Korfball Training

Tonight was the first korfball training of the year. As it effectively stops at Easter you haven't seen people for about 5 months so it is a bit of a reunion if the same old faces all looking slightly older. I have played for Norwich City for 7 years and it has been run and coached by the same people. The next group of people you notice are the new people who are usually hanging close to the person who has introduced them and as yet are lacking the confidence to pick up a ball and shoot at the hoop. The third group you become aware of are the newly promoted under 13's who are hanging around in a crowd of their peers. It takes slightly longer to think about who is not there, usually those that have gone to university or people who move away and kind of vanish.

While everyone arrives there is some shooting at the post as a kind of unofficial warm up and the action of shooting is so unusual and uses muscles that are not normally exercised that your arms get tired really quickly. After a bit of fitness work and some words of motivation we divide up to practice skills and Marian takes all the new people and tries to show them the basic. You realise that half will never come back and the other half will return regularly. After the skills work the groups are divided into teams and we play some games. If you are against a new person you try to take it easy so you don't scare them off and if you are against an under thirteen you try not to squash them. In a couple of weeks playing hard will be the norm. There is a small subsection of the under thirteens that have been the biggest/ strongest and fastest at their age group and are a bit cocky. Against those you play hard, intercept passes and block them from the post just to remind them this is the big league now and try to ensure that they play in the team and not the superstar as they used to be.

Good to see that the pattern was followed again this year.