I was reading this great article from Ash Smith over at www.superhumanperformance.org which was all about how kids developing amazing abilities by challenging each other and trying to outdo the last trick or skill they have performed.
It took me back to my childhood when I used to invent games with my brother and freinds to play in the park or the garden and I recognise now that this helped me to develop my abilities in a big way and also were the first steps on my coaching journey.
Essentially, I was using a constraints based model for game design without knowing it!
For example one of the games was a garden cricket game played with a golf ball and a really thin bat we called 'Golf Ball Nightmare'!
Golf Ball Nightmare (GBN) was so called for a couple of reasons..
1. It was a golf ball and if it hit you in the shin or on the knuckle then it hurt which was a nightmare. There was a healthy element of fear involved!
2. We played towards the house and if you caught one with the bat then it could hurtle towards the patio window. The bowler had to be brave and stop the ball from smashing the window so as to stop us from being grounded for the rest of our lives!
The game was intense but it was one of the best games we played, we would play for hours and took great pleasure whenever we smashed each oher on the shins and laughed as the other person hopped around holding their lower leg!
The reason the game worked was because it was brilliantly designed!
We started with the player experience...what did we want from the game?
We wanted to all have a go at batting regularly so the game had to be hard so that people got out a lot.
It had to have fear so that we could show our bravery or laugh at each other when we got a bit hurt but it couldn't be too dangerous or we wouldn't want to play.
You had to show skill to stay in bat.
Everyone needed to be involved, fielding is boring so we needed to make sure that fielders had some skin in the game. They really had to be on their toes to stop the windows getting smashed and us all getting into really deep trouble.
The golf ball bounced more realistically than a tennis ball.
Most of this design happened by accident and we made up most of the rules as we went along, modifying and tweaking the way it was played in order to make it harder or easier, more dangerous or less dangerous.
A big part of the fun was making up the rules and coming up with the game formats.
Jane McGonigal is a game designer and she talks pasiionately about the role that games and play can have to enrich our lives. I can definitely align with that!
I am left thinking how much the youth sports experience is like this.
The vast majority of kids aren't playing garden games like this anymore as they are so hooked into video games that are designed by very smart people who spend their lives working out ways to make their games more fun and more addictive so that the kids want to play again and again.
So our challenge is to think like these super smart game designers and try and beat them at their own game. We have to create really 'sticky' activities that they are going to want to do again and again.
So here are some questions to ask yourself when you are designing your activity?
Is everyone engaged?
Is there a challenge that makes them strive to go beyond their abilities?
Do players get loads of goes or do they need to stand around and wait?
Does the activity require them to solve a problem?
Do they have to think about solutions themselves and work it out or do they get given the answers?
Do they get feedack that encourages the effort in trying rather than just praise which encourages not failing?
Does it simulate the game effectively, is it realistic to what they will confront when they play in matches?
For some of us, thinking through these activities and coming up with games or activities that answer these questions is a really challenge...
So I will give you a couple of secrets...
1. Just use trial and error.
The first go at anything is rarely the best version so be prepared to flex and improve as you go. Some of my best activities have come from me having to solve a problem in the session because something wasnt working and making a tweak that made the whole activity loads better.
2. Get the kids to design with/for you.
Kids are really creative and they love designing games. They will come out with some crazy ideas that you won't even think of, you can then distill these down into something that will be really good. I often ask the question "how can we make this even better" or "how can we make it harder". The answers are usually genius.
Some people are fearful of this because they think that they will look like they don't know what they are doing?
I would answer like this...
Do we want to look good...or do we want to get better? Do we have a Growth Mindset as coaches or do we have a Fixed Mindset?
I will leave Trev Ragan from www.trainugly.com to reinforce the point.
Get out there and coach ugly!
This is a guest post from Darren Cheesman, an ex international hockey player who is now a full time Talent Coach and Talent Coach Developer. Darren has been chirping at me on Twitter to finally write the book that I have been threatening to write which has been useful motivation and work has started.
Darren is really passionate about coaching, developing coaches and also developing talented players. The post is a really great insight into his approach which I hope you will all enjoy!
For more information about Darren you can find him at https://dc17coaching.wordpress.com/ or on twitter at @darrencheesman
Over to Darren....
It's a cold winter’s night and I’m a player for a premier league team. I turn up for training and go through the motions. I love training, always have, but tonight just didn’t do it for me and I can’t honestly think of a single thing I learned, nor did I take myself out of my comfort zone once.
This happens too often, and it happens way too often with sessions I see at all different levels. In a bid to make sure this happens as little as possible in my coaching sessions, I’ve tried to centre my philosophy around the concept of creating competition.
Why?
If there is something to win, the players tend to focus more on how to win and therefore solve the problems the session is asking.
How does it work?
Before deciding on whether to award points or not, I first need to figure out whether I want the session to be around technical shaping, increasing the pressure on the skill execution, or preparing for a match.
Technical shaping:
If I award points during a technical shaping section of training, the players will be conscientious about failing and therefore missing out on points. They will also feel a little hard done by if it takes them a little longer than others to get to grips with the concept or principle. Within technical shaping, I reinforce the effort (not the success) of the individual / unit in trying to execute, and probe about how they can improve.
Increasing pressure:
Once the players have a good understanding of the skill, principle, or concept, I award a points system that will reward players able to deliver under pressure. The competition means the opposing team are likely to be doing everything possible to stop you from gaining points and therefore you have to solve real problems in the quest to win the game.
Preparing for a match:
Skill acquisition and principle clarity sessions are about developing the player’s ability. It is about giving them the space to express themselves while developing concepts. There are times though when we are preparing for a match with specific roles and responsibilities in order to gain an advantage over our opposition. In these situations, points are rewarded to the players / units / team who can deliver those roles and responsibilities best.
This essentially means that there are parts of each session that are not for points. Players are told to make mistakes and express themselves. They are encouraged to do what they can to push themselves outside their comfort zones in order to truly master the skill, principle or concept. Then, there are other parts of the session where points are on offer and it’s time for them to focus on the execution of that development.
It’s noted down at the end of each session who has gained points and these are accumulated until the end of a given period. At school that period is end of a half term, with Futures Cup squad it was at the end of our 5 session training block, with other teams that period will be different.
The winner is then presented their prize and it’s a chance for them to be recognised as someone who focussed and works hard in training, something often overlooked.
One of the big things I learned from my time playing for Oranje Zwart in Hoofdklasse, the Dutch Premier League, was that training was made so hard and competitive that matches felt easy.
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
