The Teesra

Category: Ecological dynamics

  • What is the role of the coach?

    I have just completed a fascinating online course from the Open University, hosted by Future Learn — Sports Performance: Different Approaches to Sports Coaching. Highly recommended for all coaches.

    As part of the course, we were asked: What is the role of the coach?

    • Do you think coaches should never give instructions or should they be encouraged to reflect on just how much instruction they provide?

    I have seen the former proposition formulated as “Every time you give an instruction, you steal a decision.”

    But sometimes there might only be one right answer, and instruction is the most efficient and effective route to that solution.

    So I much prefer “a brave coach intervenes when he has to” — I don’t see it as a brave option to withhold knowledge in pursuit of a non-interventionist ideology.

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  • NLP, ED, CLA — coach’s glossary

    I have written previously about my conversion to non-linear pedagogy (NLP) and a constraints-led approach (CLA) to skill development. I believe it works, and, for me, CLA simply feels more honest (and interesting) than the “coach as instructor/guru” approach — “do it this way because I say so” or “…because that’s they way we have always done it”.

    But there is a lot of jargon used to describe the NLP, CLA, and related concepts, which can obscure the simplicity of the approach.

    What follows is my attempt to translate some of the jargon into non-academic language. There will be oversimplification and error, I don’t doubt. But hopefully it will be of interest to a coach coming fresh to, CLA, NLP, ED etc.

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  • Is there a third way? Coach as “learning consultant”?

    Is there a third way? Coach as “learning consultant”?

    There is an ongoing, sometimes rancorous, debate in the coaching world as to the relative merits of “instruction” and “discovery” learning.

    From, on one side, those who want to line players up behind cones, and have them take turns to replicate skills demonstrated by their coach.

    Or those who set up games and leave the players to work it out for themselves.

    OK — two grossly inaccurate, “straw-man” descriptions of coaching practice. But not uncommon in the darker spaces on Twitter.

    Perhaps more accurately:

    • Direct Instruction, which, however it is conceptualised, seeks to inculcate the Instruction.
    • Ecological Dynamics and non-linear pedagogy, exemplified by the constraints-led approach, sees the coach creating a learning environment from which movement solutions “emerge”.

    But what if the role of the coach was thought of differently. Neither “instructor” nor “environmental designer”.

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