The question this week comes from Ash, via Twitter: “What is your planning process?“ Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to hear from you! Here’s what you can do: 1. Tweet your questions to us @playerdp, or contact us on our Facebook page.2. PDP Members can chat directly with the PDP team to ask questions, share ideas, and support each other on our exclusive Coaching Community. Start your membership today, and join…
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What role might emotional intelligence play in coaching? In this conclusion to his two-part blog, we follow the personal journey of A-Licensed coach Sam Grace, Youth Development Phase Coach at Reading FC, as he seeks to understand the importance of emotional intelligence and how applying the principles outlined by leading psychologist Daniel Goleman can help coaches. For the past four months, I have been on a mini-journey trying to establish the role emotional intelligence plays in my own coaching. I have done this through…
What are affordances? PDP contributor and associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, Ben Franks shares his work on affordances, what the term means and examples to bring the concept to life. Affordance is a new ‘in vogue’ term, and appears to be replacing the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) as the modern evolving coaching methodology. Similarly to the nature of a CLA, affordances exist – they are properties of the environment that are ‘real’, emerging and decaying naturally. By definition, an affordance is the key origin…
What are team values and how do they influence culture? In the first of a two part feature, International Coach Developer and expert in culture in sport, John Alder discusses the balance of team culture and how often this is an element in team sport where control cannot be exerted and we have to look beyond slogans on walls and team meetings in order to greater understand team dynamics. *John contributed to this article in his personal capacity. The views expressed are his own…
Josh Cullen is a young West Ham player on the rise. PDP Editor, Dave Wright spoke at length with Josh about his long journey through the West Ham Academy, the value of honesty and the challenge of being pushed outside of his comfort zone. Josh Cullen was born in Hackney in 1996. For the first few years of his life, he lived in Bow, East London – a stone’s throw away from the future home of West Ham United, the Queen Elizabeth Stadium. At…
Are you running ‘static’ sessions? Regular PDP contributor and founder of TOVO International, Todd Beane explains the dangers of static sessions and gives some practical advice for coaches to move towards ‘solution’ based sessions. There are voices from locker rooms of false wisdom suggesting that to train we must we must suffer through some rite of painful passage. It is a very macho and misguided notion of how we must make “suck it up” to stack up. It also tends to justify horribly boring training…
The question this week comes from Michelle: “Sometimes I feel like I use Q&A too much in my communication style. Can you talk through the different types of intervention strategies and the benefits of them.” Your Turn: Ask PDP Anything Do you have a coaching question that we might be able to help with? We would love to hear from you! Here’s what you can do: 1. Tweet your questions to us @playerdp, or contact us on our Facebook page.2. PDP Members can chat directly with the PDP…
Systems tend to dominate organisational thinking in the modern age. So how do these systems potentially harm player development and participation? Co-founder of myfastestmile & regular PDP contributor, Mark Upton discusses the dangers of a ‘mechanistic’ approach to sport and the risk we run when working to a one-size-fits-all approach. Amongst a long and enjoyable conversation with a colleague involved in rugby last week, there was a somewhat sobering moment. He intimated his love for the game, evident since early childhood, had eroded to the…
PE Teacher & blogger, Sporticus examines the subject of participation in youth sport, sharing a story about an inspiring young man who took his role of team reserve in the best possible way. But what damage can our own ego and a results driven focus do to young players? Whilst coaching my school football team today a reserve from the opposition side caught my eye. He was a tall lad, who clearly hadn’t grown accustomed to his new height. A bundle of raw energy, he…
Tom Mallinson is a UEFA A license holder who works at Nottingham Forest as the U16 coach. Tom has been part of the staff at Nottingham Forest staff for a number of years and worked his way up through the academy. Tom shares some of the methodology he uses with his players as well as giving us an in depth insight to the club player development approach and playing philosophy. Don’t miss this excellent interview with one of England’s brightest young coaching talents. Show Notes…
The environment surrounding the player must be understood to ensure we help players achieve their potential. PDP Lead Researcher and PhD candidate, James Vaughan discusses the holistic view of player development that the PDP team has been working on as a result of over two years of conversations, interviews, research and experience. Ruben Jongkind is the former Head of Talent Development at Ajax and now works for Cruyff Football. He and Johan Cruyff worked together to implement ‘Plan Cruyff’ at Ajax between 2011 and 2013….
We associate Albert Einstein with physics, but he was also a great teacher. Coach & analyst, Sam Polak discusses what we can learn from Einstein’s approach to learning, creating environments and how we can encourage the development of composed decision-makers. There isn’t a lot that physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson and former American President, Teddy Roosevelt have in common. However, both individuals understood that they could go further in their field by not limiting their studies to just their chosen discipline. Teddy Roosevelt read books…
What are the benefits of learners exploring their environment and self-correcting? How can a coach guide this discovery? Founder of TOVO Academy in Barcelona, Todd Beane shares his excellent blog on the idea of discovery learning. I have six children and thus have personally funded a human laboratory in learning and chaos. Those of you with more than two children will understand this blog. I say more than two because once we have three or more children as a couple we are in a…
How important is adaptability and context in your coaching approach? UEFA A licensed coach, Dan Wright discusses the idea of creating a flexible framework for players to explore and how coaching is never black or white. Coaches like principles when teaching the game, they are a quick and straightforward way to transfer your understanding of the game to your players, but are they dangerous? A few weeks ago, I posted a tweet which discussed a scenario around the passing options of a fullback in a…
How important is self-awareness in athlete performance? John Haime cites examples from both golf & football, discussing the potentially hazardous ‘blind spots’ in an athletes development, how to look out for them and how coaches can support athletes in navigating around these challenging issues. I was inspired to write this article by a quote I come across from a friend of mine, Melinda Harrison, a former Olympic swimmer who specialises in helping athletes transition from the world of sport to their next great venture. “If…
A handshake? How important is it in sport? Sporticus is a PE Teacher, blogger and advocate for positive player development. In this contribution, he discusses the role of the coach to go beyond the game and ensure that values and rituals are respected in the quest to develop better people, and better players. Today’s game turned sour due to a handshake. Or to be more exact, the lack of a handshake. My team had been beaten well in all areas of the game and the opposition had…
PDP Lead Researcher James Vaughan and Research Associate Hanna Eggestrand explore the basic human values that shape coaching sessions and discuss some practical implications for coaches and clubs. Behind everything we do in life, there is a why. Why do people hold certain attitudes and behave in certain ways? Research shows a consistent but often overlooked factor at play here: our values. Essentially, when you ask yourself “why do I coach?” or “why do I coach like that?”, the answer comes from what you value deep down….
Values represent what we believe is important in life. In this article, Research Associate Hanna Eggestrand and PDP Lead Researcher James Vaughan explore basic human values and how they can affect coaching, player development and the world around us. What do you think is important in life? Perhaps not surprisingly, what you value is likely to affect the way you coach, and the way you coach will spread values. Interestingly, research has found that the same values appear in a range of different cultures and…