Game sense — more than just “common sense”?

I like games; I enjoy modifying games; I do believe in the power of cricket games based learning to develop cricketers who are technically competent, tactically wise and mentally prepared.

But in truth, I do still struggle to understand the many different flavours of games-based coaching.

So I was very interested to listen to a recent podcast* from Risto Marttinen & Stephen Harvey with Shane Pill, of Flinders University, in which Dr Pill explained some of the key features of the Games Sense Approach (GSA) to coaching, and how it differs from Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and the Tactical Games Approach.

I won’t go into a detailed review of their conversation — listen to the podcast! — but there are a few points that have started to make (more) sense of the various approaches to games-based coaching, for me.

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The Constraints-Led Approach…what is it, really?

I have just finished reading “The Constraints-Led Approach: Principles for Sports Coaching & Practice Design”, by Renshaw, Davids, Newcombe & Roberts.

A really interesting read, as it attempts to make sense of CLA for practicing coaches. Taking the concepts beyond the realm of sports science ‘pracademics’ and showing how they can be applied on the practice ground by coaches without a Sports Science degree.

And this title is only the first in a promised series looking at the application of CLA to coaching in a range of sports.

Although, if I was to be critical of anything, perhaps describing the title as “…a vital pedagogical resource for students and practising sports coaches, physical education teachers and sport scientists alike” maybe misses the point.

This is certainly not “An Idiot’s Guide to CLA”, but “The Constraints-Led Approach…” is the “how to…” manual that coaches (should) have been clamouring for!

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That. Yes, that!

Really interesting article in the current issue of the Harvard Business Review, on “The Feedback Fallacy — why feedback rarely does what it’s meant to”.

Thanks for the share, @davidhinchliffe

As coaches, I think we have all been there — “no, don’t do it like that”; “great, I like that!”

The article investigates why giving feedback based on our own definitions of “excellence” can be ineffective, or even damaging to the recipient.

And even gives an explanation, based in neuroscience, as to why affirmation can be more effective than praise.

The role of the coach is (should be) to draw excellence out, not to hammer it in!

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