Early Registration for In-Season is OPEN!
April - July Session - Flex Schedule
April - July Session - Flex Schedule
Most players have started their season already. Games will be testing your and your team’s abilities. They are an accumulation of all the work you’ve put in all winter. While the offseason was a time when you’ve learned new things, like improving your pitch repertoire or making big changes to your fundamentals, the in-season is all about performance.
Even though you’ll be learning a lot during the season, if you want to play and if you want to win, you’ll have to give the coach a reason to let you pitch. Giving chances in order to let the pitcher learn or see if she can handle pressure might be few and far between.
One way I like to explain it is through Martin M. Broadwell’s work. He was a management trainer in the 60’s. He wrote a famous article called Teaching for Learning in which he described the four stages of competence. I thought it would be fun to apply this not only to a pitcher’s experience, but also to a parent’s experience of getting his or her kid involved in pitching.
We want to reach “unconscious competence” in pitching and parenting. It’s when a skill can be performed easily without thinking about it. Here are the four phases, the first three leading up to our goal of “unconscious competence.”
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I had to opportunity to attend my 5th National Fastpitch Coaches Association convention at the beginning of this month. This year we went to Atlantic City. I learn a great deal of information about mechanics, team and staff building, the mental game, and - get this - even other positions besides pitching. But the best part is hanging out with my favorite coaches and talking about the game.
What I find most inspiring is that my coach-friends absolutely love what they do and are super intense about improving. When there are breaks in between seminars we talked about what we liked, didn’t like, and what were planning to adopt ourselves. They love a healthy debate and rarely get to talking about anything else. It’s not like other jobs I’ve had where everyone wishes they were back home or at the hotel bar. Everyone is excited to be there. How could you not? It’s one of the most rewarding jobs in the world.
In an effort to be festive, let's honor the 12 days of Christmas with the top 12 things I learned at convention.