The Next Coaching Innovation Will Be Coaches Using Film To Get Better
Why Coaches Using Film to Breakdown Themselves Will Improve Instruction
Film has always been used for hitters to review themselves on a daily basis. Hitters have always used film it to reflect and see how they reacted to specific pitches or to look at potential mechanic flaws. As coaches film can be the first place that many coaches go when it comes to helping to assess a hitters issues as well. Film has been a part of the hitting culture for a few decades now and its use is almost universally accepted by everyone within the game. But unlike hitters who are using film to breakdown at bats, I think coaches are missing the mark at using it to breakdown their own performance in the “box”.
JJ Cooper wrote this article that had great insights from Kyle Boddy on how the Reds are going to use film in this up coming season.
“And it’s a really important thing for accurate feedback. From a pro perspective, imagine that the low Class A coach at Dayton is videotaping every meeting he has with an athlete and every bullpen. Now that athlete is promoted to (high Class A) Daytona Beach. It’s really far away. The Daytona Beach coach can review those videos, review those transcripts and call and speak to (the low Class A pitching coach). He can see how does this athlete learn? What works, what didn’t. Instead of just having some sort of information from (the coach) which is helpful, he now can see it in action right now. It’s extremely valuable.”
It reminds me of how schools using “End Of Year Cards” which have a bunch of info about students written on the back that should help to expedite the students transition into the new classroom. Having it on film is very powerful, and can help to create a more systematic approach to player transitions.
The largest area of improvement when it comes to improving coaches instruction can come from the simple task of filming their sessions with players. The main idea of coaches filming themselves is that it allows them to get a fuller picture of themselves after they have “performed”. Coaching as much as we don’t want to say it is a performance based job. Meaning that coaches much like actors are in “real time” and can’t hit pause, or re-write a mistake. What happens can not be fixed after it is completed.
During sessions coaches (and all humans) can not get a full picture of their own actions from their own senses. There is too much to take in, and clearly coaches are trying to help players improve in this time and can’t notice everything that is happening. When this happens it creates this fragmented story that we have in our own minds. Film helps by adding another input into the system. Because of this coaches can notice things that might have happened, that they could not perceive in real time. This speaks to the unforgiving nature of film. Often these unperceived actions are the most interesting take away’s from film. These takeaways can be a crutch word you have, a tick that you make when you do something, or an expression that a player may make in response to a comment that you made. Film allows you as a coach to examine your own actions from a distance and start to make adjustments to your own actions.
Film also allows you to not just rely on your own memory which can be altered significantly when it comes to a session. Coaches as hitters can not be making changes to themselves in “real time”, but should rather be doing that in practice or in reflection. Film gives you a hard copy, and something that you can go back to in many different situations.
Film also allows coaches to pause and assess what is happening in a session without having to continue through the session continuously. (This speaks to the performance part of the job) Coaching is unforgiving in the fact that you can’t stop once you have started in many situations. Film allows you to freeze, think and then come up with new strategies to implement in different situations. Filming your session and adding the ability to pause gives you some space to reflect and consider what is happening and how it can be improved.
Lastly from a team or organizational level film allows you to create a library of some of the best practices that coaches are currently doing. I think every coach has been in a situation where you might be saying “I think that my instruction when it comes to XYZ is good, but I think something is missing.” Having a library of best practices means that you can go check out another coach and how they go about teaching this specific movement or situation. As organizations start to get more and more film you can start to see how this can be helpful for everyone (especially new coaches) to see other coaches in action. You can take bits and pieces of all different coaches and put them into your own toolbox. Along with that it gives teams a place to highlight some of the best work that is being done on a daily basis.
Filming sessions also the ability for coaches to help coaches when it comes to their daily sessions. Coaches/teams can share and upload bits of sessions and seek feedback or see what others might be doing while not being anywhere close to each other. Coordinators would be able to help facilitate and provide feedback to coaches in real time, while not being in the same location. Overall film creates a more robust system when it comes to helping coaches improve their coaching. I think it is really hard to watch yourself on film. But if you are able to put aside your ego then it is the best thing I think that coaches can do to improve themselves on a daily basis.
