Marking Progression

What is a mark?:

Before drilling the mechanics of marking a player needs to grasp the big picture of what marking is.  It doesn’t matter if she can do the mechanical pieces of marking if she has no guide on how or why to apply it.

1.      Take four cones and line them up in a square (maybe 20x20 yards – it doesn’t really matter)

2.      Have lines form at red cones

a.       Downfield for the top red cone is the blue cone

b.      Downfield for the bottom red cone is the green cone. 

3.      As a mark you are putting on a “forehand force”

4.      After marking at the top red cone

a.       Run to the green cone and cut to the blue cone

b.      The thrower at the bottom red cone will throw it to you in between the green and blue cones

I like this drill because the marker has a 90 degree window to cover (blue-red-green = 90 degrees).  If the thrower completes any pass at all to the receiver in this space she knows that she’s lost. 

A fun example of marking poorly explained is with Crayon.  Crayon is called Crayon because he “isn’t a marker”.  When we told crayon to force forehand we told him to “not let them throw backhands” so he’d cover the backhand, but let them throw whatever forehands they wanted to the breakside.  During one practice Crayon was guarding me and I just kept throwing uncontested inverts, Adam was livid and Crayon eventually got the picture.  Although Adam solved the issue, as a captain I could have taught it better from the start. 

The mark is not responsible for guarding a “backhand” or a “forehand” he is responsible for a “cone” of space behind him, whether that cone is 60, 90, or 120 degrees is up to the leadership.

Get the Mechanics:

1. Shadow shuffling
1. 20 seconds on 40 seconds off
2. 6 total times

                                                              i.      3 offense

                                                            ii.      3 defense

Take two cones and put them ten yards apart.  One guy is offense and the other is defense, offense shuffles laterally staying within the ten yards and the defense tried to stay with him.

I use the “triangle marking” from rise up.  The foundation of this marking strategy is an ability to move your feet.  Shadow shuffling removes an incentive of lunging or reaching with your hands and forces your guys to move their feet and be reactive.

2. Figure eight shuffling
1. 5 laps
2. 4 laps
3. 3 laps
4. 2 laps
5. 1 lap

Take four cones and make a rectangle 2 feet by 4 feet.  Shuffle the diagonals, step up on the heights, shuffle the diagonal again.

3. 3 cone triangle drill
1. 4 single moves
2. 4 double moves
3. 4 triple moves

Set up three cones, one showing the base spot, one for the invert spot, and one for the around spot.  Have the throw pivot to either the invert or the around and make the marker shuffle to the cone that covers that space.

4. 3 man marking
1. 10 throws per marker

5. Breakmark drill
1. 0-1 moves
2. 0-2 moves
6. Redemption

Final Thoughts:

If you want your team to actually be good at something you need to do it all the time.  A classic mistake leaders make is doing some marking practice once or twice at practice and then at the tournament when the team’s marks are poor they freak out in a huddle, “we’ve practiced this you know it!”  No they don’t know it; you’ve practiced it twice over the course of 6 weeks.  If you want them to know it then you should practice it once a week or more.

Throwing and conditioning are usually the first two things to be removed from a practice plan, because somehow the team convinces the leadership that they can do those things outside of practice and that practice time should be used to accomplish “more important things.”  Don’t fall for this trap, nothing is more important than throwing and conditioning, make these the last things you pull from your practice plans. 

I posted three throwing progressions yesterday.  Ideally I’d run one of the three throwing progressions at every practice.  Also ideally this marking progression, or some other kind of focused marking work, would be done at least once a week.  I always assume two three hour practices a week because that is what NUT gets in the winter, so far my practice plan looks like this:

(180 minutes)	Wednesday	Saturday
10 minutes	WarmUp	WarmUp
30-45 minutes	Throwing Progression	Throwing Progression
15-30 minutes	Marking Progression	(Coming Wednesday / Thursday)
50 minutes	(Coming Friday)	Team Specific Strategy Work
50 minutes	Scrimmage	Scrimmage
10 minutes	Conditioning	Conditioning