Talking about the CLA — do we need to mind our language?

Last week I attended Playing by the Rules: Using the CLA to your Advantage, a fascinating event hosted by Alex Lascu and Alex Sarama.

Part workshop, part therapy session, covering a range of issues with adopting a constraints-led approach (CLA) in coaching.

The conversation in the room was very interesting, but I wonder if some of the language was overly complicated.

Perhaps we need a new way of talking about the CLA?

Playing by the Rules — an evening of CLA conversation.

I have known Alex L for several years (before she was Dr Lascu, indeed) through her enthusiastic championing of all things CLA in her social media posts, but this was the first time we had met in person (“irl”, as I believe the young people write…).

Alex Sarama is the author of Transforming Basketball: Changing How We Think About Basketball Performance, and another keen advocate of the CLA.

So, although I struggled to find the venue, in an impressive new-build block overlooking the Olympic Park in Stratford, I was amongst friends when I finally got there!

Using the CLA — why doesn’t everybody?

I mentioned the “therapy” element of the evening.

One common theme that emerged was the challenge, reported by several of the coaches, of how to describe to others what we are doing when we coach with the CLA, without seeming to blind them with science.

Challenges included:

• convincing athletes that they could still learn if the coach was not in full-on instructor-mode;
• recruiting fellow coaches to the CLA, when they are often initially sceptical of any practice that doesn’t look like a drill from the manuals;
• delivering a CLA-style practice session in front of coach developers in a career assessment, or to potential employers in a job application, when they are clearly expecting something more traditional.

That night, after the workshop, I dreamt of uncontrolled manifolds and cuisenaire blocks. I don’t think it was a nightmare, but I was lost!

I didn’t have the blonde hair (or the petticoats)…but yes, that’s it!

— Andrew Beaven (@TheTeesra) May 24, 2024

I do believe that (some of) the words we use to describe the CLA are as much a hindrance to understanding as a help when talking with the layman.

And that we might need a new vocabulary.

Towards a new vocabulary of CLA

Perhaps we need to consider the coaches’ responsibility to help the players (also fellow coaches & parents) learn to navigate their new environment.

I tend to think in terms of “challenge” and “opportunity” (or “solution”) in place of “constraint” & “affordance”.

— “What do you need to do if I make the task harder?”

I certainly don’t see it to be the role of the coach to prescribe solutions.

I am with Alex L on this — I would never claim to have all the answers, especially for something as personal as perception-action coupling (“see ball-hit ball”)

I can make suggestions, point out obviously challenging solutions (“batting with one hand on the bat handle might make it more difficult to hit the ball”), but it’s the player who has to see the opportunity (see the ball) and exploit it (hit the ball into a gap in the field).

So the role of the coach, beyond creating the challenge, is to help the athlete identify opportunities for new & better solutions.

Not “if this, do that”, but what sort of “this” do you need to look out for, and where you might need to look for “this” so you can react?

If the CLA coach is an “environmental engineer”, setting challenges for the athletes, perhaps we should then expand the role to include coach as learning consultant, helping them find their own best solutions? Or, even better, perhaps, coach as co-explorer, navigating through the learning space with the player?