Rhythm and Tempo Training
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In
every sport there is a crucial ingredient that very
few people either, see or recognize. Yet
it is that
one “magic” ingredient that really
differentiates the truly great players from the good
or very good.
It
is the ability to “dance”; in every sport there is
what is termed “ the dance within the game”. |
If a
player cannot dance without the ball, how is he
supposed to be able to “dance” around his
opponent
or opponents?
All
great players and teams in whatever sport, have the
ability to dictate the rhythm of the game.
By
controlling the rhythm of first the individual, then
the team, you control the flow of the game, imposing
your rhythm on the opposition (individually and
collectively) and is of fundamental importance for
success.
If
you're training is always of the same rhythm, then
each player, and the team becomes very linear
and
therefore predictable, and this predictability is
the "curse" of unsuccessful players and teams.
Introducing in every training session a variety of
rhythmic drills, movements, and more importantly
adding
a varied rhythmic theme to so called
everyday, necessary mundane drills, then each player
becomes much more difficult to play against, because
his opponent (through traditional training forms)
will be very uncomfortable working at these
"strange, disjointed, non linear" rhythms.
Alongside and not in isolation, the tempo of the
individual movement and the training itself should
be
multi-tempo, and of differing intensities.
The
importance and appreciation of these multi-rhythmic,
multi-tempo, training tools cannot be emphasized to
highly.
Skill in isolation is cold, emotionless and can
even become robotic (machinelike) and is very
predictable,
but allied to rhythmic ebbs and flows,
and tempo changes, this same skill becomes
emotional, and
human, by nature very unpredictable.
Teaching players to work to different B.P.M. (Beats
per Minute), 60 BPM. 80 BPM. 100 BPM. 120 BPM.
140 BPM. 160 BPM.etc. Working to different time
signatures 4:4, 3:4. 5:4, 7:4, etc.
By
adding these variants to your training loads, a
genuine flow and grace of movement in time and
space
is developed, training becomes more productive, more
enjoyable and more creative players and
teams are
produced.
Music is a very powerful tool, used as a mood
enhancer, a relaxation model,
a motivation tool, or
as a visualization method. But
more importantly the rhythms and beats within the
music are of vital importance,
and to understand and
use them will bring fantastic results.
Training to music, if used correctly
will be loved by every player. The
first thing to understand is, as soccer
is not just
an aerobic sport, then the training must not be
aerobic in its nature, many coaches I know use/abuse
training to music because they think that it is an
aerobics class.
As
soccer is a game of absolutely random intervals then
training to music should replicate this.
I
use many differing rhythms, beats per minute, time
signatures, and moods in my music to give the
players a varied response to the training load,
sometimes using a ball, sometimes not, solo, with a
partner, against an opponent etc, whilst all of the
time working to the designated beat and rhythm.
As
each culture has its own rhythmic identity, (the
Brazilians, samba, Argentineans, the tango, the
Spanish, the fandango, the Portuguese, Fado, and so
on, it is vital to work within as many of the
varieties as possible to acclimatize your players to
whatever and whoever they might come up against in
their games.
Once rhythmic work is learned and understood then
it is very easy to impose your rhythm on another
individual/team and if it is foreign to their
experience then they will feel very uncomfortable
with what you
are doing. The Brazilians are the
masters of imposing their rhythms on their
opponents, they almost
hypnotize the opposition with
their slow, slow, quick, explode, slow, change,
explode, goal! This is the
most advanced form of
rhythmic movement/play and is called the broken
rhythm concept.
