BUILDING UP AC AT PHYLLIS COURT By Paul Franklin. paul@paulfranklin.com Phyllis Court Croquet Club AC Manager
October is a great 7me to start THE INITIAL PROGRAMME OF TEACHING
The typical programme of our 12‐week course “syllabus”, is shown below. It is broken into sec7ons of focus which form the pathway towards becoming an AC player. Each sec7on creates an addi7onal incremental set of skills or knowledge about the game – so that a'er each stage, the players can see a good outcome for the work done so far in the training, see the value in that and in con7nuing through the future stages. Obviously the 7me needed for each stage depends on the experience of and rate of progress of the players. STAGES Scope of each stage AC STROKES Learn the basic croquet strokes – rolls, drives, stop shots, take‐offs HOOP APPROACH Apply roquet/croquet strokes to approach hoops (from front, side and behind) MOVING ROUND THE LAWN Moving between hoops using croquet strokes FOUR‐BALL BREAK Learn the pa8ern of the four‐ball break and prac7se making breaks HOW TO CREATE A BREAK Learn how to set up a break from a random ball and clip set of posi7ons (to help with the “what on earth do I do next” problem when coming on in a game) RULES OF AC Learn the main rudiments of the laws of AC. For example, roquet earns croquet shot and con7nua7on, live and dead balls, yard‐line replacement, balls needing to stay on in croquet shot and the like HOW TO START A GAME Using a standard opening as a way to get going, ini7ally in level play USING BISQUES Principles of using bisques, and how to start a game with bisques As men7oned above, this approach means the players see a concrete and useful outcome from every session of the training, so they see the benefits of it and avoid the danger of them viewing it as an “apparently interminable” repe77on of prac7sing shots, but at the same 7me “not leaping straight to playing a game” without having done sufficient groundwork. This programme needs regular guidance by the coach, including revising or going back over previous stages whenever necessary. A'er this programme, there is the opportunity for the new players to begin playing games together, with lighter supervision, before then star7ng to mix with more experienced players. Con nued on page 17
As many readers will know, Phyllis Court Club has a large croquet club of over 250 members, within which is a medium‐sized AC group of approximately 20 players. While this is not a bad sized group, the group needs to renew and develop itself to enable its members to enjoy the game, and to develop their preferred form(s) of croquet. In this ar7cle I am going to describe the approach we have been taking currently. FOCUS AND RESOURCE IS NEEDED Developing the number of AC players needs a bit of focus and resourcing, par7cularly to enable “new to AC” players to get the hang of the game. AC is of course a game which can take a while to master – the rewards for mastering it are incredible, but it can take 7me. NEED FOR LONGISH INITIAL PROGRAMME WITH SUFFICIENT COACHING SUPPORT With AC taking a while to master – there are both new mallet skills to learn and of course the all‐important tac7cs of the game and a working knowledge of the rules. For new to AC players, our experience is that it is important for them to commit to what at first may seem like a longish programme of learning the basic skills of the game. It is also important to have sufficient coaching resource available to carry through this programme, and to have sufficient coaching “bandwidth” to help each player. The coach‐ athlete ra7o should be 1:4 or be8er for this programme. A 12‐week programme (see below) has worked quite well for ge9ng new players to the point where they can perform the strokes and understand the game sufficiently (both tac7cs The club of course welcomes exis7ng AC players, but developing new players from within is essen7al both to enhance the AC group and to provide new opportuni7es for the whole club. A programme for teaching new players how to play AC (who will usually have GC experience already) is vital, and is an important feature of the AC group ac7vity. Given the large popula7on of GC players in the club, we look first at those who have acquired good mallet skills and are looking for a different game alongside GC. SO WHAT IS THE PROCESS FOR GROWING THE AC PARTICIPATION? Firstly, iden7fy a (necessarily) small number of people with desire to learn the game together who already have sufficient mallet skills to make a good fist of learning the AC strokes. Plan their training in winter months wherever possible when there is • sufficient court 7me • sufficient availability of coaching resource • no pressure from tournaments, thereby enabling a concentra7on on the learning. and rules) to get started in playing. WHERE TO FIND NEW AC PLAYERS
www.croquetengland.org.uk | 16
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