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Summer Camps for your athletes (from June 2007) |
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Coaches: Summer Camps for your Athletes
When it comes to camps, there are many options out there. I am going to give a run-down on some of these options:
Team camps. Advantages: Take the entire team. Team bonding experience, technique all taught to team at once. Disadvantage: these often are very big camps with numerous instructors - athletes can't learn a system, or get any technique down in the short amount of time to drill it. University sponsored camps are notorious for this.
Competition camps. Can take the entire team. Get matches and mat time. Disadvantage: Athletes only improve so much from competition, often continuing to make the same mistakes, and lose the same way as before. Not ideal for developing skill.
Smaller Camps put on by an individual. Advantage of learning from the actual instructor. Learn a system, get to know a coach personally, get time to work and learn the system. Note: I would never recommend one of these camps if the "instructor" is not going to actually coach at the camp, rather use his name and reputation to bring in athletes.
A final note on camps: It is my belief that camp time is the time to improve technique and learn new things. Competition is good, too - in my own camps, we wrestle live in the evenings after learning technique and drilling it hard the first two sessions. But if a camp is only concentrating on competition, and your wrestlers have flaws, they are not likely to fix them simply by going live. Regardless, if you are looking to improve your skills at camp, then look at those camps that drill you on the skills taught. This doesn't happen if there are numerous technicians there, each teaching their own thing every session, and you never go back to earlier techniques. How many skills have you ever learned by drilling them 2 or 3 times? The answer is "none." Camps that do this are just moneymakers for the ones putting them on.
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