spirit sports

Our precocious 5-8 year olds are tremendously active creatures. At this age group, anything physical in nature attracts their attention. You can try any sports and games for them, and they will take to it like fish to water. They just love sports. Now, that can become a problem when you start coaching them for peak performance in sports. When you start to introduce rules, practices, drills, conditioning, etc, resistance from them will come. But as a sports coach, you still need to have sports coaching success for them, despite their disdain for anything organized and conforming. Here is where some practical and effective coaching principles will help you succeed at inducing peak performance in sports in our young and dynamic kids and result in sports coaching success.
The first principle of sports coaching success for kids is to make your training competition based. When you start your session create teams right from the start. You might need to do this properly by grouping friends together. If anything, kids at this age love their pals and will be most unwilling to part with their friends. Creating team will set the stage for the rest of the session for sports coaching success. With these teams formed, centre your training on competition based activities. Devise a point system and let your groups know that they will have to outwit each other to earn points for their team. Eventually, there will be a winner and rewards for the winning members. Kids by nature love to win. By creating this form of competition within a training session, we are basically riding on their instinct to win to caused them to perform their best for peak performance in sports. Once they give their best in competition, sports coaching success will be easy. Sports coaching success will be further enhance if we adopt other principles as well.
To achieve sports coaching success for kids, your training will also have to adopt a game-based approach. This basically means that instead of planning drills for them, you will have to turn your drills into games for them to play. As I have mentioned earlier, kids love all form of game. When you have games with goals instead of activities that resemble drills, sports coaching success will be easier for you as a coach. The challenge here is to link all your games into a coherent training session that is smooth and exciting for the kids. You can ensure that sports coach success for kids happens with competitive games as well as infusing other principle into practice.
The third principle that is effective for sports coaching success is to have a reward system to anchor your training session. Make the rewards known right from the start, and regularly remind your charges of these during training. Being kids, they will find this every appealing and give their best for their respective teams at practice. Sometimes having rewards at various intervals of training is useful, but of course this entails more planning and logistical support. One other important aspect of reward that will enhance sports coaching for success in kids is to ensure that you deliver what you promise. Our kids will hold us to our promises of rewards very seriously. If we do not give a promised reward at the end, they will be very disappointed and will never trust you again.
As we motivate our kids with competition, games and rewards for sports coaching success, we must also provide continuity in our training programme by ensuring that we inspire and motivate them for future training session as well. At the end of the training session, we must link it to the next session to provide our kids with something to look forward to. The worse form of programme is to do something that is totally different from what has been done in the previous session. For example, if we have just completed basic dribbling skills today, a good link will be to provide a lead up into dribbling and passing. The next session must be made exciting as well for sports coaching success and peak performance in sports. For example, letting kids know that at the start of the next session, there will be a dribbling test whereby scores will be added on to the team's scores. This will mean that children are encouraged to practice at home so that when they return the next time, their skills would have improved to contribute significantly to the next game. This form of motivation and lead up to the next session is important for sports coaching success.
Sports coaching success for kids are a tall order for all coaches to achieve. The fact that our kids respond in very peculiar ways requires us really to think of strategies to make our training competitive, game-based, reward driven and smooth flowing, but most of all fun. After all, kids growing up need to have fun to learn. The key for a coach to have sports coaching success is to maintain the training for kids to be as fun as possible. Do not worry about peak performance in sports. It will follow when they have fun.

Jimmy Tong has been a Physical Educator for 13 Years in Singapore, with degree in sports science and physical education from Loughborough University in UK. He has extensive coaching experience in soccer, floorball and rugby teams in Singapore Schools.He is currently a sports development officer in Singapore schools as well as an active contributor of sports training articles to improve sports performance in athletes. He hopes to enable people's success to come by inspiring them with true sports motivational and inspirational stories.
For more information on achieving Peak Performance in Sports, visit the following site at [http://inspiringsportsmotivations.com]

Baseball has a long tradition of excellence. The game of baseball was begun by Abner Doubleday in 1939, when he outlined a diamond-shaped field in the dirt and designated bases, a pitcher and a catcher. Doubleday went on to become a general in the Civil War. Baseball went on to become the great American pastime. We spend summer at the baseball stadium, cheering on their favorite teams. Or we watch on television. Baseball stars became our childhood heroes. As we grew up, they were our role models. 

The history of baseball is an interesting story in itself. Early teams all wore the same color uniforms and distinguished themselves by their stocking color. In the late 1880s, catchers wore a wire face guard modeled after a fencer's mask. They used handmade leather balls called "lemon peel" balls because of the stitching pattern. Nowadays the baseball equipment is far improved from what it once was. 

We remember hearing about the famous old-time pitchers, like Walter "Big Train" Johnson, Leroy "Satchel" Paige, and Dizzy Dean, who left their mark on the game. Other players made baseball history in their time. Cy Young's perfect game in 1904. Lou Brock's 938 lifetime stolen bases. One of the greatest catchers ever, Mickey Cochrane. Honus Wagner, possibly the greatest shortstop in baseball history. They set the benchmarks for success in baseball. 

Denton Young's major league career stretched from 1890 to 1911, primarily with Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox. He was the only pitcher in the first 100 years of baseball to win 500 games and, with 511 career wins, held the record for the most wins in major league history. Among his victories were 3 no-hit shutouts. On May 5, 1904 he pitched a perfect game, his golden moment in baseball. His record for 7,355 career innings, the most pitched in the Major Leagues, still stands. 

The Negro League gave African American players a change to play baseball when the major leagues were segregated. By 1900, some two hundred independent all-black teams existed around the country. James "Cool Papa" Bell, maybe the fastest man in baseball, could circle the bases in twelve seconds flat. During his career, he stole approximately 170 bases and had numerous .400 seasons. Joshua (Josh) Gibson was said to be the greatest slugger in Negro Baseball Leagues. A power-hitting catcher from 1930 to 1946, he hit almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball and was known as the "black Babe Ruth." Four times he was the Negro National League Batting Champion, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

Babe Ruth played Major League baseball from 1914 to 1935, mostly in the American League for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. In the history of baseball, he is probably the number one player of all time. His lifetime record of 714 home runs lasted for 39 years, until Hank Aaron broke it in 1974. 

We remember many players who made legends.

One of the rarest baseball cards in existence is that of Honus Wagner, who helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win pennants in 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1909. Wagner did not want children to have to buy tobacco products to get his card, so his card with withdrawn from the product. At auction in 2007, a Wagner card sold for $2.35 million.

Henry Louis (Hank) Aaron is one of the best players ever to play baseball. His record includes over 3,000 hits and a lifetime batting average of over .300. Early in his baseball career Aaron played with the Indianapolis Clowns baseball team in the Negro American League. Starting in 1954, he played 21 seasons in the National League with the Milwaukee Braves and the Atlanta Braves, and finally two years with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League. Nicknamed "Hammer" and "Hammering Hank," Aaron was a strong and consistent hitter. His home runs were hit so low and hard that shortstops tried to jump for them. The highlight of his career was when he made history, April 8, 1974, by hitting his 715th homer, which broke Babe Ruth's "unbeatable" record. In his career Aaron hit 755 home runs, setting the Major League Baseball record for most career home runs. His record held for 33 years until Barry Bonds came along August 7, 2007. Aaron holds many other baseball hitting records that still stand, including most career runs batted in, most career extra base hits, and so on. He played in every All Star game from 1955 through 1975. Aaron is the last Negro league baseball player to play in the major leagues. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 as soon as he became eligible. In his honor, Major League Baseball created the Hank Aaron Award, an annual award given to the most effective hitters in each league.

Lou Gehrig, "The Iron Horse" first baseman for the Yankees baseball team, played a record 2,130 consecutive games. When he retired in 1939 he had a lifetime batting average of .340. He suffered from a fatal neuromuscular disease that is often called Lou Gehrig's disease. Today he is remembered for his goodbye speech, "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans."

Nothing personal … really.

That's the way Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell took the recent critique of his penalty-killing skills, an edgy assessment by his coach, Darryl Sutter.

Sutter also included stay-at-home defenseman Matt Greene in his pointed remarks about the Kings' penalty-killing woes. The charm of most hockey players — at least veterans — is that they are the first to take responsibility, not umbrage.

"That's Darryl. Darryl being Darryl," said Mitchell, looking amused after Wednesday's practice. "You guys know that by now. With all honesty … me and Greener, we take a lot of pride in the penalty kill.

"That's my label as a player … a really good penalty killer around the league. If the penalty kill doesn't do well, of course, you take that personally."

Now the penalty-killing unit could be without Greene, who missed practice Wednesday. He is "banged up," according to Sutter, and it would be a surprise if he played against Buffalo on Thursday night. "It's like Mystery Valley for me," Sutter said. "It goes from legs to limbs to head."

Mystery Valley sounds like a new NHL definition of an injury, a far more interesting label than lower-body injury. And the Kings are dealing with a handful. Jeff Carter (foot) is on injured reserve, and Sutter is hopeful he could return during the team's Eastern trip next week. Center Jarret Stoll has been out since suffering an upper-body injury Saturday against Nashville.

Meanwhile, the penalty-killing unit continues to ail. Sutter was critical of Greene and Mitchell following the loss to Nashville, and the Kings have tumbled to 22nd in the league in penalty-killing.

"I still believe our penalty kill should be top five in the league," Mitchell said. "We've got great penalty killers up front when we're all healthy, great penalty killers on the back end, a world-class goaltender."

They slipped against the Calgary Flames on Oct. 21, allowing three power-play goals, and that has had a lingering effect.

"After that, I don't think we played with the swagger out on the penalty kill that maybe we should have," Mitchell said. "Sometimes you start thinking about it. Sometimes you do stuff, a little too much.

"Sometimes, a little less is more in this game. I'm not saying less intensity, I'm just saying less running around, less trying to do too much.

"…Because our power play has been really good here the last two, three, four years. Mostly it's teams coming in here and worrying about how we penalty kill, instead of us worrying about how they play their power play."

MMA Fighting, also called Mixed Martial Arts, is a combat sport with full contact and no holds barred. MMA competitions bring together two fighters of different backgrounds for freestyle fighting with only a few rules. Fighters try to defeat their opponent by submission or by knock out. Fighters can use any of the martial arts and other tactics to defeat an opponent. The rules allow the use of striking and grappling techniques while standing or on the ground. Basic fighting tactics are punching, kicking and grabbing each other in a clinch. 

The rules for MMA fighting may vary between events. Unlike boxing and wrestling, Mixed Martial Arts has no international sanctioning body. The people who organize a MMA fight can decide the rules for that fight. 

The techniques utilized in MMA Fighting & Mixed Martial Arts competition are usually striking actions or grappling actions, executed while the fighters are standing up or on the ground. Striking techniques include kicks, kneeing and punches. Grappling techniques are clinch holds, pinning holds, submission holds, sweeps, takedowns and throws. Generally, MMA bans biting, strikes to the groin, eye-gouging, fish-hooking and small-joint manipulation. Some fights may allow elbow strikes, headbutts and spinal locks. 

MMA fighters learn many traditional fight disciplines. For stand-up fighting, fighters need skills in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, and forms of full-contact karate. They practice footwork, elbowing, kicking, kneeing and punching. For fighting in the clinch, fighters study Freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, Sambo and Judo. They practice clinching, takedowns and throws. 

For MMA ground fighting, fighters learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, shoot wrestling, catch wrestling, Judo and Sambo. This training improves ground control, submission holds and defense. To cover the various disciplines, Mixed Martial Arts fighters work with a fight team and multiple coaches who are specialists.

• Sprawl-and-brawl is a popular stand-up MMA fighting tactic that consists of effective stand-up striking, and avoiding ground fighting, by using sprawls to defend against takedowns.
• Clinch fighting and dirty boxing use a clinch hold to keep the opponent close, while also attempting takedowns and striking the opponent using knees, stomps, elbows, and punches. Wrestlers may rely on clinch fighting against a stand-up fighter.
• Ground-and-pound is a popular MMA tactic for fighting on the ground. It consists of taking an opponent to the ground using a takedown or throw, obtaining a dominant top position, and then striking the opponent. Eventually the opponent may submit or be knocked out.
• Submission grappling is also a ground fighting tactic. An opponent is brought to the ground using a takedown or throw and then a submission hold is applied, forcing the opponent to yield the match.
• Lay-and-pray is a static strategy used when a fighter can control the opponent on the ground, but is unable to mount an effective offense. The fighter simply maintains control of the opponent, "praying" for a victory by the judge’s decision. The “lay and pray” tactic may be penalized if it looks like the fighter is stalling.

In 2000, the UFC was purchased by Zuffa Entertainment. After the sale, the UFC was licensed in Nevada, and owners were able to build up the pay-per-view audiences on cable TV. Meanwhile in Japan, continued interest in the sport resulted in the creation in 1997 of the PRIDE Fighting Championships. PRIDE was later purchased by Zuffa LLC, the owners of the UFC. 

The United States Army recognized that Mixed Martial Arts was the most effective fighting technique for real unarmed combat situations. In 2005, the Army began its annual Army Combatives Championships. 

MMA fighting is a young sport, with young fans. The fights are an exciting mix of boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, kickboxing and more, all rolled into one. Although it is still thought of as a fringe sport, Mixed Martial Arts fighting is on its way to becoming mainstream. The sport continues to evolve as fighters master new techniques. MMA popularity is growing, as are the fight purses and bonuses and the multi-million dollar endorsement contracts.

• MMA Mixed Martial Arts fighter Royce Gracie was born into the family that developed Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. His brother Rorion Gracie began the UFC.
• With his Mohawk haircut, Chuck Liddell, “The Iceman,” is a well recognized star of MMA. He is a sprawl-and-brawl fighter who specializes in knocking out his opponents.
• Mixed Martial Arts fighting is an equal opportunity sport with many events for women. FighterGina Carano, daughter of the Dallas Cowboy football player Glen Carano, began by studying Muay Thai and then moved into MMA fighting.
• Fighter Chris Brennan, “The Westside Strangler,” relies on his background in Brazilian jiu-jitsu to keep him among the top fighters of Mixed Martial Arts fighting.
• In 2005, The Ultimate Fighter, a reality TV show, began its long successful run. It brought two teams of MMA fighters to compete on each episode. Teams were led by famous Mixed Martial Arts fighters Chuck Liddell and Randy “The Natural” Couture.

I hope life brings you much success.

I wish you a very happy day.