GAtwood
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Re:The "Swish" shooting method of Tom Nordland - 2008/03/28 01:22
I'm near the Bay Area and took a group of kids down to one of his clinics. I believe I commented about Nordland's "Swish" clinic in this web site, but I couldn't find it.
I came home with the "Swish 1" DVD as part of the class hand out. I haven't seen "Swish 2." Do you have any specific questions, or just over all impression?
Nordland was a great shooter. I believe he still holds some Minnesota State HS records, and he can still amaze you with his ability. From the f/t line he can consistently hit any part of the rim you call out (left, right, front, back), or dead center no rim. He will easily make 10 in a row, or at least 9 out of 10 with either hand from the f/t line. He will knock em down over and over while blind folded.
I like how he starts his whole approach to shooting from the ground up. "Up Force" from the legs is the basis of everything he teaches. But I think he misses a good opportunity to talk about balance.
He states openly that he's not overly concerened with typical things like feet being squared up a particular way, or insisting the elbow has to be pointed a particular direction. He was more concerned with allignemnt (eye, arm, hand, front leg) just before and through the release.
He kept saying shooting is not complicated, and coaches over complicate it. While that may be true, during a 4 hour clinic, I bet he spoke for close to 3-1/2 hours over speakers using a head set microphone. The effect on the kids was predictable- they stopped listening, they said he talked too much, that he made it seem overly complicated.
Maybe if I happened to be trained and immersed in Nordland's system I could have come home and gotten better results by reinforcing what he teaches. It's not easy to quantify the results, but nobody came home from that clinic shooting noticably better, though there certainlty was some improvement in form with a few kids; and that has probably had a net (no pun intended) effect
Personally I think his video has value to a coach in learning more about teaching shooting. If you were working on developing form with young kids who didn't have form established yet, it really would be an excellent model to use. At the clinic I went to there were a lot of very young beginners. The transition from a two handed line drive "throw," to a nice soft arcing one handed shot was very impressive.
I heard former Puget Sound University head coach Eric Bridgeland give a talk on helping players to shoot better. At the time he was Vance Wallbergs assistant during Walbergs brief tenure at Pepperdine. Bridgeland made a statement that has stuck with me and has helped me more than anything else to notice what shooters are doing, and to help them make subtle adjustments. He said that over the years he has been to many, many, shooting clinics and has heard all the theories and methods, but he's come to the conclusion that there are really two primary things that are most important about accurate perimeter shooting- balance and follow through.
Sounds over simplistic but remember he's talking about shooters who have already taken many thousands of shots a particular way. It may be possible to make subtle changes which help them to shoot a little better, but it's highly unlikely an experieced player is going to make drastic whole sale changes in their mechanics to conform to the "Swish" meathod, or any other meathod.
I'm saying the value of Nordland's material may be best suited to teaching unskilled players. Though it's always very likely that a coach watching the video could learn a thing or two. It's easyer to teach beginners, right? They have no skills, they are like sponges, hungry to absorb lessons.
After hearing Bridgeland's talk, I went home and really started looking closely at how our shooters distribute their weight on their feet, particularly as they get the ball to the shot pocket position, and then transition into generating the up force. It's amazing how common it is for players to place most of their weight on one leg, sometimes it's obvious and sometimes you can barely see it; or to get their weight up on their toes way too early and be leaning or almost falling forward as they start to generate the up force (jump). These subtle things cause misses by good shooters. By studying balance from the feet up, I was eventually able to start noticing a lot of things I'd missed before.
For me, the significance of "follow through" has been more elusive and less helpful. I suspect it's because of my own relative lack of experience. But recently I've begun to feel like I better understand what Bridgeland was getting at when he named it as one of the two most important aspects of shooting. When you watch shooters shoot the ball, the classic perfect follow through is really only achieved if the mechanics before it are good.
My understanding is that Bridgeland gave two ways to study a shooter and diagnose problems. From the point of looking forward from a balanced stance where the shooters weight is evenly distributed on both feet and micro seconds before commiting to the shot and balance transitioning forward. And backwards from the point of a held follow through. These are essentially a starting and ending point and they have to be correct for the mechanics in between to be correct.
But you never know. In another year or two I might see Bridgeland's comments on follow through completely differently.
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