Do you understand the context of your coaching environment? PDP contributor and associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, Ben Franks discusses the issues around the ongoing unopposed vs. opposed training debate and explains why context is key in a learning environment. Going Beyond the Opposed vs. Unopposed Dualism Unopposed vs. opposed, technique vs. skill – these arguments are forever plaguing Twitter, Facebook and coaching platforms. Some arguments come from theory, others from years of coaching experience, but all seem to be missing a really obvious point: everything pertains to context….
constraints
Luca Oppici; Derek Panchuk; Fabio R. Serpiello; and Damian Farrow The Big Idea If this study does nothing else, it should reinforce a couple of useful ideas hovering over our sporting life. First, there is inherent relevance for the power of field research to inform our sports practices. Second, we are learning that our sporting practices, where possible, need to be as game-specific as we can make them. This study is field-based in both its design and technical sophistication; it is not simulation, but fact-based…
Don’t miss this brilliant Masterclass Discussion with one of the UK’s top coach developers, Ben Bartlett from The FA. PDP Editor Dave Wright interviews Ben on his personal journey into coach education, his strong advocacy of a constraints led approach, discusses coaching methodology, communication styles and how to develop your environment. This is an absolute must watch for any coach. Image Source: depositphotos.com
On a recent trip to the Indian sub-continent between study, football coach & sports coaching tutor at the Queensland University of Technology, Ben Galloway and his best friend encountered a range of constraints that influenced the games they joined in, teaching them some valuable lessons about coaching. A wise man once told me that to become the best football coach, you need to work hard to develop three fundamental things: a deep understanding of the sport of football, an in-depth understanding of learning theory, and a broad understanding…
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…
The question this week comes from Daniel: “How can I better teach my players to move off the ball in order to dominate possession?” 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…
Renshaw, Duarte Araujo, Chris Button, Jia Yi Chow, Keith Davids, and Brendan Moy The Big Idea First off, let’s set the context for this commentary paper. As is the norm in most any profession, there are both historical and continuing aspects to its practice. In the profession of teaching physical education, such is the case. Two of the more popular approaches are Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA). Of the two, TGfU is older, having its origins in the 1960s. TGfU…
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…
Bert H. Hodges and Reuben M. Baron The Big Idea As any reader of PDP’s research summaries knows, the journal selections for these reviews favors fairly recent research. Also, the selections for the most part have an obvious relevance to sport in general and coaching/playing team sports in particular. So why would we give time and space to an oldish paper (1992) that appears by its title to have nothing to do with the subjects our readers are interested in? Because this paper has everything…
Jonathon Headrick, Keith Davids, Ian Renshaw, Duarte Araújo, Pedro Passos, and Orlando Fernandes The Big Idea The time and path of a major storm ravaging parts of Europe can be influenced by the flapping wings of a butterfly in the Amazonian jungle (“the butterfly effect”). So too can small changes in the sub-phases of a non-linear dynamic system of a football game have big later-consequences on the outcome of the game. In other words, small causes may have larger, later effects. In this research paper,…
Duarte Araújo, Christina Fonseca, Keith Davids, Júlio Garganta, Anna Volossovitch, Regina Brandão, and Ruy Krebs The Big Idea Essentially, this publication is a position paper. The topic of the paper is the development of sport expertise. The more conventional understanding of the interactions between an individual and a specific performance environment is to seek explanations for such expertise based mostly on what is going on “inside” the player (referred to as “organismic asymmetry”). The less conventional understanding—and the position taken in this paper—is that too…
Pedro Passos and Keith Davids The Big Idea These authors, Passos and Davids, call their paper an “opinion piece.” Not so. It is an intelligent discussion of ecological dynamics played out in the learning of team sports through the interactive nature of the sport performance. Such interactions include those within the team and between the team and the opposing players. This dynamic continuously unfolds as players from both teams interact with constraints such as rules and boundaries, attempts at coordinating attacks and defenses and counter…
To set the scene for the following discussion on socio-cultural constraints, we start with Ruben Jongkind’s comments made during May 2016’s NextGen Talks. Ruben is the former Head of Talent Development at Ajax Amsterdam, and after working with Johan Cruyff on ‘Plan Cruyff’ he is regarded as a leading authority on Johan’s philosophy. Ruben Jongkind’s comments give a clear example of how socio-cultural (macro) factors influence player development within academies. While most of us are well aware of the problems with a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality, Ruben’s…
The Player Development Project advocates game based coaching and a constraints approach. Football is often over-complicated by coaches and it’s easy to forget how much can be taught within small-sided games where players have to deal with the three key elements of the game – attacking, defending and transition. Academy Coach, Dave Wright has used this session with players from aged 7 through to 17. In this blog post, Dave takes you step by step through this possession vs. progression practice, from the organisation to the different…
How can play impact performance? PDP Lead Researcher & International Futsal player, James Vaughan examines how important play is when it comes to finding solutions in a high performance setting. Last month New Zealand played against the Solomon Islands in the FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifiers in Fiji. Tied at the top of the table this game was the tournament decider, the game that determined Oceania’s representative for the upcoming World Cup in Colombia. Four years of preparation and sacrifice on the line during 40…
Bruno Travassos, Ricardo Duarte, Luís Vilar, Keith Davids & Duarte Araújo This study reinforces the practical results of recent research demonstrating that there is good sense in designing training sessions that correspond as much as possible to skills and tactics necessary for competitive game performances. This study focusses on the conditions we create when we train, and how that relates to the performance on game-day. In the sport of futsal, for example, this study demonstrates that creating more complicated passing options in practice increases the likelihood that…
Simone M. Ritter, Rodica Ioana Damian, Dean Keith Simonton, Rick B. van Baaren, Madelijn Strick, Jeroen Derks, Ap Dijksterhuis This study discusses human creativity in relation to diversifying life experiences – the kind of experiences which shape character – early parental loss, having immigrant status, or even living abroad. A fascinating look into the adaptability of the human mind, and especially how the brain reacts to these often extremely stressful and life changing conditions. Can creativity be a bi-product of these experiences? How does sport play…
Dave Wright discusses the power of play and how a learning environment that allows play and creativity but challenges players to grow through adversity and failure is key to long term success. In issue 1 of Player Development Project Magazine, I wrote an article called Fighting the Fear Factor, challenging the environments that many coaches still create despite the knowledge we have in modern football and coach education. It’s an absolute passion of mine to develop environments for players where they can be free, to learn,…