welcome to the belfrey hockey podcast my name is darl belfrey and we are in season 3 episode 8 now of the belfrey hockey podcast and what I want to talk about today is drill design and drill design for me has been a a real process over many many years and I'm still learning more and more about drill design and I think it it is a bit of a lifelong process to to to figure out different and better ways in different situations and for me I don't like to pre-draw out my drills I prefer to kind of make them up as I'm going along I I like to have an idea where I want to go and then I get a starting point and then start to add the pieces that I that I want or the progressions that I'm looking for and that comes from a lot of experience of how to set up drills based on what I'm seeing so I'm going to start kind of in the middle of this then I'll go back to the beginning and then I'll tell you kind of where I want to go so where I've been in the space I've been in the last 10 years has been I don't draw out any drills I kind of know what I want to do I want I know where I want to end up and then what I've tried to do is think of my drills as game situations so because I study so much vid game video all year round I have a a bank of rep repeated uh plays that happen in games like all kind all types of repeatable actions skills plays that are recurring and when I'm with whether it's an individual player whether I'm with a group this is how I see what I'm what I'm in the in the practice I see the game situation and then that game situation has certain elements execution ele elements to it there's usually a key piece uh that needs that needs focus on either because of issues that surround the indiv idual player or players that there's a capacity that needs to be enhanced there's skills that need to be learned in order to be able to execute it or there's just a key execution piece that I'm going to kind of anchor everything to so that's how I start and then from there I have so so now I have two real key pieces of information I have a game situation that's in my head I then also have the key execution piece that I know I want to kind of anchor the the drill too and then now I need to know how I want to get into this and how I want to get or progress it or get out of it and into the next into the next phase of its of its development so when I'm in it that's what I'm that's what I'm doing and the experience factor for me is how to take a game situation and turn it into an actual drill and for me what I needed to understand was the connectors so a connector is just like how is it going to start and then how does it Loop so if it's a drill you want it to have you I like I prefer to have my drills like loop I I like it when things kind of go repeatedly and it happens on its own CU as I've said in the previous podcast I I want to take myself self out of the operation of the drill as early as possible I don't want to be standing there blowing a whistle or saying go I don't want to be doing that I want to it should the player should already know when the plays to go next and I usually give them that information uh and then that's that's it it goes on its own so that's a loop so a loop could be as simple as a second Puck uh the play the play operates and then it's going out of maybe one corner and then a second Puck is in the other corner so now the next group goes to the other corner and it goes from one side to the other and then I say the next group that goes just spot your Puck and off you go so that I don't have to be the one that's dumping the puck in the corner because as soon as I soon as you do that you're now operating the drill once you're operating the drill it's very difficult to be the operator and teacher so I try to eliminate myself as the operator so I just like that's a simple way to do it another another way to do it is to use the same Puck but there's a way in which that that clear that the drill has come to an end for the one group and they start the next group so if it's like let's say it's a half ice uh or or uh or and Blue Line in type drill situation that I'm that I'm running then the loop becomes after you execute what it is that I want you to do I need you to get that same Puck make a play through each other and then pass it to the next guy in line and then that guy then starts it to go to the next to the next round so they that's how that's how it Loops um so I I'm I'm always looking for a way to Loop it one of the things that I also really like to do is I like to have the lines out of out of like out of this the out of the middle of the ice so for example like I prefer to have it all the players on like one side of the rank and try not to have players like all over in different spots like I used to have it where like I'd have one group on one side of the rank and then the other group was on the other side of the rank and then off they would go and then what would happen is you get a disruption every time the play goes anywhere near the walls on those sides because you got all these players in the way so what I like to do is put all the players on one side and then plus it's easier for me to manage uh myself and it's easier to control like the next right and then I also have have one whole set of boards plus the end ball so three4 of the rink I basically have as open boards that the boards can be freely utilized and then I pack everyone kind of between the blue lines on on the wall that is a very common like starting point for me I like I like it like that I prefer not to have it be a situation where like I said there's lines everywhere I don't like lines everywhere just one line everybody starts from here it kind of funnels itself to the middle and then everyone kind of piles in from there however many players are to go one of the things I will also do is I'll set up an initial uh an initial play that's not to do with what I actually want and then that play leads me into what I actually want and then there's a then there's a connector that brings the play out to the next group so what I'll often do is I'll have everybody lined up like that I'll have like let's say for example it's a it's a it's an exit drill so maybe I'm concerned about you know Wingers on the boards making plays so rather than set up all these lines that start everybody like near the boards and they have and it's clear like you know I used to have it where if I was going to do board work like for Wingers I would have everybody lined up like the people that were going they'd be lined up like in line with the dots like near or just above the top of the circle and then I would have whatever the drill was that wrap the puck around and then they had to field it and then make whatever the next play was now I don't now I don't do that what I prefer to do is have a different type of play that leads them into that so for example it could be a uh an entry so they there's a play in the neutral zone the puck gets sent in now it's a retrieval the retrieval and the neutral zone play really don't have anything to do with what I really want then the guy on the retrieval he then you know has some deception like he's going to go behind the net and then rims it on the rim the players who are really supposed to be going they H have slid into the play and they they play it live like it's a dump retrieval and now they're on the defensive side of that so you know they they position themselves in accordance to what that game situation would be like rather than put them in lines at the top of the circle I have them slide in as though they're recovering their position like on a back check and then the play then the play uh starts then the connector piece might be after that play So after that play you then become like the retrieval guy or so or or it goes the reverse you know what I mean so it's either like you do the entry first then you do the target you connect the play and you're out so I like a lot of that kind of stuff where uh it the the the drills has a sequence and it flows and everybody kind of gets a to do everything I I really like uh drill formats that are like that and so I stick to a lot of that stuff and then I'll do the connectors and then that allows me to be in the play when I mean in the play like I want to be teaching so I'm either like in a situation like this it's kind of a quarter ice situation I'm going to be like in the interior hash marks or in thereabouts and I'm going to be I'm going to be be watching this whole thing play out and I'm I'm in line with the target play so that I can bark out instructions or when it's done I can have the player come to me and we're out of the out of the threat of what's happening and I can be discussing what's uh what I wanted to see or what corrections I wanted I want to do or what have you so it's just a I I'm very conscious of where I want to be in relationship to how the drill is playing out and like I said I'm not responsible for running the drill the drill is running itself so I don't have to worry about what's happening next they already know so then that frees me up to kind of go into the spaces that I need to be to actually teach and to get involved and I like to be moving and I I like to have I like to be in in the play a little bit like not in it but I'm like outside of it but I'm moving like I have a pulse I'm not just standing still dumping Pucks in I like to beov moving and you know I go to the line and then I come out of the line I go back to my spot and then I'm following a player out or you know like I'm I'm I find that when I'm like that I'm really at my best it gives me an energy players can feed off that energy and you know I I feel like I'm I'm at my be more at my best when when that's the case so I try to limit the number of drills that I have where there's lines I'd rather have these slide in slide out type uh type place kind of feels like a shift but there's like a Target uh Play That's occurring that's really what we're trying to work on and I have an entry into it and I have an exit getting out of it or a connector and then the players come out and the next group is is constantly coming in it allows me also cuz for for years I've run the ice times myself right I still do run a lot of ice times myself which I there's a lot of benefits to that um and there's a lot of draw backs to it as well but what I like about running it myself is I can get one end going and then I can go and get the other end going and I can just kind of toggle back and forth between the two ends I really do like that and I I don't always like to be on top of the players too like one of the things I really like and this is one of the benefits of kind of doing it yourself is that you're then not over coaching and what I mean by that is is like if you have someone that's like on top of the players all the time then like you know there's an over coaching there I want there to be some like figuring out a little bit so I get it started I get the the Cadence of the drill going I set the expectations I get the the techniques that I want hammered home of what I want done and then I leave and go get the other end monitor them make sure that they're up and running get them going and then I come back when I come back like there's been an opportunity for players to kind of get it started get things figured out and then when I come over I can watch a couple and then uh you know I already know what adjustments I want to make to make it go faster maybe they're doing it really well so I might add something into it right away because they're already past that maybe they're really struggling it gives me a chance to kind of dig into some of those some of those details but I do really like that and uh I get selfish sometimes where I could have some help and more help but I sometimes prefer not to because I do like this whole idea of having players figured out and then there's also things to like when a drill's going on and I really like what's happening I will stop I'll just stop I I the drill continues the things are going on I stop talking I stop barking I stop moving and I just kind of separate myself when I kind of get on a as a fly on the wall and I want to hear the player I want to hear the players I want to see how they how they do it and if I've done my job beforehand or as the group starts to get going they'll start to know like at this time I like what's going on that's a time we need to ramp it up so that's where I need that interpersonal leadership to start they start barking at each other to get going get faster they start you know talking to each other more and so when I sto talking a lot of times the group gets really quiet and then I could might I maybe just say hey it's too quiet and then I shut up again and I let them see and then they start talking to each other and that's I love that I think that's a great way to have things going and then I'm when I if it's a drill like one of the things that as I get things going and the game situations moving I'll move the target movement that that I want so if we were doing this uh this like Rim retrieval uh for or Rim play for the for the Winger I would then make the focus then on the center so I would have the Winger set up then I would make it on the center then I might make it on the the stretch uh weak side weak side forward then I might have some more detail that surrounds how I want the d to operate they could have pressure on the D and then they have to you know they have to use some skating skill and Maneuvers before they come out then maybe they could have an option of whether they Rim it or whether they escape the pressure and they make an outlet pass and the Winger has to have their timing down the center has to have this have their timing down Etc I might tell the Winger or the center at first I want you like low and slow but then I want you wide and fast so I change the routes and then I talk about the the the I might have the center come in and he has to stop like he's in diesel coverage and then the puck rims up and then now they got to Sprint they got to get up the dotline create an availability there like there's all kinds of those things that I I really like I really like to do then what I like to do is from there I'll start adding elements and pieces uh to it um and then we might have a situation also where then um I might like gamify it a little bit where you know I I try to turn up the heat on it create maybe some pressure in a different way or I make it make one team against the other so the pressure is literally trying to win the puck and now you're really putting pressure on the reads okay the Winger the D is under pressure they're trying to rim it around or they kind of escape the pressure and try to make a direct pass but we don't know what's going to happen then I have the other the the they're like my F2 on the four check like they're responsible for that for that for that Winger cuz we're going to do the pressure coming from the side or maybe I don't have that guy maybe I used the D and the D's pinching down like I'm mixing it up all the time and maybe I have also the weak side it's a weak side fold so I could have the D and the inside they could weak side fold and come over and get that get that Winger so now the Winger has pressure coming from all different types of ways I could just mix that up all the time meanwhile that Winger is Fielding Rim after rim after Rim after Rim I I really like that in in that drill like that I also like to go one side other side and then out so the Winger becomes the center and then Center becomes the Winger on the other side and then so they are doing both rules and then out they go so I like to do stuff like that so I'm very fluid in my drill design and I'm stacking and I'm just adding pieces and then ultimately I'll get to where I want it to get get very uncertain and competitive and then they have to like really figure figure things out and then I can poke holes in it it's like it the game will poke holes and where I want to go and then I love to finish with an individual skill drill based on the hole that I see in the game that's a real key uh a distinguishing piece of what I like to do in terms of drill design and how the practice like fool plays out um so I'll go in and I'll I'll maybe say like okay in our in in this case what I didn't like the most was I didn't like the curaline ear skating I didn't think the center timing with the footwork was very good and I didn't like the weak side fold so then that becomes a drill where it's Ang an angling drill an angling drill and a support drill at the same time and I'm I'm getting the arc skating Arc support and Arc Arc pressure and I do both of those and I finish with a drill like that that's kind of like that that really explains a lot of what you might see when you see me work in a group I really like to do that I like to eliminate lines have people sliding in and sliding out the other thing I love to do as part of that is I like I'll say so for this drill we need three and then uh then then I change I so they all I already know that you know then they can see okay so it's going to be a d on the retrieval we need a Winger on the wall and then I need a center okay so then they can figure out how that works and then I'll say okay then I want to get pressure and then I also want to add a week side fold so now we we're up to five and then I want to pressure now we're at six so we're I'm just telling them these are the number of players that we need so now they're in the line that's standing there and they're trying to figure it out because invariably especially if it's a group that I haven't worked with before they'll they won't know when to go and so that's a teachable moment for me I'm like listen I told you I need three or I told you I need I now need five and then I got you guys got to figure it out the line there's nobody there to tell you I just want five and then what I'll tell them to do is when the drill goes on so when the play in front of you is going I want the next five to slide out almost like an on Deck Circle but they slide out like in the neutral zone and then they're waiting to to to move in so they're already kind of getting out there and what happens is then the group starts talking to each other because again like that communication that peer teaching the peer talking to each other I value that so much I'm looking for any way to do it so by having it uncertain as to who's next they have to organize it and invariably the ball gets dropped because they not talking or someone's not paying attention the guy didn't go at the right time didn't know what the drill was was trying to like figure it out meanwhile you got you know I I have five people going in the drill so it doesn't take long before it's your turn again plus I might have both groups going at the like both ends going at the same time so now like we're really down like we only have maybe 20 players on the ice now like it's really uh you know it's really happening fast you don't have a lot of time to figure this out so then that's where the talking comes in and then you start to hear hey I'll go this spot I'll go that spot um and so then you start to see like the center becomes the D the D becomes the Winger the D becomes the center and I I love that I think that that's important they just fill in the rule as they're going because that's how the game is played we don't we can't control always who's going to be back first we can't control who's going to get there first so you have to be comfortable in each of those in each of those rules so that's a really uh that's kind of where I that's where I I've been living now prior to that prior to that where I would start this whole what I would start the whole journey from was I would do a lot of line work so I would I would have it very clear as to who was going next and what their role was and this is where drills in general they run into trouble like they get criticized because there's not a lot of thinking in involved because hey when you're in this line you execute this pattern and then when you're done you go to that line and you execute that pattern so there not a lot of thinking there's not a lot of reading going on this is where you get this whole uh the criticism and and a lot of that criticism is warranted but there is a place for that sometimes where it's you can have an assembly line type drill that gets it started that could be your lead in where it gets started one of the one of the drills that I've done done where I really started to like it was and this is I'm flipping back to where I am now is I'll sometimes have it where everyone like there there's three people in the drill the first Puck goes in it goes It goes around and they do their thing then another Puck goes in and they have to rotate so then another player is doing each they they rotate their position then a third Puck goes in and they rotate their position so everybody's done everything now we start now we now the rep starts right after that and then and then that's how so they got into it they executed it they got all the key pieces everybody got a rep in then we execute the the drill the way it was intended then I have a connector and I'm done but and it just gets that whole thing where I can get the sometimes I want those reps but that's where I go back to where I was before like where I was before I wanted it I wanted the practice to be clean and clear I knew everyone knows where they're supposed to be you execute your rule and whatever it is that you're doing it's easy for me to control and off we go but as my experience played itself out I obviously I evolved in in my drill design so I think that one of the ways depending on where the coaches in their in their progression in drill design you want to move away from that single structure you're trying to get away from that single structure however you're not sure how to so one of the ways in which you do it is just like I said you set up the single structure because you're familiar with that and then you find a way to turn that single structure live and then you connect it and then the next group goes into the single structure which you're comfortable with you have a way in which you turn it live and then there's a a connector and then that's a very simple way of being able to start pushing yourself and pushing your own drill design into another level and and try to get yourself a little bit removed from the single structure and getting into some other ideas uh another another way is uh B is the whole like idea between offense defense out I or defense offense out depending on what it is you're doing that's an excellent way of of getting out of some single structure because now inside the same rep the players are executing multiple different roles they're flipping from one thing to the next there's a read as to who I am like what's my role in the play and that's a really important piece that's so important in in hockey is hockey sense to a large degree is knowing your role in the play and knowing how your role is going to change as the play evolves so when the puck is in one corner I know I am this player I'm the strong side defenseman and my job is to make a play at this Puck defensively try to cont make a contact force a loose Puck that's my that's my job get the guy that I'm checking to stop okay now the Play Changes sides once that play changes sides I'm no longer the strong WR side defenseman I'm the weak side defenseman so now how how does my role change and how do I anticipate now I get over there and I realize like we don't have a center so I'm the weak side defenseman but I'm also have an opportunity to be the center and so now you see me reading where my opportunity is to become the center in practice we want to provide opportunities where they have to read what their role is and as the role changes they antici excuse me anticipate that role change and they start to execute the that next play and that's a such a critical part of the way the game is played and building hockey sense you can do it through your drill design and again getting out of that single structure so anytime you you see a drill that you know you like that has lines and the lines are all over the all over the ice and each line has a specific job that L line has to do now you're looking for when I see something like that I'm like we need a rule change and then we need to find a way to get this live so it's almost like there's a lot of times where I'll set something up on one side of the ice that has all those like elements of it where it's single structure it's designed for repetitive motion the players trying to perfect the skills and and the technique inside of that play and then as soon as that happens there's like rule change because I have it where there's a sequence where you know each of the three players is is changing rules and then boom we as soon as we change sides now it's live so not only you changing the rule but you're also then changing the side now it's live and then there's a connector and then now the play is coming back in and it goes into that side that it just exited and now now it starts off again single structure get the Reps in then you go to get the rules changing and then bang change sides once it change sides it's live now once it's live it's out and then there's lots of things you can add to that you can have pressure you can have speed as a dynamic you can tell them they want the puck on the wall you can tell them you don't want the puck on the wall I mean there's a lot of things that there's a lot of things that that you can do um to encourage more problem solving um they have to group problem solve the rol is changing so they got to talk to each other and that's what I like I like a I like an ice time that has a lot of chatter with it and I can force that chatter by the way I set up the drills and because if I force you to have to change rules and you don't know you know when that's going to happen then there has to be Talk of the players are talking about who's doing what that I used to also set up drills where I would say okay Puck goes in the P Corner first guy in does this second guy in does that third guy goes in does that the which is great the problem is they're all in a straight line so they know which role they're going to be as they're going then I have a drill where I say it's the same concept but rather than put them in a line I take the line put it on on the boards like the half wall and then I say okay three three players are going to jump out uh and you're going to pass the puck to each other so I want want to see just a lot of movement in a small area and you're one touch passing and then you know at some point someone is going to one of you will lay a puck in the corner and that's how it starts so I'm not even going to say go or hey when I say dump it in then that's when you're going to dump it in I don't I don't like that because I don't want to be running the drill I want them to run the drill so I say you know pass it a few times make sure everybody gets a chance to touch it and then let's lay it in and let's see what happens so you don't know what your rule is going to be until the puck gets dumped in and where you are in proximity to where the play is and where those roles are and so I love that and and those are the kinds of things that I like to do inside of that inside of that drill design now so that's kind of where it was it was in single structure I had everything kind of laid out and a lot of the the pieces were where the where a lot of the my drill design design was Reliant upon where I had the lines so I have lines like in the four corners I'd have lines on the four neutral zone uh neutral zone uh blue lines then I had used the dots as a as a thing so I was big on the ice markings I want you know the lines were in relationship to where I wanted and then I would set up you know where I wanted or how I wanted the players to kind of slide in and out of this and that was a I did that probably for 10 years years I would just I knew the types of drills I could run from those positions and then depending on what I wanted to do or where I was taking that that practice and where I was taking the progression I would just move the line so start off in Four Corners could start off with the two corners and the two blue lines in both ends so now there's eight lines uh I could have a line in the middle of the ice and the two like at Center which could be the D for example that could be all the D and then I'd have the two forward lines on the on the blue lines you know like and then I'd have some whatever play that I was doing it was just very simple for me to understand my drill design and I could do it on the Fly and uh based on the drill setups and then I could just move things around uh how I how I wanted it from there and then like I said once I started to get the the lines out and have this like starting Play That's when things really really start to evolve and it I thought my practices got a lot richer in terms of reads problem solving a lot more talking amongst players a lot more talking in the players about rule changes and uh and all those sorts of things which that's just the start of it we haven't even got into players like actually communicating with each other about what happened so so that's that's kind of where it started how it evolved and then I obviously figured out the um parallel structures um and I could mix those in at any time I could have you know two I could have two things going on like one of the things I used to love to do to set up my parallel structure is I'd do a split I would have one group in one end doing one piece of it then i' have the other group in the other end doing the other piece of it and then those rules would flip so then I would say switch and then the group that was in the one end doing one part they would then flip and they would be doing stay in the same end but they would be doing what the other guys were doing so those rules would change and then I would bring it all together and that was the drill the drill would then connect so I do the pieces separate and then put the put the pieces together turn it live and now we're good I got the Reps I was able to set up the drill design um from uh from a uh from a a clear role perspective when you're in this line or when you're here this is what you're doing it's clear what you're working on and we go through that and then you switch now you're working on something else and then now when it's time I turn it live you don't know what you're doing until you're doing it and this is kind of the test I want to see kind of where we're at and that's where I get the parallel structure going we get two opposite uh groups going against each other um but they were had practiced and got all the stuff all the pieces put together before hand so that was a big breakthrough for me and then like I said once I got the once I got those pieces put together then I could figure out then once I got the lines out of the line and just got them out of the out of the way and I freed up the boards cuz I use I find when I when I took the boards the lines off the boards I used the boards more and we all know how how much the game is played on the wall and so I found that I I had more competitive plays along the wall that were occurring inside the drill I have more pucks coming around the boards that had to be fielded I just used the boards much more and I found that that enriched uh the skill skill development because we obviously need to become more effective in Wall play players need to be more comfortable with being able to read the ice in small space and understand where pressure is coming from problem solved pressure that's coming into a tighter area and Etc so those those those were Mo really important uh breakthroughs for me and I started to see more and more of the benefit and then the other part about it is it's so easy to gamify things from there so one of the things I love about having the players not in these like funny spots all the time when I say funny I mean like you know drill one the lines are at the four blue line Stripes then uh the drill two the lines are in the four corners then drill three the lines I have a one line through the middle of the ice and then the other are on the four blue line stripes and then you know drill four is you know I have maybe the lines are on the blue lines facing each other like maybe it's something like that and it's like a neutral zone something or other or it goes into the ends whatever the whatever the case may be I spent so much time moving the players around and getting them to figure out how the rotations would work and all that sort of stuff it was just killing my the practice flow because I don't like a lot of time in between I don't draw drills on a board I just communicate it just like I'm talking now I just say hey here you're here I need these many players this is what the play I want that we're going to be working on this is how I want what the skills are here's how we're going to work on it it goes this way first then it goes over here and does this and then here it turns live here's how you connect it off you go and then we walk through once and then we're good that's kind of how I like to do it and so by not having all these like funny like drill setups I was reducing a lot of that time and I could just I could just change drills right away I could just change it right there on the Fly within a very short period of time I was already into the next drill and it just makes such a difference and then I can spend that time players are getting more reps and I can do a lot more teaching and especially when I take myself out of the drill now I can run a practice the whole thing and never be part of the drill at all I can be I never dump a puck in I don't I don't say go I don't I'm not worried about any of that I'm in the drill and I'm teaching the whole time and I can run the whole I can run the whole practice like that and that's was always a goal of mine it took a long time for me to learn how to do that and do it effectively but once you learn how to do that it is unreal the amount of coaching and teaching that you can actually do and then what ended up happening and this is kind of that that like full circle moment I realized I have so much time to be teaching I'm actually like over coaching right now like I'm in these players year I'm I'm I can be so involved so now I got to figure out ways to get out of it so I'm in it I get it going I get it fired up they understand what I want I'm bringing energy also to it to get the patience the Cadence the way I want it and then I'm out I'm either down the other end or I just Separate Myself and I stop talking I don't say a thing I just let it go let it breathe let see if the players start to take it over I start maybe adding pieces and elements all that kind of stuff that's that's what I started to figure out so it's a real process drill design and learning how to do it but the the the number one thing that I can that I say like really changed for me was when I stopped looking for drills and started looking for game situations and then I had away from the game situations I needed to just learn how to get into it and out of it and create the connection connectors and if if you can learn how to do the connectors that's where the real drill design actually happens and that's where you can really go from being a very like methodical uh coach in the way in which you do things where you you know you go in and you have um you know you you start off the practice and you you go to the board and you draw up a drill players go into it then you do a demo then after the demo then the players get going then of course you need to stop it maybe you got to then change sides so now all the pucks got to get shifted over to the other side I mean the the amount of wasted time with all that then you stop that drill now you go and you're right back the beginning got to draw the drill up and Etc just to me that's really methodical and I don't want that I want there to be a lot of pace energy and a breeze on its own and I want the players to feel that energy change and then one of the other things that really stood out for me I used to be really bad with water breaks like terrible to the point where like players would be like completely like dehydrating like in front of me and I'm like oh my God like and the players's like coach are you going to do a water break I'm like well I'm I'm so into this no I and then I started to say like what I don't know when you're thirsty so you just get water whenever you want I don't need I like I don't know when you're thirsty go get it whenever you want you don't need a water break you just need you you go get the water when whenever I don't not I don't what are the odds that every player on the ice right now needs water I don't know that that's the case that's not going to happen so you get water when you need it and they'll get water when they need it and I'll just keep this whole thing moving and then there would be times where and this is what I like too is there would be times where I would have this practice going at break neck speed and there would be really no the transitions between drills and adding drills like I could do that on the Fly and you wouldn't even know like I there would be no break in the actual action they' be the Reps would continue to go and I would just be changing it as we were going and there and I I've done practices where there's literally no break it just starts and it just gets going and then I'm adding this piece I'm changing this drill on the Fly and you don't even there's no break and I used to take a lot of pride in that cuz that's so cool and it's so hard to do and I just it was a way for me to really learn my like learn my craft then I realized you know what like I'm killing these guys like the energy is dipping because there's just no break you need to give them uh some kind of a break so what I would do is I learned that I learned to Peak the practice and so I would time like try to get two or three peaks in a practice where it would build up build up build up get to this like Apex and then I would bring it right down and when I would bring it down that's when we would have a discussion I would talk about kind of what we had learned so far get some reflection going acknowledge some development with players acknowledge some Communications that I saw just a short little cqu on what was going on and then we'd start the next build and we'd build it up build it up get it to its apex get it to its peak and then come down then i' pull both those two peaks put them together into one kind of culmination uh game or drill or whatever that kind of pulled all the pieces together and then that's what we uh that's what we would end on and uh so it just gave me a lot of different ways in which I could I could run my practice and I could get the pacing exactly way I wanted it and depending what the team needed or what that group needed at that time or how much time that I have with the group now I all I could connect all these factors and that would tell me how I wanted to Pace things so that's some ideas it's certainly not all the ideas it's hard to cram all in I could I should probably do another one of these on drill design to talk about even more of the details but that's a good start