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!
Some of you may know that I work as a Talent Academy Coach which is a great experience as I am have the privilege of working with some pretty awesome young people who are constantly surprising me with some of the things that they are able to do.
The Academy programme is breaking new ground because for the first time the u16 and u18 age groups are being coached together and also boys and girls are in the session working together as well. As you can imagine this makes for some interesting planning challenges
We allow the players to explore challenges and develop solutions to problems that we put in front of them. As coaches we work to manipulate things like space, player numbers and tasks to present the players with challenges and to see how they respond to them and learn to adapt.
So here is my quandary...
"What do we do when a player doesn't even have the fundamental skills required to be able to explore the solutions?"
The challenge we have is that there is quite an ability range so pitching the activity is quite difficult...too much of a stretch and they they are so internally focused on getting the basics right that they aren't really able to find solutions effectively...too easy and they begin to drift off and don't stay focused on working through the challenge.
I recently tweeted this great article by gymnastics coach Anne Josephson which outlined '35 secrets of brilliant coaches' which got a lot of interest and I thought I would share number 28 as I found it useful to help me with this quandary.
"28. Give plenty of time for new skills to develop. Brilliant coaches allow at least eight weeks for athletes to learn a new skill. As the athlete progresses in the sport that time frame will actually get longer, not shorter, as the skills are increasingly complex".
I think that this is a problem that many of us face in our coaching. We are too quick to move on. Whether it is in the interests of wanting to provide variety so players don't get bored or because we know that we have a lot to get through and need to move on we don't allow the required time for skills to become ingrained...and we are then frustrated when the players don't perform the skills effectively in the game.
Another great source that a looked to for answers is Doug Lemov's latest book " Practice Perfect" which is a gold mine of highly practical suggestions to assist with all aspects of coaching and practice design. The book is split up into a series of 42 'rules' and right at the start in rule number 2 is an idea that makes total sense to me. The authors refer to 'Practice the 20' where they suggest that we should focus in on the "20% that is going to provide 80% of the value".
So these are the conclusions I have come to...
Don't be in too much of a rush. The players are ready to move on when they are ready to move on.
Work with each athlete individually and help them to identify their 20% development area. I do a lot on 1 to 1s with players during breaks or at the start and end of the session to get them to focus in on thier personal development area. I can then reference this throughout the session with a nod or quick 'hot review' during the session.
Be relentless in reaffirming these focus areas even though we might feel like we need to add variety and move on.
Create opportunities for repetition of these skills without it becoming repetitive. Vary the activity while still working on the same skill or development area. You can tweak the same activity just a bit to challenge ina different way.
Be clear on your own mind on what is the 'critical path' for the athlete or athletes and help them stay on that path.
If you have any other thoughts I would love to here them.
Happy Coaching
P.S. My mission is to try and share my experiences with as many coaches and parents as I can so if you found this mail useful at all then please help me to reach some more people by sharing this.
After my debut podcast with Jeremy Boone (aargh do I really talk like that!?) I got a question from a coach called Jeremy Taylor who is the Director of Rugby at Denstone College, a top rugby school in England. (Jamie has an excellent blog check it out here)
"Stuart,
Listened to your podcast with Jeremy Boone this morning, really enjoyed it.
If I can ask, I was really interested in what you said about consequences during games. I was wondering what sort of consequences you have been using. How you felt it had affected the level of competition and if there were any situations that you aren’t using them?"
This article is based on my reply....
A lot has been said about the use of consequences in practice and I do know some coaches and governing bodies who do not like the concept. use of the word consequences conjures up images of kids being 'beasted' or punished which is an understandable fear but from my perspective I think it is an essential tool which, if used skillfully, can really aid in the development of skill and performance.
For me consequences create an outcome which creates intensity (see my previous post on that) and intensity creates mental engagement which builds skill. Too often I see players going through the motions by training in a way that is not game realistic. It is not surprising then when they get to the fierce competetive arena of the game that the skills break down. I hear coaches talking about this all the time when they talk about players 'reverting to type' under pressure. 'Reverting to type' is just inadequate preparation in by book.
Consequences create pressure and pressure creates a training environment that is closer to the real thing.
So how do I do it...
I like to use a mixed diet of consequences depending on the group or the situation. Just to be clear I only use consequences in training and practice activities not competitive games.
My favourite technique is to get the players to come up with the consequence themselves. A couple of weeks ago I asked the group to create a forfeit and they came up with singing! It was hilarious to see the losing team perform a rendition of 'let it go' from Frozen to the other team who all got their camera phones out to video it!
Another week, they decided that the losing team had to cook for the winning team at a forthcoming team social evening. Wow that was a doozy!
The other thing I do is use ongoing internal leagues so that as we get towards the end point of each league and the players are aiming to win or avoid losing the intensity rises.
At the start of the season I use physical consequence to build conditioning into training sessions. I use it as a way of 'gamifying' sessions that are focussed on the basics. It is always done with the players agreement as I ask them if they agree that conditioning will be important to achieving our goals and then I ask the to choose if they want conditioning within the session or separately (they invariably pick conditioning included). We establish the perimeters of the exercise together and set the goals. They then agree what they will do as a consequence if they fail to achieve their goals. It is amazing how high they set the bar!
If I do use a physical consequence, I present it as an opportunity to improve our performance by being fitter and stronger than any other team in our league. I find that getting the players training with the fear of the conditioning prepares our mindset and means that we are gritty and tough in games because we have been through worse in training.
I can't stress enough this aspect of 'selling the why' before going down tis route. The use of consequences has to be congruent with their goals but, used well, it is very powerful. I I have also found that this approach really builds team cohesion and develops team spirit as well as building character in young players, the sense of challenge and overcoming adversity is something that really grabs hold of some players.
I hope this helps
Happy Coaching
Stuart
