I'm back!!
Sorry for my enforced sabbatical, I have my head down writing a coaching strategy document for England. That is done now and I am pleased to get back into blogging.
I have some new material in the pipeline but in the meantime I thought I would share this great talk on mental toughness (or more accurately, resilience) from Dr James Bell. I have had the privilege of working with 'Belly' at the RFU and he is fantastic to work alongside. He has the ability to take the academic content and turn it into practical resources that can be used and applied by people in the field, I have learned a lot from him.
This talk is borrowed from the great people over at sportscoachUK as part of their talent development series and is well worth a watch. The section about how they used consequence based training is particularly interesting and has been something that has featured in my coaching for some time.
I will be in touch again soon
Wow what a summer of sport! I haven't been able to sleep properly because the the orgy of human excellence that has been on the TV until late at night. The stories, the drama, the passion. Just amazing...
And the Olympics was just the starter. The Paralympics came shortly after...that's when we really got to see the triumph of human dedication, perseverance and excellence...the main course!
I do love the summer holidays... there is always some sort of festival of sport on offer that the whole country gets excited about. When I was at university it always seemed that the sporting gods had put on some major event which made it impossible to revise!
For my children it was great too...they were going to all sorts of sports clubs and activity camps and they got to experience a whole range of different activities...I got really jealous!!
My son Evan went to a weeklong cricket coaching camp...'The Freddie Flintoff Academy". What an eye opener to see 8 year old kids in full cricket whites with kit bags, pads and everything! Evan was the poor relation, he has only played windball cricket so far (I only coach windball cricket because a lot of my kids are pretty new and trying to catch a hard ball would put them off...not to mention the amount of times some of them try to catch the ball with their face!!)
But this environment was different, these kids were serious about their cricket (or at least the adults in their lives were serious about their cricket!) and they clearly knew what they were doing. The coaching was also designed to meet the needs of these kids. There were no taster sessions on offer here, the players were doing proper cricket stuff.
Now Evan really likes his cricket and he is doing quite well, but up against these kids he looked like he was a bit of a newbie. That said he really did enjoy the week and he did improve. He took great delight in showing me his catching or the shot he had learned that day or his latest bowling technique.
He had been taught techniques and he had improved...
Yes he had been TAUGHT techniques and he had IMPROVED!!
This stimulated a conversation with my wife one evening at the dinner table...it felt a bit like a boxing match...
I am paraphrasing here but it went something like this...
First she worked a good ring position...
"Look Stu, I know you are really into your coaching and your talent development stuff and you don't believe in teaching techniques and all that but don't you think that Evan should be better than he is?"
Then she got me off balance by leading with a strong jab...
"...I mean, some of those kids are really good and they are younger than him and he has a dad who is a sports coach and works in coaching and player development, shouldn't you be doing more to use your expertise to help him improve?"
Then she went for the killer overhand right....
"Aren't you worried that one day he will look back and ask you why you didn't help him more and make the most of his potential?"
Boom! knockout! my legs go from underneath me like a giraffe on ice!
I am laying on the canvas. I am wounded. But I know I have to get up and face my opponent, make it clear that I am not totally beaten. But here is the problem..I am reeling, my head is spinning. I have questions attacking my consciousness (and my ego!)
I am thinking...'what if she's right What if I am being arrogant that I know better, what if the science turns out to be wrong and I am letting him down, what if his development is delayed and I am crippling any chance of him having a career in elite sport?'
Then I realised that it was my lizard brain talking, my emotional brain was in control and I wasn't thinking straight.
To borrow a phrase from Dr Steve Peters, my chimp was angry!
I needed to give my chimp a banana, to calm it down...
The banana came in the shape of my research...
I remembered the hours of reading and study I had put into this, I remembered the stacks of books at my bedside, I remembered 'The Complexity of Greatness' by Scott Barry Kauffman, 'The Sports Gene' by David Epstien, 'The Goldmine Effect' by Rasmus Ankerssen, Peak: The New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson, 'Helping Children Succeed' by Paul Tough and 'Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverence' by Angela Duckworth
I remembered the articles I had read recently like this summary article on research into super Champion's and almost champions by Dave Collins, Aine MacNamara and Neil McCarthy.
In particular, I remembered the contrasting quotes from two of the athletes in this study...
“My parents were not really pushy,” explained one super champion, whose response was representative of her peers. “It was a kind of gentle encouragement …they didn’t get [overly] involved. They’d just come and watch me, support me. But they never wanted to know what I was doing training wise and never got involved in that way, and that helped.”
The parents of almost champions, however, were an ever-present factor, hovering over their every move.
My parents, my dad especially, was always there, shouting instructions from the touchline, pushing me to practice at home,” remembers an almost champion. “Really, I just wanted to be out there with my mates. I felt like sport stole my childhood.”
I remembered this study into children's sports specialisation that I read recently which suggested that...
"Current evidence suggests that delaying sport specialization for the majority of sports until after puberty (late adolescence, ∼15 or 16 years of age) will minimize the risks and lead to a higher likelihood of athletic success".
and...
"Young athletes who specialize too soon are at risk of physical, emotional, and social problems. Athletes may become socially isolated from their peers and may have altered relationships with family, overdependence on others with a loss of control over their lives, arrested behavioral development, or socially maladaptive behaviors.4,14 Specializing early with intense training can lead to overuse injuries, which can cause pain and temporary loss of playing time or may lead to early retirement from the sport."
I also remembered this research dissertation I had come across by Kristoffer Henriksen at the University of Southern Denmark and this story about a young female footballer...
"I remember specifically a young girl a soccer player who had enormous potential, and who left her local club to join a bigger and more prestigious one. Her soccer career was on a roll, but everything else suffered. All her time was consumed by training and transport, and she felt she was falling behind in school. She felt she had let her old friends and teammates down and no longer felt comfortable asking them to play a friendly game of backyard soccer. And she felt an enormous pressure to succeed. In sum, she felt alienated in her own environment. When she came to me, she was in tears and close to giving up soccer altogether."
I remembered this article I read about the issues with pushy parents in ice hockey....
"It’s official. Parents have just about killed the fun of playing team sports.
They’ve done it with technique clinics, personal trainers, elite travel leagues, pricey tournaments — fine-tuning kids for athletic glory before they’ve amassed a respectable archive of knock-knock jokes".
I thought about the blog post from John O'Sullivan of 'Changing the Game Project' about the dangers of the overzealous parent and their likelihood of making kids drop out of sport where he describes a conversation with a young player...
“I just can’t take it anymore coach,” a talented but underperforming player named Kate told me a few years back. “I think I am done playing...It’s my dad. He loves me and I know he only wants the best for me, but he just can’t stop coaching me, in the car, and from the sideline each and every game. I can’t play when he is around, and he insists on coming to every game, every road trip, you name it. It’s like it’s more important to him than it is to me".
And I thought....they can't all be wrong...
So I rallied, I composed myself and I countered...
"You might be right about this and I could be wrong...but let me just map out the consequences of me taking this approach versus the approach you are advocating..."
"..if I am wrong the worst that could happen is that our son doesn't become an elite sportsman..."
"...if I take the other approach and teach him, if I push him more and get him more focussed, then the potential consequences are much more severe...he could hate sport altogether, he could drop out, he could get injured but the thing I am most fearful of is that it could damage my relationship with him because he feels the pressure of my expectation and I don't want him to feel like a failure if he doesn't live up to that expectation."
"...he is 8 years old...he is a child...he has the right to be goofy, to play, to choose when he wants to play sport and when he doesn't. He has the right to fail and to try out different things, he has the right to be free from my expectations and choose his own path...he has the right to be a child"
"...I have spend countless hours studying this stuff and I think that this is the best chance for him to achieve whatever his potential might be is for me to allow him to fall in love with sport, to explore the sheer joy of it, to develop friendships through it, to understand challenge, to be come curious and then at some point in his middle teens he will come to me and say...'Dad, can you help me...I want to get better?'...and that's when we take it up to a new level...that's when he accelerates past all of these other kids that look so good now but have plateaued and got bored'.
"... I am not prepared to roll the dice with my future relationship with my son just so that he can 'keep up with the Jones's".
From the perspective of the boxing match I felt like Muhammad Ali coming back off the ropes against George Foreman in the 'Rumble in the Jungle', Pow!...rope a dope...I am the greatest...etc..etc
That said...
I'm not sure how much of a dent it made. She gave me that look where she rolled her eyes at me without actually rolling her eyes (I call it the 'no eye roll eye roll'). I think she filed it away in her brain in a folder called 'things to say I told you so about'. (she probably didn't but my paranoia has no limits!)
It really got me asking myself some questions...
How many other parents fall into the comparison trap and look at other kids of a similar age and make judgements about their child's ability or potential and then question why their child isn't as good?
How many other parents are struggling with these issues but because they don't have the information to fall back on find themselves doing things that go against their better judgement?
How many 1000s of kids all across the country are toiling under the expectation of adults who don't necessarily mean to but don't know any better?
How many parents are putting pressure on their kids without understanding the potential consequences?
Are we guilty of allowing the rise of an industry that makes false promises to vulnerable people and encourages children to be spending all of their time in so called 'talent academies' that are nothing more than modern day 'workhouses'?
The great Muhammad Ali (RIP) once said
"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe".
If my son or daughter ever want to try and climb the mountain then I will be by their side supporting and guiding the journey every step of the way.
If he doesn't get there it won't be because I was that pebble!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like my ramblings and would like to get these posts beamed straight into your inbox then please click here to sign up for the email list. I promise never to spam you or pass your details on!
[endif]--![endif]--
This is Jason Williams, he plays in the NBA for the Miami Heat. I saw this video on YouTube and was blown away. Not just because of the techniques he displays and his obvious ability but also because of the tremendous awareness he shows to be able to make some of the passes that he makes. People would look at this stuff and call it flashy and unnecessary, I would argue that they just don't understand the skill that is involved and they don't understand how this kind of unique mind works and how they see the world.
I decided to look into his backstory a little and discovered that he has the sort of story that we have come to expect from this kind of prodigious player. he came from humble beginnings, had a problem with authority, made a lot of bad choices and has probably underachieved as a result.
As the blog 'Jockbio' tells us...
"A combustible mix of high-maintenance personality and hi-test talent, he went through schools, teams and coaches faster than halfcourt traps—until he found love and success in Miami. For most of his hoops career, Jason embodied one of basketball’s most perplexing questions: Why make the easy play when you can spin 360 degrees and throw a behind-the-back no-look pass? Why indeed?"
It resonates with so many stories that I hear about talented players and it brings me back to a recurring theme that I talk about all of the time.
How often do we see players with amazing ability, struggle because they are unable to cope with the challenges presented by their environment off the court? What if we could give them the tools to manage themselves in that environment earlier? Could we then turbo charge their abilities?
The irony is that kids from more privileged backgrounds grow up surrounded by the sort of guidance that is necessary to thrive as an elite sportsperson but often they don't have the ability or the hunger to do what it takes to make it. While those with the ability and the drive don't get that kind of support and as a result they are ill equipped for this kind of life and can behave in ways that restrict their development and they don't become as good as their ability.
As my good friend Jamie Edwards from 'Trained Brain' will often say, "it's like asking these kids to climb Everest wearing nothing but a pack-a-mac...they just aren't equipped for the journey".
So many of these amazing athletes fall by the way side...that might be OK if you have enough talent coming through the system...the cream rises to the top as they say.
But if you have a small talent pool, you can't afford to lose players with ability like this. You have to find a way to support them and guide them. You have to give them access to people with the ability to create environments that are going to allow these types players to become their best...and as Mark O'Sullivan has written about on his excellent blog...you have to give it to as many as possible for as long as possible.
This is a resourcing issue for some, they assume that they have to have loads more athletes in various stages of the talent pathway and it will cost a lot.
This is limited thinking, it is based on the flawed assumption that more will equal better... like a farmer who thinks that if they buy a load more seeds then the quality of the crops will be better (or at least some of the crops will be good enough and the ones that are will make up for the ones that are lost).
But what if they invested in the farmer?
Invest in the farmer that can nurture the crops and create the environment for more of them to thrive and protect them from bugs and parasites so that some of the ones who would otherwise perish are able to become strong and productive.
If we provide the right support and training to the people at the centre of the developmental journey then for a relatively small investment we can see this returned to us multiple times through the athletes that they guide and produce.
But when I look at many talent systems and pathways I just don't see this. I see most of the resources going into funding the activity and a relatively small amount going into investing in the people at the centre of the activity.
And the further down the pathway you go...the more acute the issue becomes.
This is why talented athletes often refer to themselves as 'lucky' that they met someone who guided them on the journey who had the skill to give them the tools....
If only there were more of these people out there...then it would be less about luck and more about inspired planning and well thought out talent development investment.
Maybe one day people will understand that investing in the talent coach is a far better long term investment than investing in more of the same activity for a chosen few.
Maybe....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to get my blog posts beamed straight into your inbox then click here to sign up to the email list and I will make sure you never miss a post.
