The Teesra

Category: cricket

  • 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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  • One more time

    We were spoilt by the weather yesterday. This was the view as I arrived for work on Saturday morning, just before 8 am.

    https://twitter.com/theteesra/status/1111902292595355649?s=21

    It has gone cold again, today. Of course it has! The First Class game has started already, and the more ambitious clubs will be venturing outside in the next week or two. It has to be cold, and windy (or cold, windy and wet) for the start of the new season!

    I think it must be in the Laws, somewhere, or perhaps the Spirit of Cricket?

    But this ECB video, from 2018 (with a cameo appearance from a friend), set me thinking about the new season, and getting ready for one more time around.

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  • Not many answers…but learning to ask better questions

    When I first started posting to this blog, the strapline I chose was “in search of innovation in cricket”. I believed (hoped) that it should be possible to find novel solutions to coaching and technical issues.

    Over the years, it has become apparent that there are probably very few absolute answers. “It depends” seems to be the standing response from researchers and experienced coaches. Even when an answer is correct today, new research, new knowledge, might mean that by tomorrow that answer might no longer be true.

    So perhaps the best I can hope to do is to learn how to ask better questions.