Adapting Drills to Games

When I run practice, I often get the question, “How do you come up with these?”

The answer is that I’m inspired by something I see. Sometimes it’s something in elite competition that I want kids to develop. Sometimes it’s watching other coaches prescriptively teach a technique that I’d like to gamify to make more realistic.

Every Game Starts With a Picture

Every game I build starts with one question: what do I want my kids to copy?

Here’s an example. Watching SVN vs Swizdarski in OT, I thought, “THAT is chain wrestling.” I want kids to learn to counterattack like that.

From there I ask: what is it that I’m trying to get my athletes to replicate?

This game is about getting athletes to downblock attacks, find reattacks, and never let your opponent off the hook when you stop their shot.

Now we define the game so kids are forced to do what we want if they are going to win.

The game I built from it is called Ping-Pong. The visual of a ball going back and forth feels intuitive to what counterattacking is.

Before you build a game, you need to understand what win conditions, tasks, and rules are each for.

The Win Condition Is the Border

The win condition is the end result you’re looking for. It’s the border for where you want your athletes to compete.

A good rule of thumb: the win is any position that’s past the main challenge of the game. In Ping-Pong, the challenge is getting to legs off a stopped shot. Once you have a lock on the leg, you’re past it. The finish comes after, and it’s not what we’re working on.

For this game, we’re focused on getting to legs. So that’s where the game ends. We don’t want kids getting bogged down in finishing, because that’s not what we’re trying to change.

Get a lock on the leg, you win.

Most games need a separate win condition for defense too. Think about the closest position defense could get to that fundamentally changes where they are. An escape. A takedown. A lock on the offense’s leg. Make it something they’d want in a real match.

If defense has nothing to win, they won’t act realistically. They’ll grab an elbow, squeeze it, and do absolutely nothing.

Ping-Pong is the exception. Both wrestlers are doing the same thing. Either one can shoot, either one can counter. So there’s one win condition for both.

The Task Is Where You Put Your Prescriptive Hat On

The task is the best practice, the invariant (the thing that has to happen no matter who’s wrestling). Simple test: the best hint you could give to be successful, that’s the task.

If you were going to teach a kid how to counterattack, what are the important parts? Take those parts and trim them down to only the necessary ones.

What’s required in a downblock? Getting your head and hands in the way of their attack.

What’s required in a good reattack? Waiting for your opponent to rise up out of their missed shot so there’s an opening to attack.

I also really harp on creating an angle. This isn’t an invariant. You can reattack straight on. But in my experience, the straight-on reattack isn’t as effective.

So the tasks are:

• Offense: create an angle off your downblock

• Defense: use your head and hands to block your opponent’s attack

Rules Stop the Things You Don’t Want

Rules usually come from experience running the game. You see something you don’t like win the game, so you make a rule against it.

When I first ran this game, a kid “won” when he was locked and on his belly. Technically a win. Not good position. Counterattacks are about getting in deep.

So I added the rule that’s become my proxy for a good shot: chest to leg. You must have a lock on the leg and your chest connected to it. When your chest is on the leg, you’re almost always in great position. If they’re extended, you keep wrestling.

The other thing I want to discourage is kids mutually deciding the reattack isn’t there. They disconnect and nobody wins. I don’t want that. I want them engaged, continually counterattacking.

Because disconnecting isn’t a loss for either athlete, I use a rule I don’t normally use: if you disconnect and no one has won, both kids do 10 pushups. Not as a punishment. As a reminder that you broke the rule. Ten pushups is nothing for high schoolers, so it’s really just a nudge.

Don’t get married to your first version. At any moment, a game can pivot whole cloth. Both of those rules came from watching kids play. The belly-down win and the mutual disconnect weren’t problems I predicted. The game showed them to me, so I changed it.

Ping-Pong

Here’s the full game. If you want to run it Monday, steal it.

Starting position: Neutral

Win condition: Lock on the leg with chest to leg

Task:

• Offense: create an angle off your downblock

• Defense: use your head and hands to block your opponent’s attack

Rules:

• Either wrestler can shoot first

• If you disconnect without someone winning, both do 10 pushups

Build One Monday

Take a technique you love. Break it down to its component parts so kids can compete in that position. Draw clear boundaries for where you want them to compete and where you don’t.

Then ask what they must do to be successful. Those are the tasks.

Lay the tasks out clearly. Make sure kids know the difference between the task and the win condition.

Then watch the game. See what happens.

If something doesn’t work, change it. Add a rule. Change the starting position. Change the win condition. Whatever feels right.

Keep an open mind. Let it be messy and ugly. These kids don’t know how to do this yet. They’re figuring it out in real time.

As long as they’re pursuing the task, they’re doing the right thing.

Let it run.