Forms Academy VISION
To be the preeminent platform for individual player development; to continually develop and improve our methodologies in order to lead in the crafting of the United States’ best youth soccer players.
philosophy
FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT >FOCUS ON WINNING
We believe that a focus on winning over a focus on development is incredibly detrimental to the growth of young players. We require our players to struggle and to fail in their pursuit so that they learn to fail better and develop grit. We train at the edges of our abilities because we believe, as Daniel Coyle posits, “struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement” in order to reach potential. Understanding this, we know we have a tremendous amount of control over the developmental process.
Forms Academy implements a strategic, long-term developmental approach to crafting players.
TECHNIQUE CONQUERS ALL
We define technique as the ability to perform a physical task and skill as the ability to perform the technique under pressure, ie. in a game setting. With that, our focus is on individual technique acquisition and its transition into skill.
We believe the crafting of technique and skill is crucial during the Foundational period of player (age range 2-8), the phase which we consider to be the most important in developing a high level player.
Our science-based approach is heavily invested in neural pathway and procedural memory development and has demonstrated tremendous results since implementation.
EFFICIENCY IN MOVEMENT
We prepare to prepare. We truly craft technique, which begins with developing the player's ability to control their body and improve their movement.
Tightening body control accelerates the ability to control the ball.
PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION
While we strive for perfect technique, we subscribe to Socrate's Theory of Forms and its assertion of achieved perfection being physically impossible.
Therefore, our approach to technique and skill acquisition is based on improving every time the player puts touches on the ball. Progress, not perfection speaks to the player's specific intent on touch quality so that measurable improvement, a process monitored closely to the point that poor touches are immediately corrected, may develop.
Tired touches are not tolerated during Technique & Skill Acquisition (T&SA) sessions as we are focused on positive neural pathway development.
QUALITY > QUANTITY
Quality of repetition is more important than the quantity of repetition. During the Foundational Period of a player's life, their brains are incredibly susceptible, which is why we strive to remove poor quality touches from our sessions.