Athletic performance can improve and one can be learning.

Athletic performance can decline and one can be learning.

So, “Perfect practice makes perfect” – learning. Regardless of how “Perfect” our practice is, performance can and will go up and down, but learning can be maximised.

To get close to perfect practice the practice must be with purpose; “Deliberate Practice”.

Richard Bailey introduced me to a good definition of “Deliberate Practice”.

Deliberate Practice = Practice + Feedback
+ Variation
+ Observation
+ Mindfullness
+ Context

So, coaches, teachers, parents and anyone interested in creating learning environments and “Deliberate Practice”, if we can develop our feedback skills, provide variation within our practice sessions, create opportunities for our learners to watch practice and learning taking place, engage our learners (mindfulness) and do all this in a relevant context then we get closer to, “Perfect Practice”.

Have you ever asked someone the question, “Why are you doing it that way?”  A common answer to this question is, “I have always done it like this.”  This is then often followed by, “It gets the job done, this is how I learned and it worked for me!”  Does this mean it is the best way?  Considering this further, do we really just want to just get the job done?  Do we want competence or do we want performance?  Athletes want performance and as coaches we are trying to support them to this end.  Maybe we should be additionally looking at other ways if performance is our goal.

So, returning back to our discussions at the Army, what other interventions can  coaches make which may take our athletes beyond competence and into performance?  Our discussions continued until this question was posed, “If performance is our goal, who needs to know when their technique is faltering?”  Initially it was decided that the coach needs to know, however, as the discussion progressed, it became clear to everyone that actually the people that ultimately need to know are the athletes themselves.

In the context of the Army, “If you know where your enemy is, then you can control and manage that situation and the threat is decreased.  If you don’t know where your enemy is then the situation is much more difficult to control and manage and the threat from that enemy is increased.”

This same analogy can be applied to athletic technique: what you know about your technique you can control, what you don’t know controls you.  Therefore, as coaches one of our jobs is to understand technique, but more importantly help our athletes understand their own technique.

How do coaches understand technique?  They read, observe their athletes, talk to other coaches and amongst many other ways they could also observe videos of good technique.  How do coaches help their athletes understanding of their technique?  They can ask questions.  Answers to these questions will highlight to both coach and athlete the athlete’s level of understanding.

Traditionally, coaches are supposed to tell their athletes where they are going wrong, or perhaps show their athletes where they are going wrong.  Asking questions aimed at raising their awareness of what is happening is a tool which perhaps is a little under used.  Asking questions may seem long winded, wouldn’t telling or showing be much quicker?  Well, yes, it may well be, but often lessons learned through experience are the lessons where greatest understanding is achieved.  Questions can help to magnify those experiences so greater learning takes place.  Just ask yourself the question, “what is the biggest lesson you have learned up to this point in your life?”  Then ask yourself, “how did I learn that lesson?”  “Did someone tell me?”  “Did someone show me?”  “Was this lesson something I learned through experience?”

So, coaches, I challenge you to continue to tell your athletes, I challenge you to continue to show your athletes and I also challenge you to ask a few more questions aimed at helping to shine light on their experiences so more learning can take place.

When coaches talk about improving technique you hear various mantras.  A popular one often heard is, “Practice makes perfect” shortly follow-up with, “Perfect practice makes perfect”.  Let’s look at, ‘Perfect’.

Our son Jack is learning all the time.  He is now 9 ½ months old.  As I watched over him the other day it became clear to me that learning the wrong, (imperfect) way to do things was just as important as learning the right, (perfect) way.  Imperfect practice was progress.  Often we place him on a few soft blankets on the floor, on his back, with a few toys around him to reach out for and play with.  When he first started to reach out he started to work on the, ‘Roll Over’ technique.  This involved swinging his legs up in the air and over to the side, which created some momentum for him to then roll onto his front and reach.  The, ‘Roll Over’ at this early stage was performed with poor technique.  He would roll over, get as far as his side and each time trap an arm underneath his body.  He continued to practice imperfectly, and as time went by it seemed to me that he learned more about where his arm was and how it got there.  In effect, he learned very well how to get his arm in the wrong position.  By knowing what was so wrong, it was an easy step to know what to do to make it right. 

Picture this scene, you are going on holiday, travelling by car and it’s the good old days before, ‘sat nav’. You get to within a mile or two of your holiday destination and then there is the slow draining realisation that you can’t find it.  So being as prepared as you are, you take a look at your map.  There is however a big problem.  You have all this information to hand but not the slightest clue where you are on the map.  You need to know this wrong place so that you can get to the right place.

Jack learned through what coaches term feedback.  Feedback can be broadly categorised as, Intrinsic Feedback and Extrinsic Feedback.  Extrinsic Feedback, is feedback which is given from an external source.  It could be amongst other things, advice from a coach, a video of a performance or encouragement and support from the spectators at a competition.  Intrinsic Feedback, is feedback that we can use and is available to us all the time.  We have Auditory Feedback, (what we hear).  We have Visual Feedback, (what we see) and we have Kinaesthetic Feedback, (what we feel).  Jack learned through using his intrinsic feedback, his kinaesthetic feedback. 

So, we have already established that for our SJAC sessions the children must be involved in activities that are fun and engaging.  So why do I talk about Intrinsic Feedback?  Well to learn using your intrinsic feedback, you have to be engaged in what you are doing.  You have to be aware of what you are feeling, seeing and hearing.  Coaches can help athletes engage and use their intrinsic feedback by being skilled at asking questions.

Questions like:

                How much noise did you make each time you landed?

                What did you do to increase your speed?

                When did you feel your body lean change?

                Where did the power come from?

                Tell me how that felt different?

                Describe what you changed to achieve that result?

                How far away did your foot land?

 Notice that these are all questions that demand that the athlete is engaged and they are questions that also encourage descriptive responses.  The detail within the response will give an insight to both athlete and coach as to how much awareness the athlete has.  How well do they know where they are on the map?  If these questions can be sprinkled within the context of a game like activity, then we have an athlete that is having fun and is engaged in learning at the same time.

Fun and engagement is essential for learning but the desire to want to learn has to be there as well.  When Jack was lying down with his toys around him, some were not motivating for him to try and reach as they were too far away.  Some were too near, so there was no need to reach at all.  Some were just far enough but also near enough to provide the right amount of challenge.  Jack continued to reach because he was achieving success all the time reaching one toy and then going for the next.  Continued success encouraged continued motivation.

So, if you want motivated athletes that are enjoying what they are doing and engaged in their learning, create successful situations, fun situations, and engaging situations.  Challenge appropriately, play games and ask more questions.