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Categories > Under 12's

Safety 1st With The Tower of Power

The "Tower of Power" is integral to coaching all contact with safety as the main priority

Video Subtitles

One of the big areas where you can improve on safety is around the technical competencies of your players and this covers senior players Junior players and many players ensuring that they are competent in their main techniques for tackle the breakdown scrimmaging and mauling now obviously the rfu have the Tower of Power which is something that is integral to body position and making sure that players are safe and in the right body positions to be accurate in these contacts situation again, I'm just going to walk through tour of past this positions used in what format the game shutout some answers out. What do I scrub? What else chuckling Rock and he tells more potentially large a lot of the kids didn't misunderstand what they have to do with in it. So hopefully give you a few Buzz words as well simple thing on our toes just emphasize this the kids while we're on our toes obviously what my momentum to go forward, but what do you create off our toes What are you rocking balance? Yeah, anything else trying to try and spring off your heels trying to Spring off your heels. It's quite hard, isn't it? Just trying to spring up here. So that's power comes through and that's why we want got or so first time of it is literally your toes shoulder width apart. This could sit site slightly outside that if needs be but that shoulder width apart is fine from that you then just go but knees so bent knees provides a bit of balance again a bit of stability if we're locked out. I've got no wood for for momentum in the rules. Well principles are will be as go forward even toes shoulder width apart think I was always say is use whatever analogy one but what's worked for me is a duck bum. Boom. Boom. Jonny Wilkinson when he kicks sticks his bum out. So which whatever way you want to do it really you think of something the kids latch onto than fantastic. So I'll always say boom boom. Just so you know, we've got to sit there thumbs up. So it's literally toes knees but boom boom out. This is where it gets a little difficult for kids because they haven't quite understood their core yet. Well then go push our chests out. It's that chest in line with our but I'm should naturally straight in the back up. Some people might not some kids might not get that and I'll let you do this and they'll struggle to kind of get their chests. So helps it there to help do that. You just bring your elbows in pretend almost at your crack a walnut. So you should be able to put your finger between the shoulder blades. You should be able to feel that two things maybe perhaps but it's literally so toes knees boom boom chest out elbows in and the final one is really important to kids don't really don't get this is neutral position. So that just means we're looking through our eyes as opposed to spending our next forward bend the next backward because if you see a kid, they'll go down there got this composition and I look straight up. Okay in a squirming what's gonna happen to me? Go up Ko could be Miss tiny engagement that net could really get hurt. So we've got to make sure that we as coaches Keep Their Heads nice and straight. So when you to position look through our eyes from that, you can build a simple Tower of Power the way I describe bending down. It's from the hips but also almost like you're pulling a cord through their belly because a lot of kids will bend get in that position. You'll finally get rid of tile position where it's nice and strong and then they just go at it. And you see it you see it naturally because kids haven't quite understood this pelvic kind of pelvic tilt and that's what we're trying to do. Imagine a bucket and you try to make sure that sporran. Okay so we can we get nice and low and we try and Bend from the hip and we Bend from the hip and modern that's coming forward. So I chest is coming down as well. It's finding that balance of getting them do it as many times as possible and having a good session so you don't want to overdo it. So I use it as a part and just literally try and get them into that use side of caution thresholds many times as possible because that is it could be as simple as getting everyone around a tire leaning on terrapower positions fantastic and then you want to shout Direction left. I'm going to step left right then. We're gonna step right? People this money that could be that could be I could be 7. Yeah because it gets them used to that comes out situation being close to each other as though you could use that and then you can break it down into two sand. It's just a game of mouse chick like chasing when they go around and they want to say it but naturally with all these stuff you're going to find that actually the core technique they lose pretty quickly. So you got to make sure the culture you maintain that position throughout the match what you want to look at as far as I'm concerned. It's the ways you can get it across. So if you can just line a child getting that tire of power position and get them used to the idea of testing it themselves. It's how you can get creative with it. So they learn like this say the coaching points that you learn they take ownership over the safety of its dress isn't actually a stress position. So if you get kids to just stand there for 30 seconds doing that it first of all, they're going to hate it and second of all is not going to be beneficial to them because naturally they're going to lose their for so it's coaches. We've got to recognize if we can get them down these engagements sequences these Tower Powers quickly. So Bank in my tower of power, right? We have a one on one will hit the back. It's just going to matter of going in Bike done and you've got to be able to recognize the key points of what we're trying to get. So those things we just gone through we should be able to recognize that as quick as possible because we don't want him sitting there for too long because actually I've been naked be absolutely naked whereas if they constantly redo it redo it redo it they get the idea of going into it the real engagement sequence, but also the key points and just literally mix up a new training, so there's nothing wrong with doing a five minute section where we're going to do a bit of tear up our stuff or part of a game where it's a little bit of tail part. So one of the forfeits could be you come out you get a tackle Shield you getting your Tower of Power for two seconds. Then you're back in the game use it as a condition of methods five pass game really easy. Nice easy it set up. However instead of every time you pass your move you pass you come out you just got to tear apart push. Push and then you're back in the game and the next person comes out to two back and because they used to it. They're doing it actually in the game the don't think about And it could be as simple as yes, we're getting the ball there. They've got a move to yard before the back in the games. They come out the role. They come in the back in the game. Just simple little things like that. You can get them do it repetitively as part of their their games then they're gonna learn naturally they're going to learn how to use their own bodies with it as well. And it's very much a coach's duty of care to be responsible and drive any policies or initiatives that you have around safety.