Official TFK GAA Coaches Corner

Your probably right, but an hours squatting and lungeing etc will bore the hole off your average 6 year old. They want to swing a hurl and kick a ball too, so let them at it.

Faythe Harriers, Wexford town, All Ireland Féile winners this year, teach movement and skills. They start at under 6 and don’t wait 4-5 years to demonstrate the roll and jab lift to children.

Most Dublin gas clubs will have Agility, balance and co-ordination incorporated into their nursery and under age coaching sessions

Nobody who knows what they are doing spends longer than 5 mins on that with kids. Its the consistancy of that along with fun games that work. In a 10 minute warm up you can do so much stuff. do that, and profress it twice a week for 2-3 years and you will have everyone up to speed.

ABC’s are the starting point, but there is alot more dynamic stability work needed after that.

So winning at u14 is the baromter of success in a GAA clib now?

People like you are the real problem in developme t of kids.

Like that other langer. Stay away from coaching.

Nobody suggested waiting 4-5 years either. There is no guidelines for this. it varies from demographic to demographic. You move on when they are ready.

They actually don’t. They don’t give a fuck what they are doing once its fun. Its adults who want to see their cute littke kids run around with a cute little hurley.

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wtf is teaching movement

walking a few steps back and forth

The thing is, they teach themselves.

You’re conflicted here because you’re trying to usurp volunteer and unpaid underage GAA coaches to create an industry whereby you’ll be paid for coaching movement to 6 year old children. The best and most efficient GAA clubs already accommodate this with their qualified coaches giving their time for free to coach a combination of movement and skills to children in the 6-10 age bracket.

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If kids aren’t taught skills by the age of the 10, how are they expected to come second in the Féile Skills Competition by the time they’re 13 or 14?

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GAA Coaches are not qualified to teach FMS, generally. not thru the basic courses anyway which are just box ticking exercises.

I always say there should be no need for me. its should be taught thru Primary education. I am very open about that.

And i keep any involvement with clubs to a minimum with the aim to impower the coaches and encourage thought and invention. I even point them to respurces and courses that will help them develop these ideas themselves. I want to develop the volunteers. Nothing more.

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you are talking to a capitalist accountant there mate. a lot of what you said is meaningless to him

Thats a very good point.

Kev, I will be coaching 60 x 6 year olds at 9am in the morning. The first thing they will ask me because its the first thing they always ask me is “When are we playing a hurling match? or when are we playing a football match”? I have yet to be asked “When are we doing some fun based activity that incorporates agility balance and co-oridnation while also helping to develop my Fundamental Motor Skills”?

I appreciate the science of your argument and also its importance but kids will always want to play matches. Letting them at it while also trying to develop the FMS etc are not mutually exclusive.

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Thats because you introduced them to “matches” and thats the fun part to them now. I would suggest thats the adults idea of fun being transferred to the kids.

And just because the kids ask for them does not mean its the best thing for them. the research points to fun being the bottom line.

The games are irrelivant. if you play games without skills developed then they pick up dreadful habits and movement skills.

A session could be like this

Warm up - various basic mivement patterns 10 mins

Then in a Pod fashion (making use of coaches and reducing numbers you could do this:

4 x10 mins rotating

  • ABC’s Circuit
  • Fundamental movement game (on hurling day this can be an evasion & striking game, football could be hand and foot manipulation games)
  • Decision making game
  • Match play

Discuss the session with them after for 5 mins.

Thats an hour. done.

Huge amount of stuff done. Massive involvement from coaches. Rotate the jobs. Everybody learns.

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Btw, how many coaches will you have with you?

Any less than 9 others and you are being over worked and kids are missing out too.

@Bandage, you seem to know what you are talking about here. At what stage would you start children bating tyres in training Would 10 be too late?

10 is not definitively too late, but I wouldn’t risk it. Get them pulling on tyres by 8 at the latest as this will provide wrist flexibility and strength. Gizzy Lyng’s auld lad always had Clonard battering tyres from Under 8 onwards and it’s no coincidence that Eoin Quigley was able to double on a ball from half way and knock it over the bar in the 2005 Leinster Final.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5GFz696wJk

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They have one athletic development station built into the coaching plan. For first year or two. Then it gets dropped off and they start playing blitzes and awarding player of the tournament :rolling_eyes:

Kids don’t get bored if you make Athletic and movement stuff a game which is easily done. British bulldog which we all played teaches lateral movement etc.

Clowns with their initials on club tracksuits coaching 8 year olds

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Problem is what people think the word “strength” means