SENTENTIAL WORDS FOR GAME BRIEFINGS, DEBRIEFINGS AND TRAINING FOR LAWN BOWLS
INTRODUCTION: The conduct of game briefings, debriefings and training is designed for the harmonious communication link marked by agreement in feeling and action forming a pleasing consistent whole so that each player in his or her playing position is prepared and knows what each and every team member has to do in the process of the game.
INTERPRETATION: This is the rendering of the dramatic parts that bring out the meaning relating to briefings, debriefings and training as follows;
- Briefings: There are two stages as follows. Stage 1; when the team is first formed, an accurate summary of the overall build up details of the team training plan towards the event, covering improvement of individual playing skills, tactics, intercommunication, mental, game and fitness training. Stage 2; a short accurate summary of the intended game plan given to the team on the eve or prior to the start of the event. This should cover the tactics to be used and the counter tactics to any problems that may occur from the opposition.
- Debriefings: To interrogate the team on their return from a game in order to assess the conduct and results of the event, by determining the playing performance of what parts of the game went well and that which did not go well. At the completion of the team’s interrogation any other observations made by a trained observer that was not noticed or included by the team should be brought to mind.
- Training: This is the development in oneself or others of certain skills, habits, and attitudes. Thus resulting in the conditioning of knowledge and disciplines which relate to mental fitness, skill fitness and physical fitness.
COMMITMENT: Briefings and debriefings are where your team’s experience sorts out most of the poor attitude problems and enables you to adopt a positive attitude towards the game performance. It is the place where players commit themselves to identify the game performance problem exactly in relation to when, how and what was good, bad and outright ugly, and that which was not productive and should be included in the training programme to improve the team’s performance. Everyone is expected to take part in dealing with the facts at hand during these sessions.
AVOIDERS: Many players avoid debriefings for fear that it may expose the inadequacies of their playing skills; their poor leadership, attitude problems, or other circumstances such as; being poorly directed to what shot to play by a team member, upset by a fellow team member, or the odd ball who tries to coach them during the event, or even adhering to the game plan when it should have been changed by the skipper.
INDIVIDUALISM: Many players, whether they are male or female, forget there is no “I” in the word “TEAM”; and that they should always strive to be a compact unit trained to work as one for the enjoyment and skill of the game. Debriefings are for uniting individualism into a cooperative social and playing force for the benefit of the Club, District, Zone or State. The danger signs for team regression are players who express negative or anti statements towards debriefings. Productive players are those who express positive statements towards improvement. One should be aware of negative and positive statements as follows;
Negative: I never have the time to muck around with debriefings.
Positive: We have 48 hours to fulfil the debriefing.
Negative: I run the team not the team members!
Positive: One set of eyes will not see all the faults and one brain will never correct them.
BLAME: During debriefings one should avoid directly name the erring team member because he or she may not have been at fault and the cause of the problem may have been caused by other circumstances such as; being poorly directed what shot to play by a team member, upset by a fellow team member, or following the team plan etc. So to keep the team harmony, it is suggested to use sentential words as follows;
SENTENTIAL WORDS: Statements and words such as time, who, how and what occurred should be used so as to include the team as a whole not the individual team member, these words are segregated and then combined as follows;
SEGREGATED
- Time occurrence: Always where possible state the time in the following manner of when it occurred e.g. at the start, middle, end of the end, or towards the end of the game, or name the end e.g. at the sixth end,
- Who: You are a team so use the term collective “We” with all statements. This avoids further embarrassment to the individual who may have been or not been at fault.
- What occurred: failed to build the head, support the head with back-wood, failed to defend, attack or recover etc.
COMBINED
Combining the words above; now look at the differences between “subjective” and “objective” language that should be used at debriefings
Building the head
Subjective: The lead and second failed to build the head.
Objective: At the “start” of the end(s) “we” failed to build the head.
Supporting the head
Subjective: The third failed to support the head.
Objective: In the “middle” of each end “we” failed to support the head
Subjective: The skip failed to support the head.
Objective: At the “end” of each end “we” failed to support the head.
Subjective: The third and skip failed to support the head.
Objective: “Throughout” the game “we” failed to support the head.
Tactical Support with Defence, Attack and Recovery
Subjective: The third and skip failed to support the head in defence and recovery.
Objective: Throughout the game; in defence and recovery we failed to support the head with draw-shots, back-wood and blocking shots.
Subjective: The third and skip failed to support the head with back-wood.
Objective: At the end of each end we failed to support the head with back-wood.
Subjective: The third failed to support the head with blocking-shots.
Objective: At the middle of the game we failed to support the head with blocking-shots.
Subjective: The skip failed to defend, attack or recover the head with on-shots.
Objective: In the middle of the early ends we failed to defend; attack or recover the head with on-shots.
Subjective: The third failed to support or attack the head with the running-shot.
Objective: When the opportunity arose in the early stages of the game we failed to support or attack the head with the running-shot.
Subjective: The third failed to support or attack the head with the drive-shot.
Objective: We failed to support the head with the drive-shot
Tactical Employment
Subjective: The skip failed to use the right tactics.
Objective: We failed to use the correct counter tactics.
Subjective: The skip used tactics but they seemed to fail.
Objective: We used the correct tactics but our individual skills failed to support them.
Subjective: The skip failed to correctly direct each positional player to counter the opposition’s tactical play.
Objective: During the game we feel that the deployment of our team positions and ability were not used correctly.
Subjective: The skips tactics became a one man show.
Objective: We feel the tactics used only set up a one man show and excluded other members of the team to use their ability. We must all remember that everyone has a part to play!
SKILL TRAINING
Sentences: Expressed in simple terms, training is that which results in an enhanced ability to keep going. Such training will vary greatly depending on the particular level at which the individual or team wishes to play and is inversely proportional to the period of time available and subject matter required to do. We should also be aware that no training relies exclusively on one energy source or subjects, although it is true to say that short fast training periods are predominant. It is important to acknowledge that even in long term events, training is continually derived via the lactic acid anaerobic pathways.
However, in a well-paced and time period resulting in a steady, or equilibrium effort. To encourage the individual or team the introduction to such subjects in training we need to emphasize by a positive attitude by using sentinel sentences as follows;
Mental Toughness Training
Negative talk: So what, who doesn’t show their emotions every now and then!
Positive talk: We need to control our emotions so that they are not seen and acted upon by the opposition.
Negative talk: If my domineering attitude towards the game upsets everyone, so what, I’m the skip!
Positive talk: A domineering attitude does not suit every one. To create team harmony it might be wise to indulge in a lecture on the stereotypes skips e.g. the dominating skip, the personable skip, the casual skip and the characteristics of the respected skip.
Motivation and Goal Setting
Negative talk: I’ve never set a goal in my life and I’m not starting now!
Positive talk: Setting personal goals and team goals brings the team together as one playing unit and improves the compatibility of existing together in harmony to get the job done.
Physical Fitness
Negative talk: The only fitness you need is game practice, why worry about other strenuous activities.
Positive talk: There are three types of fitness; mental, game and physical fitness and to win you can’t have one without the other.
Rest and Recuperation
Negative talk: I have a gut full of beer and sleep when I sleep, why worry about it!
Positive talk: Knowing how to have a good night’s sleep allows me to arise feeling good, fresh and relaxed for the day of the event
Training: coach, timing and place
Negative talk: I’ve been playing at club level for years. What can a coach teach me? Besides I haven’t got the time and I’m not travelling anywhere just to learn what I already know.
Positive talk: What is said above may be the reason he or she is still playing at club level! As a team member I need to know more than him/her to improve my performance levels. So I’m taking time out to discover; who, when and where to raise my standard of play.
Environmental Stress and Sports Performance
Negative talk: Whether the climate of the day is hot, cold, snow, rain or windy it won’t affect us much.
Positive talk: Having mental, game and physical fitness allows us to quickly overcome environmental stress of the day and maintains our sports performance.
