My 3 Biggest Takeaways From The Mastery Hoops Player Development Conference

Foreign welcome to the Vision Battle Training Podcast. I appreciate you guys tuning in today on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Pandora or SoundCloud, Google Podcast, wherever you may be listening from. Shout out to you guys and of course everybody who is on YouTube right now watching. If you are on YouTube, drop a like and subscribe as well. If you're new. Typically episodes come out every Sunday. I apologize for this week. This is this probably come on a Wednesday and I was actually in Miami this past weekend and so actually I was there till I didn't end up getting home till like 4 o' clock in the morning. I had to drive back from the airport at midnight. So Monday was, Monday was kind of a tough day to say the least, but had to get this out because I needed to talk about some stuff that I took from from the conference that I was at in Miami, which I'll talk about in a second. Some lessons that I learned that have been major for me already and I know we're definitely going to help you guys as well. So I want to talk about that before I get to that. If you are an Apple podcast right now, do me a favor and scroll down, leave a review for me. When I get new reviews I read them on the show so I've won today. And it says incredibly informative basketball pod podcast. I assume it kind of cut off very well made basketball podcast that sheds light on very interesting topics that not many people think talk about. By far my favorite podcast out there along with the attention to detail podcast Shout out to Coleman. It really shows series players how they can consistently be improving their game as a whole. Great work coach. I appreciate that review. You guys want me to read your review? Go ahead and leave one for me in Apple podcasts. I appreciate you guys and let's hop into it. So for those of you guys who follow me on Instagram, you saw me posting a little bit at the the player development conference in Miami that I was at. It was run by Mazur Hoop. So first of all, couple shout outs. Shout out to two the master hoops team, Coleman and Tyler. Who you guys? Good chance you guys know them by any means. Basketball and TJL training. Both those guys put on this conference and it was incredible. Brought in some of the the best in the player development area. Guys like Drew Hanlon, Devin Williams, Devin the Lab, guys like Tim Martin and Mike G, Michael Lancaster and PGI Performance Paul came in as well. And and then of course Coleman and Tyler gave their presentations as well. So a lot of really really high level basketball and performance minds there. And it was just a really, really well run conference. And, and I mean also there was a lot of people that I met there who weren't even talking. We were just like me, like trainers, coaches going there, just learn more that I was able to connect with. And I'll have some of those guys coming on the show at some point as interviews. There's a lot of really good basket minds there. So really, really well put together conference. And so I want to talk about a few things that I learned though, because, you know, I was taking notice the whole time and you know, I was kind of going through and I was like, you know, there's a lot of stuff in here that I think is incredibly like a game changer for coaches and trainers. But also I think a lot of this is applicable for players as well in certain contexts. So we'll get into that. It was actually really awesome too. At this conference. I probably had seven or eight coaches come up to me and be like, hey, I listen to your podcast. Like, I really like what you do. And you know, I've always kind of assumed my podcast was more, had a lot more players and I think it does have more players listen to it. But it's great to see that like coaches are also coaches, trainers are also listening to the podcast as well. Because, you know, one thing that I've been saying recently is like, I think that where the shift is going to come, that was one of the big things with this conference. Just talking about like shifting kind of those old rooted beliefs or old rooted approaches that, you know, might have just been the way things have always been done in this industry. Because this basketball industry is probably like 15, 20 years behind what the actual science would say when it comes to a lot of the methodologies that are still getting pushed when it comes to training and how to become the best player possible and all this stuff. So kind of the step, the first step to getting there, ultimately benefiting players and helping them become better, is by reaching the coaches and the trainers, the ones who are actually having influence on the players in their circles. That was the power of a conference like this is you got to take these eight speakers and now they're able to, you know, instill their knowledge and all this information to the 130 of us who are there. And we go take that back to all of our various players, which is going to reach thousands and thousands of players. And that's how you start to make a shift. So that's why I thought this conference was so incredible because it really like is going to make an effect because of the amount of people who are affected by it. So all that to be said, I appreciate all the coaches and trainers who listen to my, my podcast. And if you are a coach or trainer, you want to be on the show, send me a dm. Again, I probably have three or four guests that I talk to that I'm going to have on from the conference. So just let me know and, but let's hop into it. So I want to talk specifically about three different. And there's literally there's so many things I learned, but. And I'll probably talk about more of them in different episodes. But I want to talk about my top three things I learned from this conference and how it applies to you if you're a coach or trainer, but also you as a player as well, especially this first one. So the number one lesson that I learned from the speakers from the conference this weekend was that you have to connect with the human first before you can effectively connect with the player. And this is something that relates to coaches and trainers. Obviously that's, that's the biggest area, but also players as well. This is absolutely applicable to you as well. If you want to be a great leader on your team, you have to understand this concept as well. So obviously coaches and trainers is important for you guys, but players as well. It's important that you understand why this is important and how you can go about doing it. So the first speaker of the weekend was Tim Martin. Shout out to him. And he first started off talking about three life changing principles that, that he's kind of come across as a trainer. And I'm only talking about the first one, the third one. But the first one he talked about was communication and translation. Then the third one was practice empathy. So those are two of those three life changing pillars, life changing principles that he talked about. There's a lot that goes into that first part, right? The first thing is that conversations are way better than lectures, right? Having conversations with your players, with your teammates, or I'll address it from both the brothers. If you're a trainer, having conversations with your players, like, hey, how'd you play this weekend? Okay, what'd you do well? Okay, what do you think you could have, you could have done better, right? How do you feel about, you know, our workouts the last couple of weeks? Like, are you feeling good? Like, what areas are you struggling with? You know, how are your team practices going? How are your team workouts going? You know, how are you doing in your tournaments, asking these questions and not just allowing it to be a lecture about, okay, we need to do this and then do this and then do that. That. That allows players to be way more engaged. And engage is going to be a word that's going to come up a lot more throughout, especially this first topic right here. But it's important that you get feedback and you ask questions, and you. You also encourage questions, you encourage curiosity from your players because that allows them to take more ownership into what you're doing, so they care more about what you're doing because they feel like they have a part in it, right? When they're able to give their feedback, they're able to ask questions to you, and you ask questions to them, right? They feel like, okay, well, you know, he cares about what I have to say. She cares about, you know, what I have to say or what I think about this topic. So it's important that we. We understand that part, that it's really important to get our players engaged with that. And again, going back to players as well, right? It's important that you're not, you know, if you're one of the leaders on your team, you can't just be the guy who's going around and lecturing everybody about how you guys need to work hard, you guys need to do this, you guys need to do that. It's important that you really get your. Your teammates to be engaged, right? You. You are constantly getting feedback from your teammates, asking about things that you could do better, right? Can be with your coach as well, asking your coach who you can do better, asking questions that are going to help you to become better. I think that's what becomes important is prioritizing conversations over lectures, right? That's what you want to understand first. And so one of the examples that Tim gave with this was he was working out with Tyrese Maxey, who's with the Sixers. And this is their first ever workout. And this is just kind of a simple example. They were going through a passing drill, and there were different sorts of passes that, you know, he might throw off this. So maybe it's a behind the back bounce pass, or maybe it's a hook pass or a pocket pass, whatever. Just working on different kinds of passes out of a ball screen. And so as they're going through this, Tim is asking Tyrese, okay, when is this. When's the situation where you use this pass? Okay, why would you use that pass? What's the situation where you use this pass, and why would you do that? And so now Tyrese becomes more engaged in it. And so as, like I said, engagement is going to be a word that we use a lot. But now he's more focused, he's more involved with what they're doing, and that allows him to take a little more ownership over what. Over what's going on as well. So that's an example of kind of how to use questions to make your. Your players progress and get more out of your sessions that you're going through. And, you know, it's important that we understand that first, right? Communication, when it comes to just having conversation, incredibly important for you as a player trainer or as a coach, obviously. So then that. That next part, right, is practice empathy. And this is where, you know the. The quote that Tim uses that you might not be the best, right, you might not be the best trainer in the world, you might not be the best player in the world, whatever, but if you love people, then you're going to be impactful, right? And if you're a trainer, your players are going to appreciate you for that, and they're going to get better because of that. And if you're a player, your teammates are going to appreciate you for that, and they're going to get better because of that as well. So a lot of that has to do with, first of all, relatability. So that comes down to learning about them as people and. And really understanding, like, okay, what are their likes? What do they do off the court? Like, what else do they have going on? Do you have anything that you give any similarities outside of basketball, right. Or outside of, you know, performance training, whatever the. The. Whatever the. The case may be, right? Do you guys like certain types of movies, right? Maybe you guys both enjoy the same sort of, you know, types of movies, the same sort of TV shows, whatever it may be. Maybe you guys root for the same sports team or you guys are both really big into fantasy football or whatever? Like, do you guys have stuff you can talk about side of the game of basketball? Do you know them as a player, as. As someone that you train, as you code, as your teammate? Like, do you know them outside of the game of basketball? I think that is very, very important. It comes to being able to practice empathy and being relatable to the players that you're with. And so going with that is the importance of positive reinforcement, right? So this comes down to pointing out when your players do something well, right? Because practice, we're going to get to this later, but practice should be challenging, right? It shouldn't be Something that's easy. So there's going to be a lot of mistakes. And a lot of players, like, a lot of coaches don't get this. A lot of coaches are used to, like. Like a lot of coaches have had to go through, you know, situations where they've had to mess up. They've tried to do something, it hasn't worked out and they've been able to overcome it. So at this point, they kind of innately understand, like, mistakes happen. Sometimes you mess things up, you just keep on going, right? But players a lot of times haven't been through enough to really understand that. So when they make mistakes, it really, like, wears on them and it really beats on them. So it's important to. First, I'll be able to identify that and be like, listen, it's all right to, like, mistakes are not a bad thing. Especially when I'm trying to make you mess up, right? That's one thing. But also when they do stuff well, right? When they complete something and it maybe takes them a while, but they figure it out, like giving them a high five and pointing out like, hey, that was great, right? They make a move that you've worked on, that they've never done before, right. That they've never actually succeeded with against defense, and they pull it out after you've been working on it, something to point out to them right there, right? They do some sort of footwork correctly in the context of maybe a one on one or something, and maybe they missed the shot, maybe they missed the layup, but the actual approach to it, the process was correct. So that's a great opportunity to just point that out, be like, hey, that was great that you did that right there. Because then they get to start that. That builds confidence for them. And again, it builds that relationship, right? You can't. You can't really have an impact on somebody if you don't have a good relationship with them. It's just not how it works, right? And, and the days of coaching where you could be kind of a stoic and kind of cold individual who's kind of reserved and never really like, you know, emotional or connected with your players, that's just not how things are, right. If you want to be as effective as you can be, right? There's, you know, that's the thing with. They talk about Bill Belichick, right? And for those of you guys who don't know who Bill Belichick is, he's the head coach of the New England Patriots. It's crazy. I love talking to my Players about football. Like, I'll bring up football with some of my. Some of my players, and they'll have, like, no idea who I'm. I'm like, you guys don't know who, like, Barry Sanders is or, like, all these, like, it's. It's funny. But. So Bill Belichick, right? His style of coaching is very, very, like, at least from the outside, right? I didn't. I obviously haven't played for the Patriots, so I can't give you my own experience. But he's very cold. He's very, like, serious. He's very, like, you know, all business. He's a guy like, listen, if you go out and you don't do your job, like, that's the Patriot slogan is. Right? Do your job right. Patriots will cut people very quickly because they have a way of doing things that they've built over, you know, however many years Bill's. Bill's been there 20 plus years. And those, you know, the Super Bowls, the six Super Bowls kind of speak for. Speak for itself. Or is it five? Five or six? I don't know. I'm not a Patriots fan. I think it's six, though. And so the thing is, though, like, a lot of Bill Belichick's assistants will leave New England and get head coaching jobs, and they'll try to be Bill Belichick. They'll try to be super hard and super cold and super, like, you know, drill sergeant. Like, this is how we do things right here. You're going to. You're going to act this way. You're going to be this. And most of the time, those coaches fizzle out. Like, they don't last. They aren't able to kind of instill that same culture. Well, why is that? The reason is that Bill Belichick has his six rings, right? So he can say, listen, I win super bowl, this is what I do. So if you want to come in and win Super Bowls, then you do it this way. If you don't want to win Super Bowls, then we'll. We'll ship you out. We'll get somebody else who does. So players want to be a part of that, right? They're. They are willing to sacrifice. They're willing to fall in line because the proof of concept is there. If you're Bill Belichick's assistants, you like, you haven't won anything. You've been an assistant, maybe you have a ring, but you weren't. You weren't the head coach. So you go somewhere and a player is going to be like, why should I buy into what you have to say? Like, why would I do that? So players are going to resent you and probably not want to play for you. So you're going to get fired because you're going to lose a lot of games, right? So you have to understand that's the same thing as a coach in your position right there. Right. You can't just go in and be like, this is how we do things my way or the highway. Because unless you're Bill Belichick, Greg Popovich, these guys who've won a lot, Coach K, you just can't do it that way. Right? Even Coach K had to adjust. Coach K used to not want to recruit one and done players. He wanted to get only guys who are going to stay for four years. But then he realized eventually he's like, well, I'm going to lose, I'm not going to win if I don't start recruiting these one and dones. So he had to, he had to adapt, right? So that's, that's a big part of it is you have to be able to relate to your players and your players have to have a good relationship with you to enjoy being around you. That's where the basis comes from when it comes to actually building them up as players. So the quote that was used was a Maya Angelou quote. And she said, people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. Right? So they, they're going to forget the little pointers that you tell them. They're going to forget little things. Hey, when you come up a ball screen, make sure, you know, you look at that next time you do that next time, hey, when you go to the rim, we're going to step with this foot and that. Like they're going to that, that stuff. That's lessons that like, maybe they'll subconsciously remember when they're playing, but they're not going to remember you telling that them that. Exactly right. They're going to remember, though, if they enjoyed being in your sessions, they're going to remember like, hey, I really enjoy being with that coach. It was fun and you know, know we had great conversations and he cared about where I was at as a person and as a player. And you know, talking to, when Tim was talking about retaining your players, like that was the big key is like they have to, when they think of you and your sessions, that has to be a positive thing for them. And it's hard to do when you don't connect with them on a human level. You don't relate to them on a human level. So same thing again as a player, right? You have to make sure that you know, not only are you relating to your players, to your teammates, basketball wise, but you, you know, you are somebody who they enjoy being teammates with. Right. You're always encouraging to those guys, you're always lifting those guys up. You're always willing to shelter blame and responsibility when necessary and not try and point fingers at people. You're willing to be a great teammate and they might forget the things that you say and things that you do, but they're going to remember how they felt being on a team with you. And generally that's going to either, generally it's either going to be a for a good reason or a bad reason, right? So you want to keep that in mind as well, that it's supremely important how they feel being with you as opposed to the actual things that you may say or do. So that was Tim Martin. He was great. Shout out to him. But going along with that topic, Mike G talked a little about this as well and learned a ton from Mike G as well. So he talked about prime time and going back to engagement and then how engagement leads to productive work workouts, productive sessions. And we'll kind of dive into this right here. So kind of how he started off his presentation, it was actually the first presentation on day two. And so obviously he was like, listen, guys, I understand we're in Miami. It was last night, was Saturday night. It's Sunday morning at, you know, 9:00am so some of you guys probably, probably aren't feeling great after, you know, being in Miami on Saturday night. So he got us all up out of the bleachers and then he had us do these, these weird games, weird partner games. We all got partners, we all do these little games. And he was just like, okay, like that, like that is how we build engagement. And he was like, notice how you feel now compared to five minutes ago before we did that. You know, you guys are probably feeling kind of sluggish. You're kind of feeling like, I don't know how I'm going to feel about this. And then we go do those little games and all of a sudden you feel energized, you feel good, you feel engaged, like you're mentally like focused on what we're, what I'm talking about now. And all it took was a five minute priming of your mind. So this got into the concept of, of prime time versus A warm up, right, where prime time actually primes your athletes mentally to, to excel, as opposed to a warmup that's just focused on the physical side of things. So when we talk about those wake up games, it actually physiologically changes you, right? Your heart rate goes up, your, your, your body temperature goes up, blood flow goes up. But aside from just those normal things, which you can get out of a normal dynamic warmup where you do your skips and your lunges and your squats, it actually improves your mood and your morale. Like, we were all smiling, having fun, like competing, it was enjoyable. And so we all felt better mentally and emotionally after that five minutes, as well as feeling better physically too. That increases that focus and engagement, which leads to a better session moving forward as well. So this little five minute warmup is what Mike called prime time. Essentially where it starts is that when your athletes walk in, you first have to kind of read the room, right? They come into a session and you got to be able to look and say, okay, how are they feeling? Right? Body language is going to tell you a lot. You might not even have to ask them. And they might tell you everything just by how they walk in. They're feeling like they're walking in real slow, shoulders are down, they just look tired, right? And that can be a situation sometimes. Maybe it was a long weekend for them. They come in on Monday morning and they just look dead tired, right? Maybe it was us on Sunday morning. We come in, you know, and everyone just looks tired, right? So you have to be able to kind of read the room and know your athletes, right? So if you have athletes you work with all the time, then you should be able to tell, like if they come in on a day and they are just feeling, they're just not at 100%, right? And whether that be physically or mentally, they might just, they might not be there, right? They might not be all the way there yet. So it's important that you as a coach don't just like, let that go, right? You have to try and fix that a little bit, which you, you can sometimes, especially with these, these sort of prime time activities. So, you know, you have to kind of gauge the mood and the energy when they come in. And you also think about things like again, going back to understanding the human. What kind of stress could they be going through in addition to the athletics, right? Think about it. It's gonna be different like in high school, right? What are they stressed out about? Well, maybe they have a big test tomorrow. Maybe they just had a big test today and they didn't do well on it. Right. Maybe. Maybe tryouts are coming up. They're stressed about that. Whatever. Like, there's a lot of different things that you as. Or that as a high school player could be stressed out about. That has nothing to do with basketball. That could be affecting their mood or their energy coming into, you know, that, that, that particular session. I know. Especially you think about, like, maybe you have some seniors who are applying to schools, right? And they're worried about, am I going to get into school? Is my essay good enough? Is my SAT good enough? Like, all that stuff that goes into it, like, that can weigh on you if you have stress. This is what, what PJF talked about a little bit was like, stress hurts your ability to be able to recover. Right. So if you're stressed out about a lot of other things, that can certainly affect you when it comes to your workouts as well. So something to think about right there in college, what are they stressed about? Maybe they have a big test. Maybe they have games coming. Maybe they're not getting a ton of playing time. They're worried about this happening. Maybe it's got a new coach. There's a lot of things. Maybe they're, you know, maybe they are about to graduate and they're worried about they're going to do next. Like, there's a lot of things you can. That as a college player, as a pro player, what are they worried about? Right. Potentially they have a family. Potentially there's, you know, they're worried about, you know, trying to make sure that they make the roster, and they're thinking about, like, well, if I don't play well, then what's going to happen, all this sort of stuff. Right. So you have to evaluate and understand that stresses are different for different people, but also everyone's dealing with something at the time, so something to consider as well. You got to think about how productive sessions typically are with your athletes who aren't quite as motivated or engaged. It's typically not as good. Right. You're probably not going to get as much out of it. They're not going to learn as much. They're not going to really improve as much as you'd like, and you're probably not going to enjoy it as much. It's way more fun to work with athletes who are engaged, who are locked in, who are motivated than it is to work with the one who isn't. And so the thing to understand is that intense and attention are the most important parts of how your players Approach those workouts, the intent needs to be there and they need to be giving you their full attention, giving the work their full attention. If they're not, you're not going to see the result that you want to see. And, you know, generally if you want to have, you know, you want them to learn specific skills, then they have to have that intent. They have to be paying attention. It has to be at a high level right there. So what these prime time kind of warmups do is they mentally engage that athlete so that we have that focus and they are locked in the intent there, the attention is there, but it also hits those physical needs as well. When it comes to, you know, increasing that, that heart rate, increasing the body temperature, working different movements as well. So it's actually a dynamic warmup. But it's better because now you have them engaged mentally. And that means that when the rest of the session comes, you start to work on your actual basketball specific stuff. You have an engaged athlete who's going to get way more out of that session as opposed to if you just brought them in, sent them through a normal dynamic warmup, and they still are not mentally there. Right? So being able to connect with your athletes mentally is super, super, super important. And with these primetime actions, you can do a lot more and it's a lot easier to do that. So that was kind of the couple things that we talked about. And then it was like, so how do we implement these prime time ideas? How do we implement these, these primetime warmups? So I'll approach this from a couple different perspectives, but the first thing we talked about was games, right? So literally just. And this is what Mike would do with some of his NBA clients, right? With Jrue Holiday, Anthony Davis, these guys that he works with, they just sometimes come out and they'd start with spikeball. They play spike ball for five minutes, they play volleyball for a little bit. And now the guys, like, they're not thinking about like, oh, okay, it's a warm up. I'm working this different movement. I'm working on these lunges. No, they're just worried about, like, I'm just trying to win. I'm just trying to play volleyball and win. They're having fun, they're competing, and they're having to react to a stimulus, which is that the volleyball or the spike ball. So that's something to think about. Soccer is another great one where you have to actually get all these movements that are different from basketball. And your heart rate's going up, body temperature is going up, and you're competing and having fun, right? So now when you finish that, your, your athletes have been competing, they've been going back and forth, and now they're mentally engaged, what you're doing, and they've already warmed up and they're in a spot. That's why prime time is such a superior way to do things as opposed to just a normal warmup, Right? You get the best of both worlds. So highly recommend for any coaches, trainers out there, start to implement this primetime idea. And it's not just games. You don't have to just play games. You can literally do something as simple as tag, right? And I'll probably post about this on Instagram because I was doing this the other day. You literally can just play tag with your players. So you could do like a. One thing that I'll do is like a dribble tag where, like, I'll have one of my players start on the baseline. They're the offensive player, and one player starts on defense kind of in the middle of the paint. And. And that offensive player has the whole entire, like half court. They have corner to corner. They're trying to get to half court, and they have to essentially avoid getting tagged by the other player. Both players have basketballs. They have to be dribbling. That defensive player is trying to tag the offensive player and they're just trying to avoid them and get to half court, right? So there's one example of tag. Another example is where, if you guys follow me on Instagram, you would have seen this. I posted where I had. I basically set up a circle with cones, right? And you can do this with like a half court circle, which is kind of big, so it'll make it a little tougher. But I set up a circle with cones. We literally just like, I had my two players, like, one of them was it, and the other was just trying to get away. And they had to stay around these cones. They couldn't go across the cones. They just had to stay in this circle. So now we're working on, you know, sprinting, curvilinear angles, working on change of direction, deceleration. They don't know that. They don't know that. They're. They're just, they're trying to play tag. They're just trying not to try. They're just trying not to get tagged. They're trying to tag the other person. Then we add a basketball into that as well. So they both have a basketball. They have to do the same exact thing. Now we're working on those same Curvilinear angles. We're working on deceleration, change direction, but we're doing it all with a basketball, which makes it exactly what you'd be doing in a game, right? And they don't even know that. They just, they're just trying to play tag, right? And they're having fun, they're competing, and now they're, they're engaged mentally. And it literally was in a fun and very beneficial way when it comes to the actual basketball side of things. So that's another thing right there. Highly recommend you guys follow Mike G on Instagram. It's mrdoitmoving phenomenal follow. And if you are a player, a trainer, a coach, like, make sure you guys give him a follow because the primetime idea is phenomenal. Literally something that I've been doing every day since. So shout out to him as well. So the second thing I want to get to, second point I want to talk about from this conference was that skill coaches and performance coaches need to merge, right? And this was something that Paul brought up, PGF performance. He brought up the fact that within 10 years, skill coaches and performance coaches, those two worlds are going to combine and one coach is going to be the person for, for, for players, right? You're going to go to one coach who's going to be your skill guy and your. And your performance guy, right? So you can't just be one or the other because moving forward, the, the importance of the performance side of things is like, it's not something that you can just ignore. And if you're a skills coach, thing to understand is that you are a performance coach right now. You might not even think about. I didn't think about this. Right. But if you're a skills coach, you are a performance coach. You know, when you're dribbling and you're working on different sorts of moves, you're working on deceleration, you're working on acceleration, like we're talking about that tag drill, you're working on moving curvilinear angles, you're working on absorbing force, all that stuff that is actually the performance side of things. You're working with ball handling. So if you don't understand that stuff and how to develop it, then you're going to be limited with how good your players can become. Kyrie Irving is a great ball handle, obviously, but if Kyrie Irving couldn't get himself in those, those angles, he couldn't get him his shins in those shin angles. He didn't have the hip mobility, be able to do some of the stuff that he does. He wouldn't be nearly as good if he didn't have the stability and the, the core strength to be able to finish in those acrobatic ways, he wouldn't be nearly as good. That's all performance related, not just basketball related. Okay. So those two things are not quite as separate as people might think that they are. And if players can merge those two things with one coach, then it becomes way easier for them to manage load. So injuries go down and performance goes up. So that's why moving forward like the, the, the future of this industry is that your skills coach is also your performance coach. Because they're able to manage exactly what you're doing, know exactly how much to prescribe, you know when to reel back, when to push forward. And that's going to lead to less injuries and better performance from players in general. Okay, so if you're a skills coach right now, and this is as much to myself, because that was something that I thought about is like you've got to get yourself to a point where you understand the language of performance, right? That was something that Paul talked about. It's like skills coaches need to be at a point where they can speak that performance language because that's where the future is going to be. And so something to understand with that too is that you know when it comes to movements, right, we talked about with ball handling, whatever, right. A lot of kids are specializing really, really early. And this is kind of gonna go back to the games. I was talking about the prime time stuff. But kids are specializing really early. That's why basketball right now is that the best ever been when it comes to skill, right. The players today are so skilled, especially at youth levels. Obviously the NBA is incredible, but like you got eight, nine year olds who are just, just unbelievably skilled, like who can do these crazy different footwork and can hit these different step backs when they're you know, in like they're eight years old and they're doing these things that like most kids can't do till they're at least. When I was playing that was like four years ago, like kids weren't doing that stuff till they were like at least 13, 14, 15 years old. And for you know, a lot of the, a couple of the, the speakers, like I know Paul was talking about like there he watched a, a nine year old come off a ball screen and like scan the floor and, and be watching the three point lines to see if any of his teammates like if if he had that, that corner guy lifting or if he had anybody who was open, like he's not just looking at score or hit the roll guy, he's also evaluating to that shake guy in the corner, opposite Corner, like he's 8 years old and evaluating that sort of stuff happening. That's, that's stuff that like Paul was saying, like yeah, when I played, kids weren't doing that till they were like 16, 17 years old. Right. Doing that when you're 8, 9 years old, it's unheard of. But today that's how it is. So players specializing in basketball earlier has made it so that basketball is so much more skilled. But the downside to that is that now players are working these repeated patterns, these repeated movement patterns that are specific to basketball and they are not getting the proper development with a lot of other movements that they would get in different sports. Right. If they played soccer or football or whatever. Right. Any of these other sports, volleyball, where you might get these different types of movement, you're not being exposed to them at these young ages anymore. So you aren't really developing yourself as a whole athlete the way that, you know, players used to when they would play three sports through high school. Right. And again, I'm not saying that you have to play multiple sports, but I'm saying that you have to make sure that you, you don't, you don't, you don't lack as an athlete because of specialization. So that's one part of it and that goes back to the games part. So if we're able to, Paul, call to micro dosing sports. So if I'm able to find time as a trainer to micro dose these different, you know, five, ten minutes, the beginning of a session to play spike ball, to play soccer, to play volleyball, to play tag, to just do these different games that, that kids do that the kids now aren't really doing because they're specializing and they're playing basketball year rounds, that's going to help develop them as a whole athlete. Right. And so these, these movement patterns, they might not be exposed to, they're going to be able to, to get exposed to and that's going to help raise their level as an athlete. And on top of that, you're now exposing them to other movements. So it's almost a little bit of a break from the movements that they are overdoing playing basketball year round. Okay. So goes back to the importance of adding in these different sorts of games. Not only is it great for them mentally and engagement and it's going to it's going to make the rest of your sessions way, way, way better, right? If you take 5 minutes or 10 minutes to play a game, but it's going to make the remaining 50 minutes of your session really, really high quality probably. I mean, to me that, that's pretty much, that's, that's worth it, right? If you also know that those five or ten minutes are going to make your players better athletes as well, which is going to lead to them being more successful on the court, then it almost seems like a no brainer to be able to start adding in games and stuff like that. So that was, that was the second thing was that skills coaches and performance coaches are going to merge. And if you're a skills coach right now, start understanding that performance side of things because that's where this industry is heading. It's like you got to be able to understand and do both if you want to maximize the success and longevity of your players. And then the third thing I want to talk about is the importance of figure it out ability. And this was Something that Tyler LeClaire talked about in his presentation was explicit versus implicit learning. And all of this means, is that explicit learning is learning when you know that you're learning, right? So I'll give you an example in a second. But implicit learning would be learning without knowing that you're learning, right? So an example of this might be, let's say that you want to learn Spanish. The explicit way to do that is to take a Spanish class, right? You know that you're learning, you go to Spanish class to learn Spanish. The implicit way of doing that would be going to Spain and spending six months there, right? Where everybody there speaks Spanish and you're kind of immersed into that. What do you think the more, what do you think the better way is to learn Spanish, right? Is it the one where you go to a Spanish class for, you know, a couple hours a week or, or the one where you're actually in Spain amongst Spanish speakers for months and you have to learn and you have to adapt because if you don't, if you don't like, figure it out, if you don't figure out how to say like, hey, I need to buy some food, then you're going to starve, right? So you have to learn how to at least, you know, get the basics down, right? If you can't ask, hey, where's the bathroom? That's a problem, right? That's a problem for you. So that's, that's something for you to, to consider, right? Is like, which is the better way of learning? Probably the one where you're immersed in the culture and you kind of have to figure it out to an extent, because if you don't figure it out, then you're going to starve, right? As opposed to Spanish class, where, you know, you might learn some stuff, but there's no, there's nothing on the line, right? It's all kind of given to you. You get to go back home to your neighborhood where everyone speaks English, right? Or at least most people do. Most people speak English. You can go to McDonald's and they speak English there. You can go to whatever, you know, Texas Roadhouse and they speak English there. You don't have to worry about trying to order food in a different language. So that's something to think about right there. It's just that implicit, explicit learning. So we get to basketball, which is the better way of doing things? Well, an explicit way of learning would be if I am with a player and I say, okay, here's what we're going to do. You're going to drive to the basket and you're going to step with your right foot, then your left foot, and then you're going to extend the ball out from your body and, and you're going to finish it underhand. Okay? That's an explicit way of learning it. An implicit way would say, okay, hey, I want you to go to the basket, I want you to finish off of two feet. That's a much more like, okay, well, now they have to kind of figure out a little bit, right? I'm not giving them the exact steps to take. Now, does that mean that I'm never going to do that? I mean, there's going to be times for both of them. But generally, when it comes to, you know, implicit learning, the reason that it's better than explicit learning is for a couple of different reasons. The first one is self organization. So a 511 player is gonna do things differently than a 611 player. So trying to make them do the same thing and fit them in the same box is generally not gonna be a good thing. So when you give players freedom to kind of figure things out themselves, they find they're. They've naturally find the best way to kind of get things done. Right? And so that's the first part. The second part is long term learning. So I obviously want my sessions to translate long term. I don't want to do something in a session and then how my players never do it again because they don't know how to do it, they forget it, right? That's how a lot of times how it is when you give them every single step to take. When I say, okay, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, and they do that. They're just following directions. They don't actually have any context of why they did that or how they did it. They're just doing what you told them to do. So when they get to a game and you're not there to tell them what to do, they're not going to have any sort of recall of that, as opposed to me putting them in a position to implicitly learn it. And maybe instead of making them just finish off two feet with no defense, maybe I put a defender on them. And now all of a sudden they have to figure out how to score off two feet at the rim. But there's a defender now, so there's a reaction to it. They're implicitly learning what the best way to do that would be. Now when they get into a game situation, they have a recall of that. They've learned that they have those patterns in their mind already. And then the third thing kind of going with that is resiliency, right? So that skill is going to show up when there's pressure, right? It's kind of a. People say, okay, I want my skills become second nature. That's how you do it. Is with. Is implicitly learning things, right? Is. Is you are putting a position where you have to kind of figure it out and you know, you find the best way of doing things. That becomes something that you can do under pressure when you actually are the one who had, who had to kind of put that stuff together and you have a recall in your mind to go back to, right? So that's, that's one thing right there, Tyler talked about, is the importance of implicit learning and putting your players in a position, whether that means more one on one or generally just less talking, right. Coaches love to talk and workouts just talk a little bit less, Let them figure stuff out a little bit more, let them struggle a little bit more. And kind of going with that, he talked about, you know, the importance of challenge, right. So when I put my players in positions to implicitly learn things, it's more challenging for them, for sure, right. It adds additional challenge to them, which, without going too far into the science, strengthens the myelin in your brain, which is essentially what improves your ability to do something, right? Those, those patterns that you're kind of repeatedly going over. So when I increase a challenge for my players and I force them to figure it out implicitly. That is where those connections are made in their brain and they actually get better long term. It makes training uglier when you force them to learn things implicitly. Right. Because if I just tell you what to do, you can do it perfectly and then I look really good. Right? Because oh, my players do things perfectly in workouts, but when they get to games, what's going to happen? It's going to be the opposite of that. Right. So when I put them in positions to learn implicitly, they look worse, they play a little bit worse, but it's more real. Right. And ultimately it's going to make them more confident long term because they've actually had to learn it. And there's so much more I can go into when it comes to challenge, but that's kind of where I wanted to get to. So the three things that I learned from the conference is first of all, you have to connect with the, with the human first before you can connect effectively connect with the player. Number two is skill coaches. Post performance coaches are going to have to merge. So if you're a skill coach, you need to start understanding the performance side of things. And number three is the importance of figured out ability. So you know, again, this is an incredible conference. Shout out to the master hoops team, Tyler and Coleman for putting this on and all the speakers who were there for sharing their knowledge. Again, there's way more with this too that I'll go into. But I appreciate you guys who are tuned in, who are listening again. Apple, podcast, Spotify, everybody is YouTube right now. Drop a comment, let me know what you learned from this podcast, topics you want to see moving forward. If anybody who's watching this at the conference, let me know what your biggest takeaway was. And I appreciate you guys again for listening. So shout out to all of you guys. Make sure you guys may follow on Instagram at Visionary Basketball. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.