Chris M.

I've been providing individual Basketball Training in Raleigh for the last 6 years.
I've been coaching Basketball for 20+ years.
I've coached in the following Raleigh youth leagues:
Parks&Rec - Raleigh & Wake Forest
Upward Basketball - Multiple Raleigh Leagues
AAU - Apex
Salvation Army - Raleigh
Member of the following Youth Basketball Associations:
Member - NAYES
Member - USA Basketball - Licensed Coach
Member - AAU
Member - USBA

I played basketball both in High School and College.
I played HS Basketball in Central Va and College at Charleston Southern in SC.
I also toured with the All Navy Basketball team when I was in the military.

The first thing I do is talk with the client to see what kind of session they are looking for. I don't like to make assumptions. For types of sessions... I basically have three kinds of training sessions. Learning, Advanced Skills, & Conditioning. All three begin with 5 to 10 minutes of stretching as this is key to prevent injury. In the sessions, I use drills to demonstrate the proper techniques the player should be learning. In the typical Learning session, we can work on various drills that build fundamental skills. These skills are dribbling, passing, footwork, defense, shooting fundamentals. The client can choose what skills we work on or I can use the first session to do an assessment and make recommendations. If the client chooses a specific type and during the session I feel that work is needed in other areas first, I'll recommend it, but ultimately it is the clients decision. You are the boss. As we progress along, we can combine multiple skills in one session, but I usually like to focus on one or two to start. For beginners, I usually like to start with with dribbling drills and light conditioning drills. Normally younger students (5th-9th graders) start with these if they are still learning the basics. The Advanced skills sessions assume the player already has a good fundamental foundation in dribbling, passing, basic shooting, & defense. These sessions work more on building up the players positional strengths. For example... If they are a guard, we 'll use drills that work on ball distribution, advanced passing, court awareness, and shot selection. If they are a Post type player, we'll work more on footwork, court awareness, and post positioning. I normally don't do just conditioning sessions alone but can as I do sometimes get those requests during the summer. I usually work in some conditioning in the other two sessions to break up the monotony of doing drills for a full hour. Plus, after doing some conditioning, the player will be yearning to get back to drills. Finally, I do a five minute cool down stretch at the end of each session again in hopes to prevent injury. I also try to do a progress review with regular clients every couple of sessions so they can get an understanding of how I feel the sessions are going and we can make some decisions on future sessions going forward.