The Scrimmage Mentality - May 21, 2009 - 8:56pm
It is astounding to me that so many players have a skewed perception of what practice means in gaming. I have played sports all my life and football near the highest possible levels of competition. Never before have I seen such a horrific understanding of the simple fundamentals of practice. As a team, I am quite sure AmazYn is among a scarce number of teams/players that understand the purpose and concept of practice and "scrims." Time and time again I see players that leave teams after one bad night of scrims or it is their first day of practice and nothing is going in their favor so the team disbands.
First and foremost everyone get over the egos! Never, ever should the mentality in a "scrimmage" be about winning the scrim - it's a SCRIM! The sooner that one, simple fact is grasped the better teams will feel about their respective situations in the long run. Second, leave room for error in scrimmages. There is no place for screaming and arguing with teammates in practice-type scenarios. As the captain, I know my teammates well enough to distinguish what to say in order to motivate them in the correct mindset to play effectively. Trying to argue or "yell" (in a negative sense) is typically not the action that promotes positive results.
The last point I want to stress is that developing strategies for any game takes time and repetition. Expecting to walk all over a team after discussing a new strategy is unrealistic. Video helps quite a bit in further developing strategies based on what you have seen in scrimmages, but expecting day-one domination is farfetched.
In a typical day of practice I set the following objectives as the captain:
- 30 min - 1 hr of shot warm ups
- 5-10 minutes of discussing what maps we want to work on for the day
- Discussing any possible new strategies for a certain map
- Discussing what specific (if necessary) teams we would like to scrim
- Run "X" strategy on "Y" map a set number of times (typically 4-5)
We typically have a day out of the week (Sundays) where we will review strategies by walking through each map and will not scrim a single team. It helps reiterate positions on a map and gives a visual picture of where each of my teammates are located on the map. We do not stat track, point fingers, brag about scores, or try to "win."
Our goal is simple and the fact of the matter is we respect and understand the concept of practice and that is exactly what we do...practice! We could "lose" every map in a scrimmage as long as I feel like what we're doing is making us better as a team. Hopefully some of that rubs off on more of these teams; I am tired of the false perception.
If at all you read this and would like to scrim please read the following:
1. Have a real team (3/4 is acceptable if you are trying someone out).
2. Be ready to play as soon as my team enters the lobby.
3. Do not have long breaks between each map.
4. Have time allotted to complete at least 4 of 6 maps in a cycle.
5. Have the correct settings.
I try to be as patient as possible, but we will quickly find another scrimmage if a team or players are not adhering to these general guidelines.
there onto something there... kinda reminds me of all the pracs we used to have, we started out good but always ended up just playing against each other, forgetting the purpose of the prac session and just going head to head....... lol
we were and still are such n00bs.....
