This article is all about creating and running great drills for the sport of fencing! (Or any sport!)
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Drills are a critical part of a complete training program when they are structured and USED correctly. There are a lot of common mistakes that people make when designing activities and this video will address how to make what you are doing with drills as effective as possible for your students.
Principle #1 Be Objective and Skills Focused
The activities, drills and games you play with kids are the vehicles for teaching skills and content! Not an end to themselves!
Too many people make the mistake of creating activities that are about the activity instead of being focused on what they are trying to accomplish!
You need to have a clear idea of what you want the kids to learn and convey that to your students.
Always Ask Yourself: What do I want the kids to be able to do, understand or what skill are we practicing with this drill? And, Don’t forget to share that with the students so they understand what they should be learning also!
Pro-Teaching Tip: Sharing the “WHY” something is important is always critical for student understanding and buy-in. You need to be able to know and explain to students why what they are working on is important!
Principle #2 Start with Bite Sized Objectives
Great drills start with a basic concept or objective that is easily understood by everyone.
I have a saying, a good starting point for a drill is “something an Olympian would do while also being something that someone on their first day fencing could understand and do also”.
What does that mean? A great drill starts with a small focused idea to work on. Olympians work on the small details so a drill that starts on something small would be something an Olympian would do but is also something that someone on their first day could understand.
For example, keeping distance with someone moving back and forth.
Principle #3: Great drills have levels!
You start with something basic on “level 1” and then you slowly add pieces and ideas once the students have mastered and understood level 1.
Level 2 should build upon what has been done in level 1. Level 3 should build upon level 2 and so on.
This layered approach allows you to build up even younger students to complex ideas.
Pro-Teaching Tip: Always remember to take time to “Check For Understanding” with students. You can’t go fast until they have down the concepts and how the drill rules work. One way of doing that is you can have each pairing go once or twice while everyone is watching and then you can affirm when they are doing it right or correct understanding not just for that group but for everyone.
Principle #4 Have a FUN Factor an Gamify your Drills
I often call our drills “Games” because we always have a way for both sides to score even if each side is working on something different.
Having a way to “score” provides feedback as well for students to know when they are succeeding or not and often motivates them to try harder and modify how they are doing something on their own.
I am not a huge fan of straight technical drills where students are just doing rote movements without a score. Oftentimes, students end up just practicing bad habits in technical drills but of course there is a place for them and I advocate for teaching kids a technical routine they can use but ensure they are doing the movements correctly.
Principle #5 Discovery Elements are Essential
You are of course sharing with students the goals and rules of the drill but a good drill also leaves an element of discovery. When students figure things out on their own with the structure of a drill it is a powerful way to increase retention of concepts.
Pro-Teaching Tip: When you spot a student trying something different or discovering something interesting, don’t be afraid to stop the activity and call that out and discuss!
Principle #6 Teach Your Students To Be Great Training Partners
It is really important that students understand that even when drills are like games and they are trying to “win” that they are first and foremost teammates and club-mates trying to get better together.
Sharing with them what it means to be a good training partner including helping each other if someone is struggling will make any training routine you do more effective. I will talk more in-depth about being a good training partner and teammate in another article/video soon.
I hope these tips help you in your practices! We will start posting some of our partner drills/games over the next few weeks but I wanted you to understand where we are coming from in how those drills have been developed.
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