If you’re the kind of person who likes to get to the point without having to go through the story, the point is “Excellence only comes through patient improvement over the long term.”
Thanks for your time.
If you want to read the whole story, read on.
I came across a story about a guy who wanted to get rid of weeds from his perfectly manicured lawn. The expert he hired gave him the choice of killing the weeds, or growing the grass. The guy was of course confused, until the expert explained. Killing the weeds is easy. The only problem is it makes the lawn itself weaker and in the longer term it is susceptible to more weed attacks. The other alternative is to make the grass stronger, so that it eventually pushes the weeds out. To grow the grass is the more effective solution in the long term but it takes more time and more work.
Short term easy fixes versus long term hard work are major themes in probably every field. I see it every time a politician speaks on CNN, I see it every time I see a junior coach cheats to win a match and I see it in a week were two coaches (Gulinelli and De Giorgi) were fired in Italy. I can’t possibly judge those particular situations (actually I can and do judge the junior coach) but I do know how difficult it is and how long it takes to create something worthwhile. Long term success is not created overnight. Raising standards and expectations takes time. People are uncomfortable with standards being raised and will sometimes fight against it. Matches can be lost while new methods are implemented and learnt. Those moments are difficult and they test the patience and commitment of all. But ultimately excellence only comes through patient improvement over the long term. There is no other way. The grass must be strong.
I’ve had a few epiphanic moments in volleyball. One came the day I watched a particular player playing, or rather attempting to play, defence in a drill. His effort was unquestionable. His attention was narrow. He was afraid of neither the floor nor the ball. He touched every single ball. He never keep the ball alive. Never. He touched it, it flew off somewhere, he swore loudly and tried again. For some reason while I was watching him it occurred to me that he wasn’t actually trying to dig the ball. So I asked him. I was right. He was trying to touch the ball. That made sense. At the time, the feedback provided to players was to try to touch every ball. It would them follow that if many balls were touched, players would eventually develop the control to keep all of those touched balls alive. Anyway, for some reason at that moment, I offerred the advice to the player that he attempt to dig every ball. To my, at the time, mild surprise he did in fact dig every subsequent ball. The epiphany was that players respond to the goal that is provided. If the goal is to touch the ball, then that is what players will do. If the goal is to dig the ball, then that is what players will do.
Another epiphanic moment came the day we were doing an attack warmup exercise with some simple goals. We had done a simple plus / minus drill using the court as the target. We then added small targets on the court, with the same plus / minus rules and the same required number of successes. To my, at the time, mild surprise, despite increasing the difficulty of the drill, the time that it took to complete remained more or less constant. I have repeated this exercise, in different forms, with the same results many times since. The ephiphany was that players concentrate exactly at the level that is required of them to complete the drill. If the drill is easy, concentration is low. If the drill is more difficult, concentration rises appropriately. The same applies to court targets. If the reception / defence target is small, concentration is high, and players will hit THAT target. If the reception / defence target is big, concentration is low, and players will hit THAT target. The success rate ends up being about the same. I recall discussing this topic with a coach who counted a successful defence as one in which the ball stayed alive, regardless of whether an attack was possible or not. He provided a long detailed description about needing to set achievable goals. Given that we were talking about professional players I didn’t think it was unreasonable to set high goals. We agreed to disagree.
Of course no epiphanies should have been required. Both principles are fairly basic learning principles and are central elements of deliberate practice.
And what does Pelé have to say about service reception? When I was young, I was a football / soccer fan and read an autobiography of Pelé (I think this one). One story has stuck in my mind. I can’t guarantee the actual quote but the gist of it was that difference between him and other players was that while a good striker aims to put the ball to the left of the goalkeeper, Pelé aimed for an exact spot to the left of the goalkeeper, just inside the post, about 50cm above the ground. Where others had a broad goal and a vague target, he had a specific goal and a clear target. If you want to be a great receiver the solution is clear.
In 1990, a significant event occurred in world volleyball. The Italian men’s team became world champions for the first time. The signficance lay less in the event themselves, although it showed a signficant evolution in the game, but rather the follow on effects. Until that point, while the Italian was the most important league in western Europe it was by no means clearly the strongest. Many good players played there, but many did not. What the Italian win did was increase the profile of the league inside Italy. Increased profile, led to increased sponsorship, led to increased salaries, led to more of the best players being recruited, led to the league becoming stronger. And stronger. The Italian players themselves because famous (they are collectively known in Italy as ‘Generazione di Fenomeni’), and for the first time were able to command higher salaries than foreigners. They were no, after all, the best in the world.
Anyway, I recently came across a book chronicling that first world championship victory. It’s mostly pictures, but interesting nonetheless. My first thought was to share it. So I have. Here it is.
PS I apologise for any copyright infringement. I checked to see if it available online and it doesn’t seem to be.
… or probably more accurately, I love the idea of music.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the music. But maybe even more than the music itself, I love how the music came to be. I love the stories of being immersed in music and of musicians describing the feeling of being in a great band. Or of being in a great scene. I love documentaries like Malfunkshun and Pearl Jam Twenty and It Might Get Loud and books like Grunge Is Dead and It’s So Easy. Somehow I equate the ultimate feeling of creating music with the feeling of playing a great game. I know that I’ve had the feeling on a few occasions where my team has played perfectly and or I’ve played with beach volleyball partners or teammates where understanding and trust was at the same (I guess) implicit level. But somehow the example of a great band seems like a utopian ideal for a volleyball team.
Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers is always good for a quote about that feeling of great music, and recently he appeared on prominent ESPN / Grantland.com columnist Bill Simmons‘ podcast. He talks about things coming together at particular times in a way that you can’t control. At about the 27:30 minute mark of part 2 of the podcast he describes the process one has to go through to be ready for those moments that you can’t control.
‘You have to always be doing your exercises, staying technically on top of your instrument, be working on becoming a better songwriter… to be as good a musician as you can be, so when those things you can’t control come along … you’re ready. … You have to stay on top of you craft and keep yourself sharp so when the cosmic meatball hits, you’re ready to party’
Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds quite a lot like deliberate practice.
I doubt if you could slip the description ‘cosmic meatball’ into a peer reviewed article though.
As you know, I keep a bit of an eye on ‘The Dan Plan’, the guy who is trying to become a professional golfer by doing 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. My initial post on the topic was related to putting, putting practice and specificity. Sometime after that, our hero Dan posted twice on his blog (here and here) about in follow up to the initial theme.
The short version of the idea is that learning is more effective when there are consequences during practice. The theory goes that consequences illicit emotions and emotion is important in processing memory. Hence, if you do something in practice that you hasn’t triggered an emotion, you are less likely to remember it and therefore less likely to be able to recall the necessary response under pressure. As Dan goes on in the second of the posts, practice is then conducted with ‘consequences’.
This obviously sounds like something we know well, the use of penalties for losing drills. Until now I have heard of two reasons for using penalties in drills. One is that ‘consequences’, both negative and positive make a drill more gamelike, and hence create better (ie more specific) learning conditions. And two, ‘consequences’ increase motivation and therefore learning readiness in practice. Even the simple act of having competition in practice is provides consequences as you identify a winner and a loser, although for these purposes perhaps the penalty provides a greater emotional reaction.
It is certainly my experience that players who are emotionally invested in practice perform better. Perhaps this is the reason. Either way, it is food for thought.
If the rules say that only a net touch on the top of the net is a fault, and the rules are two years old, and every referee knows that, why do they still call net touches on the bottom of the net as faults?
None of the answers that immediately come to my mind are particularly satisfactory.
Whatever the absence of a post might imply, the recent World Cup did not escape my attention. I followed it just as intently as every other volleyball event and was able to catch bits of a lot of matches, via various unknown friends who (illegally) share video streams. For the record, I thank those unnamed heroes. But I digress…
The record shows that Russia won, with Poland taking silver and Brazil bronze. More importantly, those three teams took the first qualfication places for next year’s Olympic Games and have the advantage of being able to plan in peace while the other countries still have at least one more step in the qualfication process. As a tournament, there were many discussion points. The first was the tournament itself. There is no tournament in the volleyball world (or perhaps the entire sporting world) that asks as much of its participants. 11 matches in 15 days, with travel on the off days, is very tough. Many people spoke about it including Miljkovic and Giba returned to his club suffering from injury. That is added to the fact that those players came directly from the clubs and returned to them straight afterwards. I doubt that it will change in 2015, but voices are getting louder and more persistent about the load on the top players.
There were of course a couple of minor scandals, or at least whiffs of impropriety, oddly both involving Brazil. Argentina’s best chance of qualifying for the Olympics was for Brazil to qualify at World Cup, giving Argentina an easier chance of getting through the South American qualifier. When the teams played each, Argentina rested a couple of starters and Brazil won 3-0. On the second last day Poland played against Brazil, with both teams still fighting for an Olympic spot with Italy. Mathematicians predicted a 3-2 victory for would clinch qualification for Poland and ensure that a 3-0 victory over Japan on the last day would also clinch qualification for Brazil by one set against Italy. Incredibly, after Poland rushed out to a 2-0 lead, Brazil was able to fight back to win in five sets. The next day Brazil won 3-0 against Japan and with it the bronze medal in the World Cup and Olympic Qualification. The lessson, as always, it doesn’t matter what the format of the tournament, and how organisers legislate them, each coach has a different goal and there are many ways of achieving those goals.
Other things that we learnt…
- Russia has the best team in the world. Day in, day out, Russia has the most talent and the most depth of any volleyball nation. That doesn’t mean that they will win a single match on a single day when it counts for the most (see European Championships 2011… and 2009… and 2007… etc) but they have definitely have the talent to beat anyone. This tournament is the perfect format for Russia, i.e. no knockout games, and they were able to win easily even without their starting setter, Grankin.
- Brazil is old. And as I thought when I watched them at World League Finals, they are just barely hanging on for a last shot at the Olympics. In fact the word I used at the time was ‘testy’. This video (at around the 1:00 mark) would seem to confirm that observation.
The ‘last man standing’ format of the World Cup was the worst possible format for this team, which showed in losses to Italy (for the first time since June 2003) and Cuba. On the other hand, in the one game (if you don’t count the Poland match) that they absolutely had to win, after a rest day, they crushed Russia 3-0. At the Olympics there are many games they would absolutely have to win that fall after a rest day. It seems that neither Marlon nor Bruno are able to establish themselves as first setter and Giba is still, at the age of 35 the most important player in the team. As wonderful as Giba has been, and mostly still is, that can’t bode particularly well for a team which wants to win the gold medal. On the other hand, the Olympics are a physically much easier tournament and, as we will see, noone else is really great shape either.
- Poland is pretty good. Despite having a big hole at the opposite position (Bartman is a receiver who is not good enough to make the team at that position), Poland got better and better as the tournament went on. The pairing of Winiarski and Kurek as outside hitters, might currently be the best combination in the world. Zagumny is still one of the best setters in the world and Ignaczak is a libero of the highest level. As it stands, they must think they have a chance to win a medal next year, and if they can get Wlazly to come back to the National Team, not an easy task, they would have to think about a gold.
- Italy are making some steps. Despite starting three players whose famous fathers aren’t Italian (I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger story), they seem to be gelling under new coach Berrutto. Christian Savani seems to finally be developing into the player his talent always suggested he should be. Their middles are always strong and they will always have the best tactics. If they can get through the qualification process, by no means a done deal, they should improve and have a chance in London.
As an aside, I don’t always think Berrutto is a paragon of sportsmanship, but in this instance he was perfectly within his rights, and for the record I would have done, and have done, exactly the same thing.
- USA has no chance of a medal. Actually they have one chance. Lloy Ball. After three years of the post LB era, they still haven’t worked out who is his successor. In this tournament they swapped setters around again, and they never seemed to find much rhythm, despite the emergence of passer hitter Matt Anderson as a potential world class player and a good tournament from Clay Stanley. It’s really, really hard to see how they can improve enough to be a real threat in London. Their saving grace may well be that none of the other ‘favourites’ are without their weaknesses, so getting hot at the right time could make a bigger than normal difference. That’s not really what you want to have as a plan though.
- Cuba is young and impressive. They certainly have some outrageous talent and they can challenge anyone on any day even if their most sophisticated tactic is ‘jump higher’. But they are very young, have ongoing problems with defections / threats of defections / conspiracies to defect and who knows what kind of team they will have come Olympic time. It is not beyond the realms of possibility (I imagine) that the ‘wall’ will finally come down and they will welcome back all the players who have previously defected. That would be something… As it is, no one will want to play against them, least of all USA in the NORCECA qualifier.
- Serbia had a nice trip to Japan.
- Iran can play and must be clear favourites for qualify from Asia.
My prediction for the Olympics? As long as Bernardinho is breathing AND Giba is 100% fit, noone has proved they can beat Brazil. That is not to say they won’t, but picking against Brazil this far out from the Olympics would be silly. Russia is always favourite for bronze. They are good enough to win most games easily and flighty enough to lose one they shouldn’t, most likely the semifinal. That leaves Poland to take the silver. The match I’m most looking forward to seeing is the Poland – Italy semfinal, especially the little side story of Anastasi, an Italian, ex- Italian National Team coach who was replaced in that job, not by choice, by current Italian National Team coach, Berrutto. Nothing beats a bit of niggle in a big match.
On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of watching a Champions League match between Trento and Kedzierzyn Kozle. I say pleasure because it really was. I am a big Champions League but the games in the early rounds are often a bit difficult to predict. Because of difficulties of juggling multiple competitions and travel plans that would make an average AFL player’s mind explode just trying to comprehend (if Melbourne – Perth is considered a tough trip, I’m not sure exactly how to describe Zory – Kazan, to name just one), teams don’t always play every match flat out. This game was an exception. Kedzierzyn played out of their trees for the whole match and Trento took every punch and returned it with interest. The quality of play was great. The commitment was great. The rallies were spectacular. It might be the best volleyball match ever played in December (i.e. not in a playoffs or in an international big tournament), and it is definitely the best match I have seen for a few years. You can watch the match for yourself here. You might want to turn the commentary down.
Having said all that, the best match of all time is still the Netherlands – Italy Olympic final from 1996. Two star packed teams, both at the absolute peak of the powers, playing at their best form. You can count the unforced errors on one hand. Oh, the stories I have heard about this match that I would love to write (but won’t). Needless to say, but just in case, the Olympic final next year will, with 100% certainty, NOT be as good as this match.
I have no neutral memories of my season with VC Franken. I hated the people who cheated me out of my pay (this could also fit the previous half season with SG Eltmann) and those who tried to sue me for money that I didn’t owe them. I loved the people who work night and day to try to save the team. I loved the team and how we developed on the court over the course of the season despite our off court troubles.
This game is significant for no reason. It was actually pretty bad. I’m only posting it as a memory of the occasion. As a completist, I should note that if you watch the two points from the 3:16 minute mark you will see the two points that inspired me to throw my folder on the ground and earn a yellow card. I should also note, without judgement, that the following season in the same gym, in the finals of the league, I threw a (plastic) bottle of coke which consequently exploded, spilling some of it’s contents on the floor and various people. For that I received no sanction.
