One of the things that I hear a lot about in the world of kids sport is the need for children to experience more 'back yard' games. When people talk about this this they are harking back to the days where kids played street sports or messed around in the parks and developed skills without adult supervision.
It is that perfect cliche of the sports pundit, "when I were a lad...we used to use jumpers for goalposts..." etc etc. Paul Whitehouse captured the caricature perfectly when he created the character 'Ron Manager' in the excellent 'Fast Show' (they don't make comedy shows like this anymore...it was better in my day etc, etc).
In 'The Talent Code', Daniel Coyle argues that this form of spontaneous play has been cited as being behind the success of the Brazilian Football team who's best players are said to cultivate their excellent ball control playing small sided, reduced space games in the 'Favelas', the shanty towns that make up the superbs of most Brazilian cities.
While this kind of character is created as a way of poking fun at the older generation that always think that things were better when they were growing up it appears that they may have a point in this case!
Scientists now suggest that this model of development is more effective from skill retention perspective. It seems the oldies may have been right all along!
Researchers have now suggested that skills can be better learned 'implicitly' using trial and error and a large number of repetitions allowing the player to develop novel and inventive solutions to game problems which means that they develop techniques that would not otherwise be taught.
This concept of 'Implicit Learning' or 'Experiential Leanring' has been defined by Seger (1994) as "learned complex information without complete verbalisable knowledge of what is learned"
Put in the language of normal people implicit learning is...'getting good at something without being told how' or 'learning by doing'.
The suggestion here is that coaches and parents should 'get out of the way' of players attempts to perform skills as the solutions that they might come up with could be far more effective or innovative than the existing techniques that we might teach them.
As sports continuously develop, the skills of today may not be relevent in the next 5 or 10 years and so teaching them what we consider to be the 'fundamentals' might be irrelevant or actually be counter productive.
So how do we apply this?
The Australian Sports Commission's 'Sports Coach' section on their website has some interesting thoughts on this subject and make a series of really useful suggestions which I will simplify below:
Explain the skill requirements by analogy or metaphor so that the need for explicit verbal information is minimised — for example, "instead of saying trap the ball with soft hands" you could say "let the stick kiss the ball".
Use task-related instructions — for example, when training tennis players to anticipate the return of serve, researchers found that players told to predict the speed of a serve improved their performance in predicting service direction more than players given specific instructional tips to facilitate the prediction of service direction
Get players to perform a secondary task while performing a primary skill — for example, requiring basketball players to listen to music on a walkman, and sing aloud while shooting free throws may take the focus off technical execution and allow implicit or subconscious processes to control the skill.
Design games using different scoring systems, boundaries or rules restrictions that require players to use particular strategies to win the game (a ‘game sense’-type approach). Allow them time to determine the most appropriate strategy/response rather than explicitly telling them the specific solution at the commencement of the activity.
A word of caution here...don't go throwing the baby out with the bath water!
Some researchers have cast doubt over whether the full range of learning is taking place in this model and have called for a skillful blending of the 2 approaches to ensure that learners are getting the best possible experience.
This is not a call to have coaches saying nothing during training sessions but it is a call for coaches to become highly skilled at using the right interventions at the right time to maximise the learning of the players.
There are a number of techniques that I would use here to ensure that learning is taking place which I will categorise in the next post.
Those people who are subscribed to my email list will get these techniques before everybody else so if you are the impatient/curious type please feel free to join the community and I will make sure you get the follow up sooner!
All the best
This week I had the pleasure of being asked to speak at a seminar organised by my good friends Kendal McWade and Steven Orr. The seminar was entitled 'Creating a Skills Revolution' and headline act was Professor Gabriele Wulf, a researcher from the University of Nevada who has dedicated her career to studying skill acquisition and in particular a concept called 'Attentional Focus'.
I was the 'warm up act' before the main event and I have to admit to being a little bit apprehensive. I am usually pretty confident presenting and speaking but on this occasion I was suffering from 'imposter syndrome'. I was actually listening to a brilliant podcast called 'The Art of Charm' while travelling to the seminar that morning which covered the topic of 'imposter syndrome' which is the challenge you face when you are in an uncomfortable environment where you feel out of your depth among high calibre people and you don't perform at your best as a result. Fortunately a bit of self talk and some good preperation saw me through and feedback was good. Kendal telling me i had less time than I ahd planned also helped as it focussed me in on the task at hand. I'm not sure this was on purpose or not but either way it worked!
Anyway, less about the warm up act and more about the main event...
Professor Wulf described the extensive research that she and colleagues had undertaken exploring the concept of 'Attentional focus' which she defined as being where attention is directed when performing any kind of motor skill. Essentially, a person can have an internal focus where attention is directed towards parts of the body such as the hips, knees or shoulders or you can have an external focus where the focus is directed towards something external from the body such as a target, head of a golf club, tip of a javelin etc.
Professor Wulf showed numerous studies that came up with the same outcome that being given information that directed attention to what the body was doing was no better than being told nothing when it comes to skill acquisition and retention where as when attention is directed towards something external to the body, skills are acquired much more effectively and also retained over time.
So the austrian ski instructor that shouts "bend ze knees" is actually not doing you any good whatsoever! They would be far better to suggest that you sit on an imaginary chair or something similar.
The video in this post shows a golf teacher using external focus cues to help players strike a ball much more effectively. Notice how he has the first player addressing a ball that is close to them but then striking a ball that is further away and the verbal cues around rhythm such as 'tick, tock' reference to sing the club head. The students are aware of where the club head is and have no idea of body positions or anything else and yet their swings are dramatically inproved and show real athleticism.
But how do you direct a pupil externally in a sport where they do not use an object or peice of equipement such as in athletics or swimming? Again the research showed performance improvements when using external focus cues versus internal cues. An emphasis on 'pushing in the blocks' is way more effective than 'driving the legs' and likewise 'pushing the water away' is far more impactful than 'pulling the hand back'.
So how does this work?
Professor Wulf pointed to research done by her colleague Dr Rebecca Lewthwaite which suggested that there is a neurological response to being given an internal focus cue that makes the player too consciously aware of their movement which then becomes restricted and less natural. She described this phenomenon as 'micro choking' to describe movements becoming more limited and less natural through the awareness on the body.
Dr Lewthwaite also suggested that an internal focus can lead to a player becoming more focussed on the SELF which leads to a value laden personal evaluation of themselves which can become detrimental to confidence and skill execution.
Here are a few other quick and dirty takeaways that I thought were worth sharing...
There might be an interesting idea that the more novice the player that the closer the internal focus might be. More skilled players seem to benefit from being focus on the target or the finish line rather than something closer to them.
Being focussed externally is actually more efficient. It uses less muscles!
The external focus can be somehting that is actually touching the body. Using a piece of tape or a piece of clothing and focussing attention on that was preferable to an emphasis on the body part that was attached to these items.
The results are the same even when the performer is under pressure. The research team created scenarios which pressurised the athletes but each time those that were directed externally outperformed those that were directed internally.
Being focussed externally taps into automatic responses and reflexes which seem to be more effective in movement control.
Being given instruction that focus's on the body is no better than not being given any instruction at all when it comes to retaining the skill.
Give this a try when you are next coaching. It is surprisingly hard to avoid providing information that directs focus internally. Try to remember that the research suggests that doing so is actually not worth the breath it takes to do so because any improvements you make in the sort term are not retained any more than they would have been if you hadn't given the information at all!
I have been thinking about and studying feedback recently and looking into the ways in which it could or should be used most effectively. This is the first post in a series dedicated to feedback over the next few weeks.
I stumbled across this video by Eric Duffett of www.mindfulballer.com and it summed up much of what I have been exploring.
What I take from this video is how often we are well meaning in our feedback but in actual fact we can be creating unintended consequences in the reciepient that can have far reaching consequences.
Negative or corrective feedback is very pervasive and you will come across it everywhere. An interesting experiment I once did was to keep a log of the instances of positive and negative feedback I experienced through a given day....it was very interesting!
What I came to notice was the very subtle negative feedback that people exhibit subconsciously through tone of voice and body language. People are often saying one thing with their words but are actually putting out a very different message with their tone or body language. I have seen it a lot at work where people are trying to be positive in an attempt to align to the company's leaderhip culture but are given themselves away with the way they say things.
One of the best things about the talent coach role that I perform is that I can be observed and get some feedback on my coaching. Following the first session in theis new role I got some really valuable feedback on my feedback (?) that was pretty challenging and really made me pause and reflect.
The feedback posed a series of questions for me to consider...
Value of the vocal contribution during activity?
Value of Commentary v Thought out Specifics ?
Value of not speaking during practice?
Value of constant motivational speak during practice?
Value of feedback during practice?
Value/necessity of instructional speak during practice?
Value of speaking a lot in interjections/stoppages?
I have always been a pretty vocal coach (probably goes with my personality which isn't shy in offering an opinion!) and I believed passionately about using my voice to create a motivational climate for the players.
I am also really keen on the concept of providing 'hot reviews' while the session is going on so that players pick up on learning moments at the time rather than reflecting afterwards when the situation might have passed them by.
This feedback really challenged that...
It took me a good while to process it and for a little while I found myself in a bit of limbo, not sure when to offer information and when not to.
So what have I learned or applied since? As usual 3 quick takeaways....
1. Be careful of over doing it
On reflection I realised that this was the first session and I was trying to build rapport quickly with the players and probably over cooked it. I liken it to overacting in an audition! Since then I have been refining my feedback and have defininitely been more circumspect in my interventions.
2. Pick your moments
I do a lot more 1 to 1s with players very quickly after a specific action which means I am not constantly subjecting the players to a barrage of vocal feedback.
3. Allow space for 'implicit learning'
It is far more powerful and skillful for you to design tasks that allow players to display that they have taken on a particular concept and therefore learned it 'implicitly' without the need for a vocal intervention.
This prompted me to start to study my own behaviours to see if I could become more aware of what I was putting out there and further refine my feedback and communication.
I have made an investment into some sunglasses that have a built in video camera so that I can record everything I am saying and doing while I am coaching. I intend to use this as a means to identify areas of imporvement in my feedback and to see what things I do well.
I will post my findings here and share them with you in future posts.
Happy coaching