Leadership

Leadership is the most important non-mechanical skill to learn in order to have fun and do cool stuff in the Arena.

Leadership means many things. This page introduces ideas backed by sports science that promote high performance groups that have fun together.

 If you have fun, you'll play more. 
 If you play more, you'll play better. 
 If you play better, you'll do more cool stuff in games.
 If you do cool stuff in games, you'll have more fun. 
 You'll play more. You'll play better. 
 You'll do more cool stuff in games.
    - Mantra of DocEducation

Cultivate Positivity

High performing sports teams build cultures where everyone believes they can do great things. When everyone feels supported and has fun, players perform better and gain skill faster.

Also, this is a game designed for people to have fun and feel more powerful. Don't lose sight of enjoying your game and helping others enjoy theirs.

Three basic ways to promote positivity over time:

1. Celebrate success: Say 'nice shot' or 'nice pass' or 'nice save' when teammates and opponents show some skill.
2. Pick up teammates who make mistakes: say 'nice try' or 'so close, keep shooting'
3. Laugh and promote laughter: make jokes, laugh at yourself to shake off mistakes, take breaks from being serious

Cultivate Honesty

High performing teams build a culture where everyone can be honest with each other about how they can improve as a team. The key is to build trust so that feedback can be given without fear of anyone getting angry and causing drama.

Be careful with how you think and talk about your own game and other people's games.

 A few tips from learning and sports science:
 - It's best if people ask for feedback before you give it out. In public matches or in any match where you don't know the players well, it's best to reserve feedback until asked.   
 - In a team environment, check in on everyone's #Clarity of Commitment to ensure feedback is appropriate for how much time each player has
 - It's best for people to choose their own things to work on. People learn best when they identify the need to improve. 
 - People can only focus on 1-3 things at once. If you overload them with too many things, they will not be able to do any of them. 
 - Don't assume that people aren't already working on something. If someone is focusing on regrabbing and communication, and you give them feedback on their shooting and how they play goalie, you might be overloading their focus. 

Use the SEA framework to promote a positive culture of honesty. All feedback should be:
Specific: Be clear and give details about the issue
Empathetic: Think through the other person's point of view and what they might be going through
Actionable: If you can, give a suggestion on what to do to improve

Build Community Pillars

Based on feedback form the community, the developers of Echo Arena - Ready At Dawn (RAD) - have established four community pillars that help everyone have more fun in the Arena.

 Respect Fellow Players: Treat everyone with respect and empathy so that our warm, welcoming, and inclusive community can continue to grow.  

 Honor My Team: Honor the effort of every player by showing up as my best self. In victory and in defeat.  

 Commit to Fairness: Ensure everyone can have a positive and meaningful experience by refusing to cheat, use exploits, or gain unfair advantage.  

 Protect my Community: Speak up to defend others, and report harassment or other toxic behavior whenever I see it, to keep my community safe. 

Clarity of Commitment

Be clear about what commitment you and others have to getting better at the game, and take this commitment into account when thinking about how quickly you or your team can improve. Getting good at Echo Arena takes a lot of time, so don't expect to quickly become highly skilled if you are only playing 1-2 times a week. The top performing players are often playing and practicing 6+ days a week for 2-8 hours a day.

If you only have time or only want to play a little bit - that's totally ok! Just be especially easy on yourself and others with similar commitment when mistakes are made. Even at the highest level of competitive play, where players are playing 2-5 hours a day 6+ days a week, mistakes are still made.

Players can become highly skilled at Echo Arena with less time commitment per week, it just takes more weeks to get there =).