Niji: Number of Touches
I was talking to a Japanese women's player, and she mentioned that American teams in general don't touch the disc as often in practice compared to Japanese teams. Basically, American drills are focused on certain situations and the application of set plays than getting a high number of touches. I thought about this and I would have to agree.
(Kind of like Soccer.)
Drills run at WM are a good example; there are very few drills that focus on getting a high number of touches and throws. Even the ones that do are hampered by the fact that you have a lot of wait time. My friend even related this to the difference in the way Japanese players develop their throws versus American players. While this is a little iffy, the point that catching and throwing 5 times more would make you better at catching and throwing seems to be fair.
More Touches! (actually those are iPhones but we can pretend)
So, what can be done? The answer is elegantly simple: Just more run drills that involve more throwing and catching per minute. One such drill is where you are in groups of three, and basically do the box drill, just with 3 people. (this is also a great warm up drill) 10 flicks to the open side, 10 io flicks, 10 open side backhands, 10 io backhands, 10 hammers, and adjust cuts to make sense.
Basically, this is part of the puzzle of how to develop players faster that I've been overlooking.
So, what I would recommend, is getting drills that focus on touching the disc often and quickly (with actual catches and realistic throws). I think that it would especially help if captains would take a moment to explain what is being accomplished in each drill, and what skills one is supposed to glean from each. This will help players focus on what they are doing, as well as actually help improve players, rather than drills just being a glorified and prolonged warm up.
