By Ryan Maloney
"Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves, and it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work." ~ Dr. Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Athletes like playing games -- drills are just a way to play those games more effectively. But when practice turns into a series of drills, it's no longer a very fun practice. So from time to time we'll use a Pyramid Practice, an idea we took from Johan Dulfer's book.
The concept is simple: complete five challenges in ascending order of difficulty, and practice is over. It could take 45 minutes, or it could take two hours. On Thursday before we left for Fall Break, our Pyramid Practice looked like this:
The particular challenges depend on the needs of your team, but they should get increasingly difficult. Your greatest needs should also be in the middle of the pyramid in case you don't finish in time.
Most of all, finishing the Pyramid should cause a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm that couldn't be accomplished with drills:
