When you run a drill, you run a risk.
When you run a drill that does not carry an emotional commitment, you fail to strengthen the mental fortitude of a player.
We train teenagers.
Successful kids by American standards.
They struggle here in Barcelona at first. Not because they cannot kick a ball, pass a ball, or shoot a ball. They struggle because every exercise we run requires an emotional commitment to winning and carries the emotional dismay of losing.
Let me explain.
It sucks to fail. That very fact makes a player stronger if she confronts this emotional rollercoaster head on. A match most certainly requires a player to confront continuous micro-failures. Micro-mistakes to remarkably consequential gaffes are all present in competition.
If our training does not engage our emotions, we are not training in a psychologically faithful manner.
Back to the Americans with us at TOVO Academy Barcelona.
Let me clarify.
They struggle until they triumph.
We train mental acuity and resilience. Not in theory or merely in a chalk talk. We train it every moment of every session as we ask players to confront their micro-failures and to play on. The next play. The next opportunity. The next solution.
They do not err when they make a mistake. They err when they dwell on that mistake. Mental fortitude is the strength to play forward into the next opportunity.
When you run a drill, you run a risk.
Do not run the risk of missing an opportunity to build character today. And as much as we may think that mindless obedience drills will build character, they will not.
A player teetering on the verge of success and failure in a supportive environment is a player learning to confront the ups and downs of performance. A player emotionally engaged is a player building the passion and perspective required to take on football and so much more.
Consider rooting resilience and nurturing in to full bloom.
Reprinted with kind permission from Todd Beane
Founder of TOVO Training and TOVO Academy Barcelona. In TOVO Training, Beane has combined proven pedagogical practices of experts in the field of education with the visionary components of a total football legend into a dynamic and practical training methodology.
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