HaBaWaBaSchool.com:AGame-ChangingToolforCoaches!

When Waterpolo Development launched the HaBaWaBa project in 2008, it believed that “the game of ball in the water” could change the face of youth waterpolo, though it could never have imagined the enormous success it would achieve. HaBaWaBa has helped develop waterpolo in new countries and regions, lowered the age at which children approach the game, modified training methodology, and created a unique event — the HaBaWaBa International Festival — not just in the waterpolo landscape, but in global youth sports.

THE HABAWABA SCHOOL REVOLUTION. In 2026, 18 years after the start of that adventure, Waterpolo Development has launched a new project that we believe could have a potentially massive impact on the development and spread of waterpolo worldwide: HaBaWaBa School. Born from the collaboration between WPD and CR Kids, and co-funded by the European Union within the Erasmus+ Sport Project program, HaBaWaBa School was made possible by the support provided by Anemos Nautical and Cultural Club, Technical University of Crete, and Club Aquatico Pescara. These forces have joined together to create a revolutionary tool for the spread of water polo around the world.

A UNIQUE TOOL FOR COACHES. We are talking about the HaBaWaBaSchool.com  platform (also available at CoachingReimagined.eu) a completely FREE website that provides coaches with hundreds of drills — in both written and video format — to develop the fundamentals of young waterpolo players at the HaBaWaBa age, from 7 to 12 years old. The site, officially presented during the latest HaBaWaBa International Festival, makes a huge wealth of knowledge available to everyone for free, organized in a detailed manner for the progressive development of the young athlete. The material was collected during the first phase of the project, which saw Waterpolo Development and CR Kids organize 6 free Webinars conducted by Yiannis Giannouris, a Waterpolo Development board member and one of the world's leading experts in the training of young waterpolo players. During the Webinars — available on the project's YouTube channel — Giannouris presented the material produced (with the collaboration of Club Aquatico Pescara and its athletes), illustrating and discussing the exercises with the participating coaches. All the work produced, the result of a collaborative exchange with coaches, has been organized and uploaded online to HaBaWaBa School.com, creating something completely innovative in the global waterpolo landscape. Currently, the platform is available in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek), but more versions will be added in the future. HABAWABA SCHOOL CONTENT. Nowadays, the HaBaWaBa School platform features 4 "Skills maps":

• Elementary fundamentals for children aged 7 to 9
• Basic skills for children aged 7 to 9
• Basic elements for waterpolo players aged 10 to 12
• Basic techniques for goalkeepers aged 10 to 12 (to be implemented)

Each of the maps contains 10 skills to be developed in the young waterpolo player. Every skill corresponds to a card containing:

• The goal the player must pursue
• The description of the position in the water or the movement to be performed
• The elements that the coach will need to keep an eye on and correct if necessary

HUNDREDS OF VIDEOS AND PRINTABLE PDFs. But above all, for every single skill, it is possible to access the video descriptions of 5 exercises necessary to develop it, from the easiest to the most complex. For the first 3 “Skills maps” alone, 150 exercise videos are already available, but many more will be added in the future: two more HaBaWaBa School Webinars are in fact scheduled before the end of 2026. It is also possible to download the card for each individual skill in PDF format, so that it can be printed out. TAILOR-MADE TRAINING. Access to CoachingReimagined.eu is completely free. Simply visit the site and you can browse freely through “Skills maps” and drills. However, by registering on the platform — always free of charge —coaches will be able to customize their training, selecting their program's drills one by one. THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE. Waterpolo Development believes that the HaBaWaBa School platform can truly turn into a tool of enormous value for the development of waterpolo worldwide. It can assist the work of coaches operating in contexts that lack a training system for young players or in countries without a great waterpolo tradition, as well as stimulate discussion among coaches in countries where our sport is already developed. All this is achieved by leveraging a tool — online videos — that facilitates understanding in a much more immediate way than any manual or written text. Visit HaBaWaBaSchool.com and discover the potential of HaBaWaBa School: the new way forward for the spread of waterpolo!

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