This week my group has been working on their first touch with an emphasis on receiving the ball in wide areas. The first touch should be taken in a way that gets the team playing forward. From my perspective, the objective was met on several occasions. Being a patient worker, I like to see progress achieved in a slow or speedy fashion and I feel we’re making it! Some of the kids want perfection from themselves and others but this has proven to be detrimental to the outcomes because the aim becomes blurred when we see the goal being the only target. I’m trying to remind everyone that some of us have to get to the goal with smaller or slower steps.
In trying to find the words that would describe the challenge I had with my group today, I found an old story that really illustrates what I believe the students should try to put into practise as team players in helping one another achieve the real aim of each session.
We all know the old story of the rabbit and the tortoise. Tortoise and Rabbit had an argument about who was better. They decided to settle the argument with a race. Rabbit lost, due to over confidence.
That was the old story. Now lets hear some newer and more interesting versions.
Rabbit was disappointed at losing the race. “I lost the race only because I was overconfident, careless and lax!” So Rabbit challenged Tortoise to another race and Tortoise accepted the challenge.
This time Rabbit went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. Rabbit won the race convincingly. The moral of the story – fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady, but the story doesn’t end there…
Tortoise challenged Rabbit to another race, but on a slightly different route of his choice. Rabbit was confident and agreed. Rabbit took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river. Rabbit sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime Tortoise slowly moved along, got into the river and swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race. The moral of the story – first identify your core competency and change the playing field to suit your competency. The story still hasn’t ended though…
Rabbit and Tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends. They decided to do the last race again, to run as a team this time!
This time Rabbit carried Tortoise until the river bank. Then Tortoise took over and swam across with Rabbit on his back. They reached the finishing line together.
The moral of the story – when we stop competing against a rival and instead compete against the situation, we perform far better. Working as a team will always beat individual performance.
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