Category: practice

Many thanks to @ImSporticus for including this post in his weekly round-up of re-posts — it generated quite a few comments.

This, from Phil Kearney: “As a means to move away from a “versus” mentality, I really like Whitehead’s description of freedom (play) and discipline (practice) as “…two rhythms, now one of which is louder, now the other, but both have a place at all stages in development”

https://twitter.com/kearney_phil/status/922801656957493248?s=21

In the iCoachKids MOOC, “Coaching on the Ground: Planning, Doing and Reviewing”, coaches were challenged to review their coaching practice.

I have looked at my use of the coaching tools themselves, and of the spectrum of practice types, Blocked-Variable-Random.

In this final section, I wanted to look at the question of Deliberate Play vs. Deliberate Practice.

The design of “deliberate” (or “purposeful”) activities (all coaching activities) should include:

• structure;
• clear progression and challenge;
• outcomes (“if you don’t know where you are going to, how do you know when you have arrived?”).
• coach feedback and/or opportunities to reflect on performance and the relevance of the techniques (technical, physical, mental, social) to the game.

But is it deliberate practice, or deliberate play?

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