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Post by kingofcrank on Apr 23, 2019 13:51:45 GMT -5
If you have heard anything about GoldMedalSquared, I am sure you have heard of the competitive cauldron used during a typical practice. If you do not know what this is, it is essentially a way for individuals on the team to see where they rank amongst their teammates in certain aspects of the game (i.e. serve, pass, dig, attack, set). They sections of the cauldron can be broken up different ways depending on what you want from it. I think this is something that would greatly benefit my team since our roster is rather large and only going to get bigger next year. If anyone has any experience with this, I would love to hear your suggestions. A couple questions that I have about it are: 1. What sections of the game do you collect information? (serve, pass, dig, attack, set, small group, 6v6)  2. How do you stat the drills you collect the information for? 3. Do you weigh the stats to compare them to everyone, or only that specific position? If skill is in question, I am working with a division I women's college program. Thanks for your help! This community is awesome, and I am glad to be a part of it! |
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Post by salsolomon on Apr 23, 2019 15:12:22 GMT -5
I have used a cauldron for about 15 years with both HS and college teams.
I've done this several different ways but here is what I do now:
1. Keep score of all 6v6 games in practice (typically the last 40-60 min of every practice). In the cauldron, a player's score is the ratio of how many points her team scored and how many points were scored in the game, so for a 25-15 game, a player's score would be 25/40 or 15/40. (That allows for even comparisons if a player misses a practice or has to sit out a drill - she doesn't score the points but she also doesn't have the addition to the denominator.
I also stat all passes, serves, and hitting attempts in competitive activities. We have other activities that are no supposed to be competitive and where learning is the #1 goal. We're not going to stat hitting for a player learning a new shot in a blocked drill, for example. We also won't stat unrealistic things like hitting against no block in a triples game.
2. For scores, just take a picture of the whiteboard with team scores after practice. For passing and hitting, we stat that from video the next morning. For serving, a manager or coach will write a result for each serve on a whiteboard live.
3. All players are compared to the others at their own position.
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Post by bigfan on Apr 23, 2019 17:55:24 GMT -5
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Post by bigfan on Apr 23, 2019 17:56:55 GMT -5
An interesting post from prep volleyball from GM2 guy The cauldron is a system used to measure players perfomrance in practice (and in matches). It measures their fundamental skills based on standards established by the coaching staff. It provides a way in which the coaches can compare each player statistically and enable them to make decisions regarding playing time in matches. While many cauldrons compare stats such as passing (% perfect), hitting%, serving etc., some coaches also include winning % in small groups games/drills and 6 v 6 games/drills in practice. It is a system based very much on the principles that Billy Bean spoke of, in the book "Money Ball" by Michael Lewis. Additionally Anson Dorrance (you know the guy who has won more NCAA Championships than anyone else -UNC women's soccer) wrote extensively about it in his books "Training Soccer Champions" and "Vision Of A Champion". Read either of those books to really understand it. The irony of the National Championship came down to two vastly different idealogies that came into direct conflict with each other. In Nebraska you have a Toshi like philosophy. Cook utilizes coach centered methods of teaching skills. Skills are isolated in a very blocked format and done over and over. An example of this would be coaches hitting ball after ball at their athletes. Also as Toshi taught, Nebraska used a significant amount of up-down (tanden) passing technique. Did you see how effective it was for Pavan in the semi-final and final? NE percent perfect passing in the semi-final was 48%. The U.S. women were the second worst passing team in the Olympics using the same technique. In Washington you have McGown philosophy. They utilze player centered drills that involve playing game situations which better simulates the actual conditions of the game. Motor learning scientists have proven from years of research that this method leads to faster transfer and therefore should be a considered a superior method for training athletes. Additionally Washington uses a very simple approach to passing create a platform and angle the ball to target (you know physics and geometry). UW's percent perfect passing in the semi final was around 60%. Every top 5 men's team in the Olympics uses this technique. This match was an outstanding clash of two very different philosophies when it comes to training. Both teams are very well coached (based on their individual philosophies) and have outstanding athletes, though I think most people would agree that Nebraska was the more physical team. Many people have debated the virtues of both philosophies (Toshi vs. McGown) over the last several months. Clearly John Cook subscribes to a Toshi mentality when it comes to training. McLaughlin has cited the strong influence of Carl McGown since his days at USC. I think what is most interesting about this championship is that on paper most people would not have given Washington much of a chance over a more powerful, physical and athletic team such as Nebraska. However the superior training methods, fundamental techniques and offensive and defensive systems of UW made this a very one sided affair. I doubt it, but maybe now people will finally start to fall off the Toshi bandwagon once and for all. Perhaps coaches will realize that McGown is the true master in the world of volleyball. The domination of a physcially smaller team over a physcially larger one is just part of the reason for this. This match came down to training, technique and systems (as it ussaully does). In this case Nebraska never had a chance. |
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Post by hammer on Apr 23, 2019 18:08:19 GMT -5
Just remember: You can get burned if you enter the cauldron ...  |
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jcvb
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Post by jcvb on Apr 23, 2019 19:47:22 GMT -5
An interesting post from prep volleyball from GM2 guy The cauldron is a system used to measure players perfomrance in practice (and in matches). It measures their fundamental skills based on standards established by the coaching staff. It provides a way in which the coaches can compare each player statistically and enable them to make decisions regarding playing time in matches. While many cauldrons compare stats such as passing (% perfect), hitting%, serving etc., some coaches also include winning % in small groups games/drills and 6 v 6 games/drills in practice. It is a system based very much on the principles that Billy Bean spoke of, in the book "Money Ball" by Michael Lewis. Additionally Anson Dorrance (you know the guy who has won more NCAA Championships than anyone else -UNC women's soccer) wrote extensively about it in his books "Training Soccer Champions" and "Vision Of A Champion". Read either of those books to really understand it. The irony of the National Championship came down to two vastly different idealogies that came into direct conflict with each other. In Nebraska you have a Toshi like philosophy. Cook utilizes coach centered methods of teaching skills. Skills are isolated in a very blocked format and done over and over. An example of this would be coaches hitting ball after ball at their athletes. Also as Toshi taught, Nebraska used a significant amount of up-down (tanden) passing technique. Did you see how effective it was for Pavan in the semi-final and final? NE percent perfect passing in the semi-final was 48%. The U.S. women were the second worst passing team in the Olympics using the same technique. In Washington you have McGown philosophy. They utilze player centered drills that involve playing game situations which better simulates the actual conditions of the game. Motor learning scientists have proven from years of research that this method leads to faster transfer and therefore should be a considered a superior method for training athletes. Additionally Washington uses a very simple approach to passing create a platform and angle the ball to target (you know physics and geometry). UW's percent perfect passing in the semi final was around 60%. Every top 5 men's team in the Olympics uses this technique. This match was an outstanding clash of two very different philosophies when it comes to training. Both teams are very well coached (based on their individual philosophies) and have outstanding athletes, though I think most people would agree that Nebraska was the more physical team. Many people have debated the virtues of both philosophies (Toshi vs. McGown) over the last several months. Clearly John Cook subscribes to a Toshi mentality when it comes to training. McLaughlin has cited the strong influence of Carl McGown since his days at USC. I think what is most interesting about this championship is that on paper most people would not have given Washington much of a chance over a more powerful, physical and athletic team such as Nebraska. However the superior training methods, fundamental techniques and offensive and defensive systems of UW made this a very one sided affair. I doubt it, but maybe now people will finally start to fall off the Toshi bandwagon once and for all. Perhaps coaches will realize that McGown is the true master in the world of volleyball. The domination of a physcially smaller team over a physcially larger one is just part of the reason for this. This match came down to training, technique and systems (as it ussaully does). In this case Nebraska never had a chance. Billy Bean and Carl McGown would also agree that a sample size of 1 is not statistically significant. |
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Post by coahc21 on Apr 23, 2019 20:24:47 GMT -5
I really like the cauldron used in portions of practice or portions of the week...the reason I use it only sparingly is to encourage risk taking and mistake making in practice
The cauldron teaches competitiveness which is also important, so there is value there for sure. However, if athletes are always worried about getting scored and evaluated, they are less likely to stretch their comfort zones in efforts to improve their skill base.
In my opinion, great tool, use is doses.
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Post by kingofcrank on Apr 24, 2019 14:08:11 GMT -5
I really like the cauldron used in portions of practice or portions of the week...the reason I use it only sparingly is to encourage risk taking and mistake making in practice The cauldron teaches competitiveness which is also important, so there is value there for sure. However, if athletes are always worried about getting scored and evaluated, they are less likely to stretch their comfort zones in efforts to improve their skill base. In my opinion, great tool, use is doses. I am thinking that it will be something we will use in one or two drills during every practice. |
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Post by kingofcrank on Apr 24, 2019 14:09:19 GMT -5
I have used a cauldron for about 15 years with both HS and college teams. I've done this several different ways but here is what I do now: 1. Keep score of all 6v6 games in practice (typically the last 40-60 min of every practice). In the cauldron, a player's score is the ratio of how many points her team scored and how many points were scored in the game, so for a 25-15 game, a player's score would be 25/40 or 15/40. (That allows for even comparisons if a player misses a practice or has to sit out a drill - she doesn't score the points but she also doesn't have the addition to the denominator. I also stat all passes, serves, and hitting attempts in competitive activities. We have other activities that are no supposed to be competitive and where learning is the #1 goal. We're not going to stat hitting for a player learning a new shot in a blocked drill, for example. We also won't stat unrealistic things like hitting against no block in a triples game. 2. For scores, just take a picture of the whiteboard with team scores after practice. For passing and hitting, we stat that from video the next morning. For serving, a manager or coach will write a result for each serve on a whiteboard live. 3. All players are compared to the others at their own position. Thank you for your information! This has definitely given me more insight into using this during our practices come fall! |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2019 16:06:49 GMT -5
I played on a DI team just recently and we used the cauldron for practice.
As soon as we started doing it, we started winning championships and haven't moved from the top of the conference since.
Just some warnings:
I believe that it takes a certain kind of athlete to do this. We played every day (6 on 6) 3 sets to 15 and 3 matches. We had weights twice a week on top of this. We had little to no injuries but the level of athlete we had was maybe top 10%. Every starting pin was touching 10'+ and front squatting 250+ (250 lbs being the absolute lower end).
If you do not have competitive athletes, it will not work. This is because the most important people are the pushers (players who rank in the middle). Sure, the most pressure is on the top players because they are more concerned with not falling out of the leads week to week but if the people who are not in the top often, or never, do not push those at the top, the leaders are never challenged and hence never get better. We have the #7,#8, and #9 ranking on the leader board as the most competitive players on the team. Even though they were not always leading, we don't win championships without them because those at the top of the leader board never have to push. Sometimes, the ones at the bottom become complacent and don't try to push in tournaments anymore (eventually, you cut those players because they don't make anyone better).
You need to have players who know how to compartmentalize. When you're in constant competition with your own teammates, the dynamic of the team changes. We, fortunately, were able to be best buds off the court but come for blood as soon as we stepped in the gym. It's rare that you can curse and teammate and then go to dinner right after practice. Winning helps but when the rankings get released at the end of the practice week and you see someone has made it into the starting lineup because their average is one thousandth of a point greater than yours, it's hard to come back the next week and push again that hard. The mentally strong will survive and the others eventually quit or are removed.
A major con is that you end up letting the players just play and your coaching suffers because if you help a certain player (give them hints on how to win and play better), then other players will see it as bias and you trying to help another player into the lineup. Seems petty but it definitely happened. I think the cauldron helps you figure out who your best all-around players are--who can win with anyone. Does that necessarily mean that these are the players who should start every game, no. Sometimes it does though. I still think that it's important to drill and not just play, play, play everyday. Then again, playing volleyball makes you better at playing volleyball. I do think, however, that it was a disadvantage for us from a cerebral standpoint. Our volleyball IQ was not great in the sense that we could verbalize our thoughts on the actions we were taking. However, it was incredibly high given that we played so much, we know what to expect and we began to learn how to catalog players. We learned each other's habits and we caught on to tendencies faster. In a game, we were able to do this and adapt much quicker. We know how to read and anticipated based on a player's body position (what's possible? what does she do when she looks like this?).
It got to a point where we played so much,were so competitive, and were playing 9 sets a day, that we it came time to play an official match, it was truly a break for us. The biggest pro to this was that because we were so competitive with one another, it prepared us for the conference match-ups and a lot of the pressure was taken off of us.
My biggest concern would be making sure that you have athletes that can withstand that level of play. We never regulated how many jumps or swings we got per week. We just played, played, played. It makes for a fun practice because you get to compete in true game situations and not bore yourself to death drilling every day. As a coach now, I worry about making sure that we monitor athletes for injury-prevention. We were fortunate enough to have an excellent strength coach when I played. I was front squatting 300+ my freshman year. I didn't have to worry about not being strong enough to withstand the practices week to week. However, I can imagine that will not be the case for many teams, and it hasn't been from ones that I've coached since then.
This is predominately just my take on a superficial level. It has little to do with the actually style of tournaments we played and more just of the realities of what I experienced when I played through it. I have participated in other types of player cauldrons too but none that were nearly as competitive or physically demanding.
Hope this helps (if even in some small way).
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Post by hammer on Apr 24, 2019 16:42:39 GMT -5
I played on a DI team just recently and we used the cauldron for practice. As soon as we started doing it, we started winning championships and haven't moved from the top of the conference since. Just some warnings: I believe that it takes a certain kind of athlete to do this. We played every day (6 on 6) 3 sets to 15 and 3 matches. We had weights twice a week on top of this. We had little to no injuries but the level of athlete we had was maybe top 10%. Every starting pin was touching 10'+ and front squatting 250+ (250 lbs being the absolute lower end). If you do not have competitive athletes, it will not work. This is because the most important people are the pushers (players who rank in the middle). Sure, the most pressure is on the top players because they are more concerned with not falling out of the leads week to week but if the people who are not in the top often, or never, do not push those at the top, the leaders are never challenged and hence never get better. We have the #7,#8, and #9 ranking on the leader board as the most competitive players on the team. Even though they were not always leading, we don't win championships without them because those at the top of the leader board never have to push. Sometimes, the ones at the bottom become complacent and don't try to push in tournaments anymore (eventually, you cut those players because they don't make anyone better). You need to have players who know how to compartmentalize. When you're in constant competition with your own teammates, the dynamic of the team changes. We, fortunately, were able to be best buds off the court but come for blood as soon as we stepped in the gym. It's rare that you can curse and teammate and then go to dinner right after practice. Winning helps but when the rankings get released at the end of the practice week and you see someone has made it into the starting lineup because their average is one thousandth of a point greater than yours, it's hard to come back the next week and push again that hard. The mentally strong will survive and the others eventually quit or are removed. A major con is that you end up letting the players just play and your coaching suffers because if you help a certain player (give them hints on how to win and play better), then other players will see it as bias and you trying to help another player into the lineup. Seems petty but it definitely happened. I think the cauldron helps you figure out who your best all-around players are--who can win with anyone. Does that necessarily mean that these are the players who should start every game, no. Sometimes it does though. I still think that it's important to drill and not just play, play, play everyday. Then again, playing volleyball makes you better at playing volleyball. I do think, however, that it was a disadvantage for us from a cerebral standpoint. Our volleyball IQ was not great in the sense that we could verbalize our thoughts on the actions we were taking. However, it was incredibly high given that we played so much, we know what to expect and we began to learn how to catalog players. We learned each other's habits and we caught on to tendencies faster. In a game, we were able to do this and adapt much quicker. We know how to read and anticipated based on a player's body position (what's possible? what does she do when she looks like this?). It got to a point where we played so much,were so competitive, and were playing 9 sets a day, that we it came time to play an official match, it was truly a break for us. The biggest pro to this was that because we were so competitive with one another, it prepared us for the conference match-ups and a lot of the pressure was taken off of us. My biggest concern would be making sure that you have athletes that can withstand that level of play. We never regulated how many jumps or swings we got per week. We just played, played, played. It makes for a fun practice because you get to compete in true game situations and not bore yourself to death drilling every day. As a coach now, I worry about making sure that we monitor athletes for injury-prevention. We were fortunate enough to have an excellent strength coach when I played. I was front squatting 300+ my freshman year. I didn't have to worry about not being strong enough to withstand the practices week to week. However, I can imagine that will not be the case for many teams, and it hasn't been from ones that I've coached since then. This is predominately just my take on a superficial level. It has little to do with the actually style of tournaments we played and more just of the realities of what I experienced when I played through it. I have participated in other types of player cauldrons too but none that were nearly as competitive or physically demanding. Hope this helps (if even in some small way). Are we talking NCAA Championships or Conference Championships? If NCAA, you must have been on either Nebraska or Stanford, or perhaps Penn State a few years back. |
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Post by Fight On! on Apr 24, 2019 16:47:42 GMT -5
My friend tried to institute one at a D3 school and the players and parents whined like babies.
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Post by hammer on Apr 24, 2019 17:13:15 GMT -5
My friend tried to institute one at a D3 school and the players and parents whined like babies. They obviously weren't there to win championships. At any level there will be a few teams with a great winning tradition who might be "gung ho" enough to try implementing the cauldron, but most won't for the reasons you mentioned. |
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 25, 2019 0:38:13 GMT -5
My friend tried to institute one at a D3 school and the players and parents whined like babies. They obviously weren't there to win championships. At any level there will be a few teams with a great winning tradition who might be "gung ho" enough to try implementing the cauldron, but most won't for the reasons you mentioned. I suspect it works better if you tell the players you are going to do it while you are recruiting them. You'll get a team full of players who know what to expect. But starting with an already-existing team of players who expect something different may not work as well. |
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 25, 2019 0:42:48 GMT -5
A major con is that you end up letting the players just play and your coaching suffers because if you help a certain player (give them hints on how to win and play better), then other players will see it as bias and you trying to help another player into the lineup. Seems petty but it definitely happened. This is interesting. Again, it seems like it could be mitigated with good communication up front: "I will be trying to help all of you. This might mean I help someone get better enough to move past you. This is not favoritism; this is me doing my job. To be successful in the cauldron means both getting better through competition and also getting better through being receptive to coaching input." |
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