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SideOut Rhodes 2014 Reflected
SideOut Rhodes 2014 Reflected
Rhodes 2014 was a lot of fun but thankfully it was not as intense as last year. It was great to meet the new players and catch up with the returning players. My favourite part though was a boat trip organised by SideOut. It was truly amazing! It was the first time in three years where I felt I was on an actual holiday (working holidays such as Rhodes 2013 and Wales Schools training camp in Germany don’t count because you are there to work). This was a working holiday so what did I learn on this beach volleyball training camp?
What did I learn previously that I put into practice?
* . Because of my experience last year, I didn’t need to spend extra thinking time of building up the performance analysis program from scratch. I simply knew what to do and what do expect. All I had to do was tweak certain things. My week looked like this:
Thursday: players arrive – promotional filming Friday: first training day – analysis filming Saturday: second training day – analysis filming and labeling video Sunday: rest day – labeling videos and converting them Monday: third training day – video feedback session Tuesday: fourth training day – video feedback session in morning Wednesday – tournament – match and promotional filming
I wanted to have the video feedback session on the third training day so players had at least one training session where they can put what they learnt into practice. I also organised the video feedback times so players had it before their training session so it was fresh in their minds. I tried to match the coach who was doing the video analysis with the same coach taking their training session straight after so they are better able to link what they said in the analysis session on the training court.
* . I specifically reflected last year that I should be more social and get to know the players. I made the effort to talk to everybody and found out something about them (I even met one player whose job was about predictive/ regression analysis). I made sure I sat with different people during the meal times and putting down the laptop in the evenings.
* . Last year I allowed game play analysis. I did the filming and video feedback session entirely on tournament day. There were some issues: 1. The ad-hoc nature of getting the player and coach when they are free. 2. I felt the players and coaches were not too focused because of everything that was going on. 3. Analysis on the laptop wasn’t ideal because of the small screen and the difficulty to see it in the bright sunshine. 4. Some players missed out on their analysis session because they did not play in the tournament due to injury.
This year I only allowed technique analysis and it worked out well because all but two players got their video feedback session (they didn’t turn up) in an appropriate setting, e.g. quiet, big screen television etc.
What did I learn?
* . I managed to borrow another camcorder and tripod. This was helpful because it gave me flexibility. I could use both to film two angles of the same action and sync it up later in Kinovea. I could use one for analysis and one for promotional video or both for analysis filming. I even had one unforeseen situation when a coach asked me to film a whole training session for him. I was able to do it because I had the second camcorder to continue the analysis filming.
* . One of the main reasons why I edited the video after camp was because it freed up so much more time to socialise during the week and evenings. It also had the unseen benefit that I had time to look through all of the tournament match videos (a lot of hours) to find the best action.
* I formalised this labelling so it was easier for me to know what each video file (75GB worth) is assigned to what.
What could I improve on?
* The workflow has been to ascertain what technical skill(s) players want to have analysed and film it during the training sessions. While I do get most things on video, I did miss out on certain things. It is either because that technical skill is not the focus in the first two days of training (where I do all of the filming) or they were very specific situations that won’t come up too often in training (usually for advance players). One potential solution would be to have dedicated performance analysis sessions where I can do all of the specific filming. This would be ideal because rather than filming bits and pieces over two days and missing a few players’ aims, I could film everything in one day and not miss anybody out. However, a problem with this idea is logistics; all three available courts were in almost maximum use with only three free 90 minute slots that were designated for free play. Players value those free play slots so where to fit in the performance analysis sessions? . When I asked players about their video feedback session, they all found it useful but one common issue was it was far too short! Although players in the end had about 12-14 minutes instead of the stated 10 minutes, it was really not enough for them. However, increasing the video feedback time is difficult because of the logistics of analysing 51 players. The math is this:
51 players * 10 minutes = 510 minutes = 8 hours 20 minutes.
This amounts to a day’s analysis work. However, this is when things goes perfectly to schedule. In reality when players or coaches arrive late and sessions lasts longer than 10 minutes, the actual analysis time was around 13-14 hours over a full day and a morning. Increasing the video feedback time to 20 minutes would increase the total analysis time to 16 hours and 40 minutes. This is certainly two days work. An alternative is players could be grouped to have more analysis time, e.g. pairs has 20-25 minutes, three players has 40-45 minutes or whole group of six players has 80-85 minutes. Players may lose out on their own specific things they want to have analysed but they will get a lot of feedback. Anyway, this is something to think about for next year.
* . While I specifically remember that I had to socialise more, I should have read on the biomechanical principles of the spike technique. I did remember some things and some technical terms but I could have explained it much more clearly if I had just read up on my technique analysis coursework. Also, I should have interview players more.
* . While the coaches themselves would visually demonstrate the technical points to be corrected, I also used a video of a good dig technique as an example to show the players. I remembered that specific video (player and drill) so I was able to go straight to it. However, it would have been useful to have good examples of other techniques, especially the spike technique.
All of the (few) photos of me that week, I’m either working or not doing much. It reminded me of the joke saying, “working hard or hardly working?” and I used it as a hashtag. Below are a couple of photos of me working with the last one beautifully capturing both sentiments of working hard and hardly working.
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