My brother, Jason Dennis, has developed a powerful program that has the potential to change a player’s season, and even their life….it’s called Walk the Fire. It’s Mind Body Mastery Training camps on the Big Island of Hawaii for high school competitive athletes. Jason was a professional baseball player for the Anaheim Angels organization, a [...]

Sometimes young coaches feel they have to correct every little thing on the practice field, and all too often they take this approach at games too. “Be slow to correct and quick to commend.” – John Wooden I’ve seen coaches get frustrated with an 8 year old player that hit the ball with a karate [...]

Here is a little advice from an all-time great on the best training tool out there: Dennis Bergkamp, the great Dutch striker said that when he was a young player at Ajax, they had little three foot high walls. He would knock the ball against it for hours. Every time he hit the ball, he [...]

Imagine a 4 year old soccer player; he’s watched his sisters play soccer since he was born. His dad coaches all year long and he’s been dribbling and kicking a ball from the time he could walk. It’s his first organized game with his “team” and coach. He’s fired up. The grandparents have come, even [...]

In order to create a positive learning environment on the soccer field, it is imperative that you take into consideration where your players are Developmentally (psychomotor, psychosocial and cognitive stages). Expecting too much from your 8 year old because they don’t understand the “theory of attacking” or the logic behind the “covering defender” only leads [...]

You can’t identify a fantastic coach only by their resume (aka CV). Results are everything, but not the results you might think. Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. 1. Develop every player. Sure, you can put your primary focus on winning games, winning tournaments and winning the “cup” —but do that and [...]

This past season I had put together a team of U-8 players comprised of approximately 50% girls and 50% boys to play in a co-ed indoor league at the Bladium in Alameda. The boys on the team were 6 years of age and the girls 7 years of age. I had one girl that was [...]

I posted the “gameplan” below before the game. Let’s compare the strategy to the actual stats and see how well each succeeded (have to use my Barca commandments because we don’t know what Pep had). Posted on 12/9: Mourinho has come up with his ten commandments to beat Barca, but any list can’t beat the [...]

Remember the movie Monster’s Inc.? The Monsters generate their city’s power by scaring children, but in the end they find that children’s laughs provide 10x the power. Creativity is the same… it is powered by joy and passion. Scaring children as a means to get them to not make mistakes only kills the passion, enjoyment [...]

As a coach and a parent, I get constant feedback on what works with children when giving feedback to them for performance on the soccer field or their behavior at practices. Unfortunately, many coaches fail at their ability to properly motivate and balance their criticism. I’ve seen coaches who constantly criticize their players (U9s) to [...]