Happy Fire Friday, 🔥

This week I wrapped up my first ever Shooters Shoot Clinic in Schaumburg, IL with the help and partnership of an amazing organization called Ignite Hoops. Ignite is a woman-owned and operated not-for-profit basketball organization based out of Chicago and WE LOVE TO SEE IT. 

The owner of Ignite, Jana Balis, has built this thing from the ground-up--starting with just one team, and GRINDING like a true entrepreneur. During our time together she shared stories of hardship and prejudice... and of overcoming. To be a woman in this space is to understand that there will be an imbalance in most gyms that we enter. That is a hard truth. The microaggressions, the being spoken for/over, the disparity in pay for the same or better work... it's all real. I live it every day. We're in a place of momentum in creating change, but there is still much to be done. 

Working alongside Jana... meeting the team full of happy people that trust and love her... it gave me this overwhelming feeling of pride and of responsibility as the next pioneer.

Jana--just know that I am so grateful to know you and have you as a mentor, and I'm STOKED to see where this partnership takes us!

Alright. Onward to the shooting stuff. :)

SO.

At this first annual Shooters Shoot event, I made a commitment to provide each and every athlete who attended with a personalized shot breakdown. The most common complaint I've heard about camps is that there wasn't enough individual feedback. I wanted to be different. 

So I did just that.

Outside of camp hours over those three days, I spent ~10 hours reviewing, taking notes, and then giving feedback to 55 athletes (and two of my basket coaches who are current college players that uploaded their video too). Here's an example of a Shot Breakdown in its entirety -- this one is about 7 minutes long and we cover a myriad of things, so feel free to grab your notebook and dive in. :)
 

But the MOST common mistake I saw in shooters -- literally 51/55 of them was this:

Letting the ball collapse into their chest, rather than coming up-and-through their shot.

I took a ~30 second clip from a few of the 51 shooters that I gave this feedback to, so anyone reading this can see it for themselves. Watch that video... and then read below.

I think the root causes of this problem come down to three main things:

1) NOT dipping the basketball when we shoot.

Above is a video of Steph dipping with rhythm on the catch.

About half the athletes I've worked with have been coached to keep the ball above their chest. But this makes it incredibly difficult to generate power and achieve a reliable shooting motion.

If we don't dip the ball for power, we move it backwards for power--which causes a push rather than a shot.

Dip on the catch.

2) Not being "stacked" in our posture.

We want to stack our shoulders over our hips, and our hips over our ankles. This gives us the best balance, posture, and strength to lift the ball up-and-through.


3) SHOOTING TOO FAR OUT OR ON A 10FT BASKET TOO YOUNG

This one is so hard. There are current "rankings" for the class of 2035 on Basketball Instagram. Lol I wish I was kidding. These are 6-year-olds making highlight reels of themselves heaving the ball to reach the rim. There's no current standard or regulation in youth basketball for using 8ft rims with our tiny tots... which has snowballed into poor form, power generation, and understanding of what shooting is supposed to *feel* like. 
 
If you feel like this or any other issues of mechanics may be sneaking into your or your athlete's shot, there are a couple of exercises you can do that I've built into the Boosta Training App that can help! 

If you haven't signed up yet, I've got the okay to give the first 30 days free to anyone who signs up through this link. 

This is one way I can serve athletes and get them high-level and individualized feedback from anywhere in the world. :) Let's grow together!

Next week, I'll actually remain in Schaumburg, IL (shocking, I know) to direct a PGC Playmaker College that will start this Monday, July 25th.

It's Day 70 on this journey and I have a feeling that it's just going to get more interesting. :)

Until next Friday.

Shooters Shoot,

BriAnna