Knowing Your Sport and Yourself

Hello everyone! I've recently borrowed this book from our school library which is really useful.

Below are some planning tips that can help us to improve further in the sport.

Analysing the Sport

Firstly, we have to analyse the sport and think about what aspects are most important in the sport, and rate them from 1 to 5, 1 being unimportant, and 5 being very important.

1. Physical/fitness
2. Technical
3. Tactical
4. Mental

In my opinion, I would say that 1, 2 and 3 are all 5s for canoe polo. What do you all think about number 4? Is it a 5 as well? Or is it another number relative to the others? I know that we should put it as a 5 because it just doesn't seem right to place it lower... but let's just judge it as compared to the rest okay? Then we can analyse further and find the really important aspects we have to focus on in order to ensure optimal performance in the sport. (:

Mapping Out the Four Training Phases

1. Transition or Recovery Phase - the time following all the competitions when you have a complete break from your sport and training. It might last a few weeks or even a couple of months
2. Preseason Preparation - the time when you return to training and before any competitions start. It's the time to work on general fitness, on improving techniques and on developing mental skills.
3. Early-season Preparation - the time when training starts to increase in intensity and become more specific. Typically, although there might be some competitions, the focus is still on preparing for the more important competitions to come later in the season.
4. Competition Phase - the time when the focus is very much on competing, when you have the most important competitions and want to perform at your very best.

Currenly we should be in the 3rd phase. :) and soon it will be the 4th phase starting 30th August! The planner is very simple: draw a table and label columns from January to December. In the rows, label "Phases" and "Sport". Under phases, write the phase that each month is under, and write down important events under "Sport", such as the 10th Pesta Sukan National Canoe Polo Championship 2008 coming up, the recovery phase after that, the preseason phase leading to next year, early-season preparation for the competition phase (SP Champs 2009) etc. (:

We can probably find some time to meet and discuss some of these stuff. (:

Self-Profiling Exercise

Think of the ideal athlete in your sport. It may help to think of a few elite athletes who you admire. Write down all the attributes(skills, knowledge, attitudes) that are important for success. Remember to include all aspects of performance(technical, tactical, mental and physical, in both training and competition), as well as any aspects of their lifestyles with which you are familiar. If helpful, you may wish to ask your coach, teacher or parent or guardian for help.

• Knowledge:
• Skills:
• Attitute:
• Lifestyle:

Now, select 10 attributes that you feel are the most important for success in canoe polo. Write them down and rate yourself from 1 to 10, 1 being 'very poor' and 10 being 'could not be better'. Rate yourself honestly(this should be your opinion; no guidance from your coach, teacher or anyone else). When rating yourself, think of the athlete you want to becomel leave room for improvement. Then, next to your current ratings, put down your desired ratings. (: See whether you have achieved these targets after a period of time, e.g. 12 months.

That's about it for today's post (:

Some feedback from Coach

Please take this seriously. Here are some feedback from Coach, mostly about our attitude toward trainings which needs to, and can be improved on.

These are his exact words

Heng Foo says:
u all must see the importance
if u dun produce any results, u all may not even get to play next yr
probably the sch will jus close down the club

XXX says:
but are we expected to win anything this year?

Heng Foo says:
not win
but at least win matches
but at the rate u all r going
it is hard

XXX says:
is it because we are not putting in effort? or is it because we are not going for trainings?

Heng Foo says:
not enuff training, then often u all tend to want to have fun more rather than train seriously

Heng Foo says:
dun u feel tat when u all come for water training, u all dun feel the stress of need to perform well?
to u all, a bad pass, is jus a bad pass, maybe means more sprinting or push up

Heng Foo says:
theres nothing inside u tat tells u that 'oh, i mus concentrate, at this point of time i shudn't be making so many bad passes'

Heng Foo says:
always need reminders and punishments to push u all...

Heng Foo says:
probably u can tell the team wad i told u today

10th Pesta Sukan Canoe Polo National Championship 2008

Here are the administrative details for the competition, which will begin on the 30th August 2008.

The registration form is to be submitted to SP Pool by this Friday, 18th July. What we need to fill in most urgently are the team details, so we have to come up with team names as soon as possible.

Mr Chua will be holding a short meeting tomorrow morning so that we can settle these administrative details. If you are unable to come for the meeting, boys, please email Xuanhao your NRIC, name, contact number & email, as well as your T-shirt size for ordering of competition T-shirt. Girls, email to me. We will be collating these information and typing them in the final team detail forms.

To participate in this competition, you will need to produce your signed indemnity form as well as a photocopy of your 1-star kayaking course certificate. As we do not want any hassle just when the date of the competition is nearing, I would like to implore everyone to get their indemnity forms signed and photocopies of their certs obtained TO BE SUBMITTED TOGETHER WITH THE REGISTRATION FORM, which by the way, is THIS FRIDAY(might be extended, will update you guys soon).

Please do remember to remind those teammates whom you know do not check the blog regularly. I do not wish to see any people submitting their forms or certs late. Please do exercise some responsibility.

Thanks.

Skewed common sense

What we can add to our helmet (by Tiong Hian) -- a ball catcher
'So that we can catch the ball with our helmet and continue to paddle' ~Tiong

What we can add to our helmet (by Heng Fu) -- a Doreamon's bamboo-helicopter-thing (竹蜻蜓)
'So that you can fly and get the ball' ~Heng Fu


Feel free to contribute to What can be added to the helmet discussion. ^^

Skewed common sense -- dynamic court (part 2)

Remember the last post, we introduced the random expansion/contraction? Here's the extension to it.

Type 3a -- simple random expansion/contraction
Think about this in terms of the cartesian plane, with the middle of the goalpost as the origin and the width of the court (the one along the goalpost) as the x-axis. In this expansion/contraction, the width of the court would expand/contract evenly on the positive and negative end, such that the two distances from each end of the court to the origin are equal.
This may prove to be easier for the keeper, since the center position is the same for all possible goal sizes.

Type 3b -- complex random expansion/contraction
Using the same cartesian plane, with the center of the goalpost as the origin, this expansion/contraction is slightly more complicated. Similar to Type 3a, the expansion/contraction only occur along the x-axis. However the expansion/contraction does not need to result in two equal distances from each end to the origin. I.e. The center of the goalpost/court may no longer be at the origin after expansion/contraction.
This would mean that the keeper would have to move around to remain in the center position with regard to the court and the goalpost. Good luck, keeper!

Something extremely amusing.

In case you all havent seen it before,

Skewed common sense -- dynamic court

Hmm.. think about this, to make the game more fun, we can have a moving court instead of a stagnant one.

Type 1 -- simple random moving
The court will move along one axis, namely the goalposts-directions. The movement of the court is random. So if you're lucky, the goalpost is moving toward you when you are attacking.

Type 2 -- complex random moving
The court will move randomly in all directions in the xy-plane. So in addition to your goal moving futher or closer, your ball will risk floating out of court too. When shielding, you will take a little more effort to push your opponent out to gain possession of the ball.

Type 3 -- random expansion/contraction
The court will expand or contract randomly, along the width of the court (not much point expanding the length). It differs from the above two as when it expands/contract, its goal enlarges/shrinks with it. Hell of a job for the goal-keeper.

Youth Day.

How was Youth Day? The sausage stall sold out all the sausages but not the bread...let's leave Nobbie to tell us how much bread we have left.

How did the shooting stall go? :D

Food for thought:
Today's observation at training is that Nobbie has a slight resemblance to Shawn, and Shawn can be distinguished from ZM by the way they walk.

If you dont get it, it's fine. Dont worry.

:) Check it out.

Karyen and Grassy singing karaoke at Ting An's house.




Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?