15 power moves I learned from a skill acquisition Jedi master!

I am very fortunate to be able to mix with some really excellent people. One of them is Ric Shuttleworth, Elite Coach Development Manager at the RFU. Ric works with professional coaches in the premiership rugby academies enhancing their ability to develop skill in young rugby players. I guess you could call him the 'Yoda' of skill acquisition!

Ric's philosophy is based on the 'Game Sense' or perhaps more accurately the 'Constraints Led' model of coaching. He suggests that skill should never be developed outside of a game like training environment, rather coaches should always challenge themselves to create what the successful Australian Hockey Coach, Ric Charlesworth calls 'designer games' so that players are learning and developing skills while inside a game like context so that the acquired skill is learned in an integrated sense rather than isolated.

Each time I get to chat with Ric I get some new nugget of coaching gold...here are a few that I describe as 'power moves'.

1. Let the players find the solutions.

2. The information should come from them to us.

3. We want mistakes. Mistakes are good.

4. Ask a question but don't expect an answer. Allow the activity to be the teacher, let them find the solution within the activity.

5. Manipulate time and space to create pressure. Players who have played a lot of invasion games are good at this.

6. Information dictates technique - the development of the skill should never be done in isolation of wider information. Otherwise the skill breaks down.

7. Expression and creativity is prized over conforming to a model. Innovation must be part of it.

8. Technique based KPIs are not important. Process is key, how committed to learning are they?

9. Establish the aim of the session based on the problems. List the problems and then work backwards towards the solutions.

10. Work out the methods of learning based on low, medium and high pressure options. Slide between these to illicit the best learning model for the individual.

11. Players want you to be in control. But you must break the control cycle. Don't offer feedback...force them to solicit it.

12. Todays’ generation get told what to do a lot. They are not used to making decisions.

13. Try to Structure 'unstructured' practice.

14. Encourage the players develop the games or solutions or constraints to solve the problem. Make them critically evaluate tactical approaches and make decisions accordingly.

15. Create repetition without repetition.

Check out this video I found of the F2 Freestylers tranfering their skills from football to rugby. I know that some of these things take a number of takes but they are impressive none the less!

10 ways to help children develop a growth mindset

Professor Dweck is clearly very busy at the moment, she has recently given a TED talk in scandanavia which you can see below. This has prompted me to develop 10 practical ways to help developing a 'Growth Mindset' which should help when working with children and young people.

My 7 year old son came up to me recently and asked me how he could improve the drawing he had done...maybe the work I have been doing is paying off!!

• Avoid labels - "you are smart", "you are clever". Focus instead on how they do what they do.

• Get them to explain their process "tell me more about how you did that, what was the strategy you used?"

• Explain to the child that the brain is like a muscle which benefits from training. The brain can be trained through trial and error. The secret is to persevere and to fall in love with the struggle.

• If they do something that is easy for them and they are expecting praise, offer them an 'opportunity' to stretch themselves by saying, "I want to give you the opportunity to show me how well you can learn".

• Apologise for creating a game or practice that isn't challenging enough for them. You will know it is working when they say to you..."we don't do easy".

• Ask them if they want the easy task or the harder one. Use this as a test to see if they are on track.

• Use the 'horizon strategy' to keep the achievement of the task just out of reach but still visible. Give them checkpoints so that they can still see their improvement.

• Explain that you are less interested in them getting the answer right as much as you are interested in how they got to the solution.

• Create an award for the 'top struggler'. Reward the person who has tried the hardest and had the most fails.

• Always explain that you can't make things easy because easy isn't fun. You want them to have fun and the fun comes from working hard at something.

Some great podcasts I have been listening to recently...

As most of you know I spend a lot of time in the car (mostly schlepping up and down the M40 to Twickenham and back) and podcasts are my saviour. Not only are they a great way of passing the time but they are also an excellent way of me keeping up to speed with new research and also provide me with my own personal self development radio station.

I thought I would share a few of my latest favourites...

The 'Coach Your Best' podcast by Jeremy Boone has had some excellent guests on it in the last few episodes. The latest offering featuring Amanda Visek that looks into some research which categorises how children define fun within their sporting experience was particularly interesting http://www.athletebydesign.com/avisek1/

I really enjoy the 'Sports Coach Radio' podcast hosted by Glenn Whitney he has had a number of excellent guests but my favourite recently has been Dr Ross Tucker who has a fascinating discussion on the limits of human performance http://sportscoachradio.com/sports_science_ross_tucker_28oct14/

Ari Meisel is a productivity expert who runs a brilliant website called 'Less Doing - More Living' his podcast is pretty eclectic covering a range of subjects from productivity to health to fitness. This interview with Nina Teicholz exploring the misinformation that we have all been sold around dietary fat for the past 20 years is a real eye opener (her book is on my Christmas list) http://lessdoing.com/2014/11/10/podcast-99-with-nina-teicholz-of-the-big-fat-surprise/

That's enough for now but there will be more to come...

All the best

Stuart