Club Club Passing

Notes on passing clubs at the club, by Rick Purtee (from email)

Hi all, Toni is correct, I did do the Thursday Night Club Passing School. It was a great deal of fun and I have done some of the same out here. As the discussion here has shown it takes a mix of types and styles to make it work right. After doing this in two different locations, and doing a few workshops of group club passing, what I have found that seems to work best goes something like this:

After every one has warmed up, the veterans need to spend some time with the beginners teaching basics. Always making to sure do basic simple drills, until they fell comfortable with them. Then push them a little beyond what they fell comfortable then quit. At that point if you have a couple beginners encourage them to pass with one another. This frees the veterans to play more advanced games.

As soon as the new-bies get to the point that can handle a fairly stable 4-count start including them into the large group patterns. You can always place them into positions that are simpler (for example the end position of a N or W pattern) that allow the more advanced passers a more challenging position, while allowing the new-bie to get into the game.

The approach I have found best to teach a beginning club passer is to put them into a position that is slightly beyond what they are capable and give them enough support that they become mostly comfortable with it, by catching bad passes and giving pointers on how to correct it. This can take some time, most of this is a muscle memory thing so be ready to drone on and on. Once they feel slightly comfortable, do something to raise the bar a little. The overall trick is NOT to keep them constantly under water in their capabilities, let them feel somewhat comfortable with the skills they have before you try to teach them more, but do not discourage them from learning something new. If they try something way beyond them and cannot get it as all, point that it is currently beyond them and start showing them how to get there.

I have now brought a couple of folks up through this since being here in Seattle and by doing this it has improved my club passing level. The reason being that it has forced me to spend time practicing on my own basic club passing skills.

Finally the most important thing is HAVE FUN.

Hope to see a lot of you in Buffalo,

-- CharlesShapiro - 16 Apr 2004