Love this from @pilly66 @AmyPrice_10 and @TerryMagias on applying game design fundamentals to sport coaching, with really useful practical examples: https://t.co/831fgOikQX pic.twitter.com/sECCYAsD81
— Phil Kearney (@kearney_phil) May 21, 2018
For me, the two most immediate are
…games should be easy to learn but hard to master
And
Learning achievement is rewarded (more…)
What do coaches do?
Once a player has the basics of a batting or bowling technique, the role of the coach tends to revert to the diagnosis and remediation of ‘faults’.
‘You don’t want to do it like that, you want to do it like this…’
Sometimes, perhaps it would be better if we could just leave it alone! (more…)
33 Five- and six-year old children (and 6 or 7 adults – coaches, teachers & teaching assistants), 16 balls, lots of throwing & catching, all in the space of two badminton courts.
I knew one of the other coaches saw danger in the chaos.
‘Could we get them to line up & take it in turns?’
’How about splitting them into two groups, and having only half of them working at the same time?’
But I saw lots of kids taking lots of catches (and dropping some), being aware of what was going on around them, having fun.
I like a (little) bit of chaos in practice. It encourages focus, on the task in front of the players.
Now, I hope it goes without saying that I am not advocating allowing an apparently chaotic situation to degenerate into a dangerous one. But in this case, with a responsible adult for every five children, I really didn’t want to have the kids lining up and taking turns — I wanted to get the whole group active and engaged. I wanted them to think that cricket was FUN!
And at the same time learning how to ‘play nicely’ with others around them.
Sometimes, a little chaos is a good thing!
The Teesra 