The Teesra

Author: Andrew Beaven

  • Socio cultural constraints…not something I ever expected to blog about…

    Socio-cultural constraints – how a player’s social and cultural background influences learning behaviour…not something I ever expected to blog about.

    However, translating frantically, if we were to say that the coach really should try to understand where the players come from, then this becomes a little easier to put into practice.

    Two recent examples:

    • with a 10 year old girl, county age group, lots of advice from different directions, all well intentioned but sometimes contradictory – “smile sweetly, say ‘thank you’, take on board everything you have been told…and find out what works for you“
    • with an 11 year old boy…challenge their logic, challenge their pride – “what happened then? did it work? can you do it again? and what can you do next time to get an even better outcome?”

  • Beware – too much input!

    There have been several interesting conversations recently on the coach’s use of silence – keeping quiet, and allowing the “game to teach the game”, and refraining from constant interruption and instruction.

    In particular, I enjoyed a post from ImSporticus – The Way of the Silent Coach.

    An ideal, perhaps, and certainly applicable to matchplay.  I think I would struggle to maintain the silence through a practice session, however.

    I might adopt two minimalist, almost value-neutral interventions, ascribed to Ric Charlesworth, on watching a “trial-and-error” session:

    • “fair enough” (“you tried, it didn’t work out this time”)
    • “good” (as in “you have demonstrated the desired outcome”)

    That’s all.  Leave the player to get on with the game.

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  • “To see ourselves as others see us” or “what do you look like?” Some thoughts on coaching demonstrations.

    I took some video footage last week – any thoughts on what this “young” bowler might want to work on?

    This wasn’t meant to be an exercise in self-analysis, however – rather, I wanted to try out a camera and techniques for filming a bowler in action, and then to generate some footage to practice video analysis.

    But perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the exercise was the insight into what a player would see when I demonstrate a skill. I can’t say that I would want anyone to try to copy (all of) my bowling action, after seeing it in this clip!

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