Coach Keith's Corner — technique

There have been many times when I went to teach one of my upper level athletes a new skill and realized it is harder to teach than I thought because of bad habits, bad technique or just something I overlooked. An example - I had a very talented kid.  I wanted him to learn a specific vault (a kasamatsu).  Super talented so should not be a problem - only there was a REALLY big problem - he twisted the wrong direction to learn a kasamatsu.  When he was little he just picked his direction to twist and I thought nothing...

We all know the expression "Practice makes Perfect."  It's short and it makes us feel great that all we have to do is try real hard and we will improve at our task.  However, what if it lots of reps makes you worse? How can practice make you worse you ask?  Its simple.  Anytime you do a task, it becomes a habit.  If you continue to do a skill in the wrong way, that will become a habit that you will be hard to fix. Suppose you can't do a muscle up.  Do you think doing hundreds of  muscle ups with wrong...