The Skillzys® Way
Skillzys® are extremely useful motivational tools that can be used to bring the focus back to individual technique at the young age groups, bring a less kid-stressful "Street Soccer" feel to competitive youth games by educating both players and adults and re-defining what it means to be successful in a soccer match, and ensure that young players today are set on the best possible path to find success and smiles through the sport of soccer for many years to come.
Though use of the Skillzys® Method™ alone can have a dramatic effect on your players' enjoyment, interest level, and performance, we encourage coaches to pick up the Skillzys® Way to maximize these positive outcomes.
In a nutshell, the Skillzys® Way uses the Skillzys® Method™ to help coaches:
- Promote True Skill Development
- Redefine success on the soccer field
- Empower players to take full control over this redefined success
- Increase player enjoyment
- Build a love for the game in all their players
- Set the foundation for both short- and long-term player success
What follows is a more detailed look into each of the tenets on which our company was founded.
Helping Coaches Help Their Players
Here's an example of how a coach can use Skillzys® with a team.
Let's say you have an upcoming 8-week fall season with a U10 boys team. In that season the team will play 6 competitive games. The coach could design custom Season Pakz™ to help define season technical development goals and use the Skillzys® Method™ to encourage attempt and to recognize successful execution of these targeted technical goals in competition.
The coach can educate both players and their parents on development areas that the team will be focused on in the coming weeks, effectively helping to redefine individual and team success this season. Players can be taught the importance of goal setting and working to attain set goals, then be recognized with something tangible for their efforts. Parents can become further educated in the sport and be more in touch with what their son is learning at practice. How cool would it be to have your parent sidelines cheer just as loudly when one of your players executes a Step Over as they would when one of your players scores a goal? Or, to take this further, what if your players could be cheered on by educated parents even when your team is on the losing end of the score line? Pipe dream? We don't think so.
Moreover, the coach has the ability to develop efficient training sessions and a season plan that allows him/her to address each of the above techniques, with the players excited and motivated to learn new ideas knowing that they will be expected to attempt them in upcoming games.
Regardless of the final score in those matches, all players have a chance to get goals every time they step on the pitch!
Promote True Skill Development (TSD)
There is a difference between skill and technique. Techniques are the basic movements of any given sport. Skill is an athlete's ability to choose and perform the right techniques at the right time. Skill is aquired, and therefore has to be learned.
Most youth soccer gurus agree that technical development in young soccer athlete comes from the work put in during training sessions. At Skillzys® we agree with that, but take it one step further by stating that skill development comes when young players have the comfort, courage, and confidence to try newly learned training ground ideas in and under the pressure of real-time competitive league or tournament games. It is at that point that technique becomes true skill.
Though many quality coaches do their very best to replicate real-time game pressures in their training environments, we all know that it is nearly impossible to do so. The nerves and adrenaline found in true game situations alter how the body and brain function, not to mention the added adult-imposed pressure that is a common denominator in all competitive league and tournament games - a common denominator rarely found on the training pitch.
Moreover, the speed and intensity of defensive pressure exerted by opposing teams in live games is difficult to duplicate at the training level for younger players. For example, if a player has appeared to master a Step Over Turn in training, come game time, the move will probably not be executed at a level needed to succeed in the real-time environment. The player obviously has a better chance of successfully executing the Step Over Turn in a game if that player has put hours of time on the training field to practice it, but the sharpness, speed, and refinement of the move has to be all that much better to work under game pressure. How then does this player complete their development of this move unless encouraged to practice it in games?
And guess what happens when the player puts the time in, develops the confidence to try and try again a particular technique in real-game situations, finally executes it at the needed proficiency, and is recognized for it? Yep. Out comes the smile, and back to the training environment that player goes, excited and motivated by the success, ready for the next challenge the game may bring to them.
All this leads to accelerated player development and increased player performance.
Redefine Success
Building on our True Skill Development idea, it is important that coaches and parents help redefine what it means to be successful in youth sports.
No one plays games to lose. However, if young athletes are taught that the end result is the main focus - the only focus - and a win equates to success, they are being set up for failure. Why? Because there are too many uncontrollable factors that could help determine the end result of any given sporting contest, factors that are not always in an athlete's power to control.
Instead, if success at the younger ages can be redefined to equate to True Skill Development - individual skills practice, attempt, and execution in competitive matches - athletes now have full control of their own success, regardless of the final outcome of any sporting contest. This success breeds comfort, confidence, smiles, and an increased passion and continued player interest in the sport - all of which are key ingredients to long-term enjoyment and increased player development.
Empower Players
As touched on above, the focus on winning and the thought that winning means success sets players up for failure because many times there are too many uncontrollables that factor into the end result of a sporting event. These uncontrollables, things which young players have zero control over, include the field conditions, the weather, the officials, the opposing players, and every single bounce of the ball.
Once success is redefined and True Skill Development replaces winning in the forefront of young players' minds, then players can be taught that success is in their own hands, or at their own feet, empowering them in life through sport. Empowered players, armed and educated with their new definition of success, now have multiple opportunities to be successful in any match, regardless of the game's final score.
We guarantee that your players can win, even in a loss.
Increase Player Enjoyment
Soccer is a game, games are meant to be fun, and kids enjoy what they do when they 1) find success, 2) find challenge, 3) find freedom to play with minimal results pressure from adults. We founded our company on this belief. Let’s take each of these three “ingredients for fun” in turn.
We've already talked plenty about success - redefining it so that young players are empowered to control it and therefore able to find it more often.
In terms of challenge, all coaches know that consistently challenging talented players is difficult when dealing with a wide variety of skills levels on a youth team. Skillzys® not only allow coaches to assign target skills for game execution commensurate with their team's overall ability, but also individualize these target skills to address development levels of specific players within their team unit. For example, advanced players on a team could be challenged to execute both a Right Footed and a Left Footed Step Over Turn before being awarded the Step Over Turn Skillzy® above. The flexibility that Skillzys® offer helps coaches ensure that all players find the challenge they need to develop at their own rate and maintain interest in the sport, both of which lead to retention and long-term success.
The third ingredient for fun is the freedom to play the game. Coaches can use Skillzys® to educate the team parents on what the coach is looking for in the team's competitive matches. Clubs, coaches, and parents are able to be on the same page in terms of player development, gain perspective, and minimize the adult drive to win games that often contributes to the toxic environment surrounding youth soccer matches. Young players will feel more comfortable on the field, more confident to try and re-try specific skills as designated by the club or the coach, and thus ensure continued development.
When players find success, challenge, and freedom on the soccer field, smiles are sure to follow. Happy players who enjoy coming to practice are more open to learning, and in turn help foster a fun and more productive learning environment for their teammates.
Moreover, if players enjoy playing a sport at younger age groups, chances greatly increase that they will be involved with the sport in the years to come - years at the older age groups when true potential can be realized.
Build a Love for the Game
For those coaches looking to help gifted and talented athletes, the single most important thing that can be done is help them foster a deep passion for the game. It is this passion that helps separate the very many good athletes from the very few exceptional athletes. It's a love for the game that keeps young players kicking a ball against the house or garage until near dark, juggling a ball for hours, or shooting at an open net at a sibling's game. It's a love for the game that helps focus young players in training sessions. It's a love for the game that allows players to sit and watch higher level soccer - a key ingredient in helping young players understand the game.
Players can't love the game if they don't enjoy it or if they can't find success in it, and we've already talked about how the Skillzys® Way helps in those regards.
Though effort and attitude go a long way in helping player performance, players can't excel at the top levels of the game without technique. Love for the game fuels focus in training sessions and the hours of self-driven, non-training-session training that hone this technique and enable competition at the highest levels of the game.
Help Players Find Success Now and Down the Road
It should be clear by now (assuming you've read everything above) that the Skillzys® Method™ gives players the opportunity to find success each and every time they step on the field of play.
When players are able to find success, out come the smiles, passion is fostered, interest in training is fueled, and technique is improved. All of this helps ensure that players will have long-term enjoyment, involvement, and success in the sport for many years to come.
More About Skillzys®
Read about the reason this company is here, our Skillzys® Q&A, and the US Patent-Pending Skillzys® Method™.