Attacking quickly after an ejection can be one of the best ways to score on a power play. Often the defense is not set up or is a little lazy and you can generate an easy goal or high percentage scoring opportunity in the first few seconds of the power play. The player who earned the ejection is often alone for a few seconds and must be ready to kick the ball out and get it back or simply be ready to catch and shoot the ball. Check out the video for a good drill to work on this.

http://youtu.be/eyughtYTHC4

Leg Drills.  The importance of leg strength and explosiveness cannot be ignored in water polo.  Various leg drills must be implemented for the player to have the necessary strength and movements to be successful in the sport.  Today we will focus on explosive movements and balance.

Before any of these drills make sure to get a proper warm up involving some swimming and easy legs.

1)   3x Vertical Breaststroke kick followed by a horizontal Breaststroke kick.  In this drill keep your hands out of the water at all times.  There is a temptation to drop your hands into the water to help your recovery.  Start in a vertical position with 3 strong kicks focusing on bringing your heels to your butt and getting a strong kick on each motion.  After the 3^rd kick tilt your pelvis forward and lean your body so that on the next kick you are propelled forward and finish in horizontal position with your butt and back on the surface of the water.  After gliding forward you need to recover back to a vertical position. This is the most challenging aspect of the drill. This is excellent for your back muscles and your balance in the water. Once you have recovered resume the 3 strong vertical kicks and continue throughout the lap.

2)   Horizontal to vertical jump to a steal.  Start with you body in a horizontal position on one side. Think of being in the middle of the pool and facing one referee.  Your body should be elongated and good sculling with your lower hand deeper in the water sculling hard and the other hand near the surface balancing your body.  Again you are not on your stomach or back but on your side.  Propel your body toward your feet using your hands to scull you backward.  Give one final push and swing your legs under your body while coiling your legs underneath your butt.  Draw your knees up high to the surface of the water and explode with a strong breaststroke kick out on a 45 degree angle in the direction your feet started.  You should think of yourself reaching out to make a steal.  This drill is very good for defense on the man down situation if you are playing one of the top positions.  This drill is great for balance and using an explosive movement to make a steal or tip a ball. 

Look for more drills next week!  Visit kap7.com for more information.

Passing Drills:

Passing is a great fundamental skill of water polo and cannot be underestimated when training or structuring your workouts if you are a coach.  When done correctly it provides tremendous leg conditioning as well as body balance and ball handling skills.

Both this drills can be done in groups of 3, or for a very hard passing drill of shorter duration in a group of 2.

1) For this first drill we will start with an explosive horizontal breaststroke kick (BSK) with ball followed by a vertical BSK and pass. 

Start with the ball in your dominant hand and make a strong horizontal BSK in any direction (to the right, left forward or backward). Immediately recover your balance drawing your legs under your body and draw your knees up as close to the surface as possible with the help of your sculling hand.  Execute a strong BSK and explode with maximum force out or the water and pass to your partner from the apex of your thrust.  It is important that both the horizontal and vertical BSK are done with maximum effort.

2) Each passer will execute 3 strong fakes maintaining a high profile with a strong eggbeater kick and sculling with off hand. The non-dominant shoulder should be clearly out of the water.  After the 3^rd fake the passer will use a strong BSK and explode out of the water to maximum height making a strong accurate pass at the apex of the jump.  This drill is excellent for staying on your legs while faking and can help you shoot up and over a field block.  It is especially useful for power play shots from the wing if a defender has lunged to block and is slowly sinking due to lack of proper balance which happens quite often.

Look for more drills next week!  Visit kap7.com for more information.

This is a great passing drill that gives the legs a very hard workout. We are working on going from a vertical position to horizontal and back to vertical. Each transition involves a strong breaststroke kick. The important aspects are to first lock up high upon receiving the pass, then to get horizontal and make a powerful breastroke kick in any direction and then recover to a vertical postion and give a maximum breastroke kick in the vertical postion. This should  be done in groups of 2 or 3. Check out the video to see a demonstration.

http://youtu.be/RwToeUNNxd4

This is a very useful passing drill as it integrates a very important aspect of water polo. Typically before making a pass it is important to lock down the defense and or goalkeeper and not "telegraph" the pass. Using a quick twitch movement is ideal in this drill as you will typically use this movement before making an entry pass into 2 meters. Check out the video and watch Wolf Wigo in the black for the best demonstration of the drill.

http://youtu.be/aCx6PRWIltU

Here are 3 great passing drills that you can incorporate into your workouts.

http://youtu.be/56Bf6Il-rTs

Improve your fundamentals of passing and over your hips while getting getting some great fitness and leg strength.

http://vimeo.com/60295764

Shooting Drills:

 I personally prefer shooting drills where you have either small numbers of athletes at a cage (3-5), or a drill where all the athletes (6+) are active in the drill at all times.  It is usually possible to structure your workouts into a format where you can achieve these kinds of desirable numbers at the cages though use of rotations incorporating other things such as swimming, passing or legs into the training no matter what your team size or number of goalkeepers available.    This intuitively makes sense however all the time I see teams engaged in shooting drills where large numbers of players are sitting idly waiting for their turn in a drill.  Therefore as a coach you need to be flexible and be prepared to adapt your workouts if you are coaching a large number of athletes or a small number. 

Here is one drill I like for when you have 6 players shooting at a cage with goalkeeper:

Have 4 players on offense and 2 on defense.  The four offensive players are at the outside shooting positions of a 6v5 offense.  The two defenders are guarding X1 and X3 (the position between the wing shooter and the post respectively).  The players work the ball around perimeter focusing on perfect fundamental passing positioning, locking the goalkeeper and setting each other up for a possible shot.  Therefore the offensive players get to work on perfecting 6v5 passing as well as shooting around a field block from the wings.

When the ball goes to a wing the corresponding defender blocks in normal defensive 5v6 positioning (depending on a given coach this may vary – I personally like to teach to block with close arm initially if necessary, and then switch to matching arms).  When the ball is up top at either position or on the opposite wing the defender is in a position to jump and make a field block.  A key aspect to note is that the defender is not playing in the cage with an arm up at all times but simply anticipating a shot and looking to jump in a make the block.  This makes for a good reaction drill while making the defender switch body position constantly, working on balance in the water, and field blocking as well which is very important.

 You can simply rotate through to get to play the different positions or if you have set offensive positions for the players they can shoot primarily from their position.  For example I would not have a lefthander play offense on the opposite side of the cage or play defense on his/her shooting side and they will rarely/never be in that position.

 This is a fun drill for the players and they get a lot of positive work out of it.

Look for more drills next week!  Visit kap7.com for more information

This is a great drill for attacking in towards the goal while faking with the ball. It is important to keep your body in a position to be able to shoot or pass at any point while making forward progress toward the goal. This is a great drill for attacking the zone. You can also try deviations of the drill such as attacking on an angle or combining sliding sideways as well as forward. Check out the video below for a demonstration.

http://youtu.be/A_MxdwcKPE8

Perfect your technique when catching a ball cross face, and looking to make a strong accurate shot quickly.

http://vimeo.com/58900534

Try these shots!

http://youtu.be/WLGdtzCt4A8

Take a look at this Video!

http://youtu.be/1H3x75fusLM

Work on these Fun Tricks and see how many you can master.

http://youtu.be/QVz-S-HSvbk

Great Fitness drill with a partner. This one will really wear you out! Watch the video to see what I mean!

http://youtu.be/oauJ_TAVe88

This is a great drill that is primarialy for the 2M defender but is also very useful for a center and also the perimeter players to work on passing and entry passes to 2M. You can vary this but typically you would have your defenders go against each other player one after the other in the drill for about 45 seconds to a minute. Once he/she has done this you bring in a new defender.

http://youtu.be/jV6i7KQZ2_A

This is a great fun wrist strengthening drill as well as a good hand/eye coordination drill as well. Check out the video!

http://youtu.be/toZCGdQaKv4

• Have Water polo kids work all aquatic related camps in your area
• Get to swim schools for lists to partner with
• Preschool/Elementary/JR. High/Church - ask to include registration information in newsletters or e-blasts
• Banners on street
• Incentivise new kids to join by referrals  - free or discounted membership depending on how many new athletes you can bring in.
• Low income/minority enrollment - get Brenda Villa/(Commerce Girls) down to your area with parent donation/boys and girls club/school, etc.
• Advertise in Spanish
• Anyone with a connection to schools or programs to promote water polo and be able to present what a good product we have in town
• Improve website to showcase all the high level coaches you have  - with video clips of kids having FUN playing water polo.
• Promote club at fairs/carnivals with a booth or handing out fliers
• Discounts or free membership to new sign ups
• Ability to pay by CC online
• Set up “layaway programs” so parents can spread out payments especially after holidays.
• Free/Discounted registration - Scholarship athletes. Paid for by fundraisers, sponsorships from corporations or local business or individuals.
• Improve Facebook page
• Post bright colored fliers at popular local businesses
• Promote program by giving a free T-shirt at sign up - free stuff +buzz about program + advertising. Encourage the kids to wear them to school often.
• OPEN TO OTHER IDEAS?

This is a great drill to imporve players fitness, quickness and ball skills. Check out the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4NGhh3MQoE

This is a great exercise you can do by yourself with a ball that focuses on transitioning from a horizontal to vertical position repeatedly along with a powerful leg kick to a slam down.

http://vimeo.com/61032273