodization of my current team that i coach. Well I first thought do I even use periodization when I think about the big picture for my team. And yes I do although it isn't as structured as I like and sometimes different trainings don't go as planned due to lack of numbers but there is the idea that we are building and we do work on certain skills before we move forward into more complex skills. Although this isn't as structured as a professional team world be there is still the basic idea that we are building for finals and getting our skills more sport specific as we move through the season. This to me is still a form of periodization. I would very much like to see if many current professional teams are "realigned with contemporary elite practice and modern scientific conceptual models" I believe they wouldn't be to far off the pace but clearly are ever changing and evaluating as to how to periodize better.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22356774/

Thanks for reading Daniel Scroope

Broken Hill

Hello again, 

This weeks blog starts with the long and extremely boring drive firstly across the Hay plane spotting emu's then watching the Murray river flow through towns like Gol Gol and Wentworth then finally north across the desert to Broken Hill our first destination.

The roadshow gets into Broken Hill at about 5pm just in time for the boys to prepare themselves for the week ahead. I was partnered up with the head of AFL house Jason Mcpherson, we were taking training with North Broken Hill 1st grade AFL team. I started the session with a 10min dynamic warm up that used the whole body. Jason then took the guys through a range of different AFL drills which was a great learning experience for me as I hadn't done a whole lot of AFL drills. I took note of how Jason coached as he is quite a experience player and coach. He had some interesting ideas in how he liked to coach and it made me think about the way I would do things in the future. To finish our session I took the guys through a few new fitness drills which i made up the week before for my presentation and kept it very specific to they way these guys should be playing. 

The next day I had testing with two of the local high schools where we were out looking for talented young indigenous or multicultural children who could be selected for the GWS squad. I helped run these testing sessions with a few girls from our offices in Sydney and ex Brisbane lions, 3 time premiership winning player Chris Johnson.  The tests we performed were height, weight, age, sex, agility test, standing high jump, running high jump, 40m sprint and a beep test. The kids were all ranging in sporting capabilities but we found a few that might be used in the squad, most were just glad to get out and try something new and not be in class. After out testing we had an Aus Kick sign up day where we set up heaps if different drills and let the children go mad and just hung out and had a kick with them. 

On our last day out at the hill we travelled back down to the Murray river near Gol Gol and went to one last high school for testing where we found a few more young aboriginal kids one in particular who had springs in his shoes, the kid could jump. Then on the road again back to Wagga Wagga, it was a very long trip back. 

From this trip I learned a lot about mentoring. Chris who I spent a lot of time with acted as a mentor and encouraged and talked with all the young indigenous and multicultural children at all the schools we went to. His motivational talks and encouraging attitude really meant a lot to all those he helped. I tried to take on a very similar approach when testing the children as well and I believe I got better as the trip went on.

Thanks for reading Daniel Scroope

AFL NAB Cup

Hello again everyone.

The past week has been extremely busy for but also very memorable. With my internship with AFL NSW/ACT the past week has seen me help with the running of the recent NAB cup game that was held at the recently unveiled Robertson Oval in Wagga Wagga. Seeing first hand how some of the great players and coaches interact within the AFL and then also how they communicate, prepare and plan their daily routines around a game and the rest of the season.

Firstly I started out my day by giving a presentation on strength and conditioning at a local level 1 coaching course which the AFL asked me to help out with. I started by speaking about planning and making sure that as new coaches they are always walking into a session prepared and with a goal for the session but also a goal for the season. Next I spoke about some of the different principles of training such as overload, specificity, individuality, recovery and reversibility and how coaches should work with them to ensure they are getting the best out of their sessions. Lastly I gave the people an insight into some new and interesting ways to train their athletes firstly by trying to keep their sessions interesting but most importantly by trying to keep it sport specific and training the way you play.

During the coaching course we also got to here a presentation which was done by the 2 forward coaches from GWS. These guys gave us a little insight into the tactics that GWS are trying to employ but also reinforced what I said by showing some of their GPS data and saying how they train with specificity. It was good to see as one of the coaches told me the endurance training session I showed the guys was very specific and was a great idea.

Lastly in the course we herd from Tom Harley who is of the great Geelong players and now the head of NSW/ACT AFL. He spoke to us about preparation and how guys who stood out within his club such as the Joel Selwood, Gary Ablett and Jimmy Bartell all had the best preparation within the club. He was witness to these players being at the grounds first in the morning and last to leave at night and always pushing themselves to the max whilst making sure they do all thier recovery perfectly after each session. He told us they all weren't this way to start off with but some of them had to train hard to get this way except Selwood he was saying the mentality and commitment Joel had towards playing was freakish from word go and that's why he is the captain of Geelong at the age of 24.

Next on for the day we had lunch with the group doing the coaching course. The interesting thing that happened here was I was introduced to the great Kevin Sheedy and was able to here some of the great stories from a guy who has all the experience in he world. Great guy by the way.

The game then followed a lot of setting up and preparing for the crowd of 7000 or more to come. As the game approached I was busy with many jobs until the first quarter where I was able to sit down and watch a bit of the game. I was able to recognise some of things that the GWS coaches told us they were doing which was great to see. As the game went on I was asked to man a grandstand gate but also help out the GWS medical staff with some different things but what it ment to me was that I was able to spend a bit of time after half time in their change rooms. The interesting thing which I noticed in the change rooms was the white board which all the coaches had written on. In the quick glimpses which ivgot of this white board I could make out a game plan and in the middle was an outcome. Win against the Brisbane Lions. Everything that surrounded this outcome were things that needed to be fixed and continue to be done in order to reach this outcome. This was a great moment for me as it really gave me an insight as to how coaches at the top level of AFL operate and how the simple principles which we learn at university are being used in the real world.

Brisbane ended up winning by 3 points over the giants in a thriller and you could really see the disappointment on all GWS players faces at the end, they really wanted that win and came so close after leading almost the whole game.

2 days after the NAB cup game I was on the road with the AFL guys to Broken hill for a roadshow. Some great experiences were also had on this trip and some great people were met. But that will have to be for my next blog.

Thanks for reading Daniel Scroope.