Notes From Camp 2012: Learn While You're Watching

Very few events frustrate coaches as much as teaching a drill, a play, or a skill to a group of players, have one group perform the task well, and then have the next group stumble cluelessly through. At this point the average coach sighs heavily and repeats instructions. Thirty seconds later, when the next group is up, the same bumbling cluelessness dominates again. Here the strategy amongst coaches differs: some will shake their head, some yell, some patiently reteach once again, and many stare at the assistant coaches in despair and disbelief. This inevitably occurred at camp, and the coaching staff found themselves repeating the phrase "learn while you're watching" over and over and over.

Yet no matter how many times we said it, and no matter how many times we will say it in the future, some kids just aren't going to get it. Unless they're not the one physically doing it at the time, their attention is elsewhere. We had some kids watch a drill for 5 minutes, watch 10 kids in front of them go through the drill, and still be lost or out to lunch when their turn came up to perform a single task. I see it in the classroom all the time as well. I give directions, get asked questions that I've already addressed in the directions, then get asked again. 

Perhaps this is a product of the times. We don't have to really know anything - we can Google it. Forget what you were supposed to buy at the store? Just text and find out. Forget directions? Pull out your phone. No idea when your mother's birthday is? Perhaps Facebook will tell you. 

One cannot be constantly in the action. At some point, we must all sit back and watch in our lives. It's not always our turn. But our turn is coming up. Whether it's finally our turn in a job, a relationship, or a bags tournament, there will be a time to perform. What will you do while you wait? Daydream? Text aimlessly? Complain about the wait till it is your turn? Or learn? 

Get ready. Your turn is coming. And you don't want to be the one causing those sighs and desperate looks from the coaching staff.