Hitting the Seam - Ecb

and learn from a wide range of sourcesand the different experiences whereverthey may arise”.Q: A massive emphasis in coachingand coaching research is nowcurrently placed on the ‘how to’coach skills. What does good ‘howto’ coaching look like?“It is meeting the needs of the athlete interms of achieving specific learningoutcomes, planning the types of practicesor games that are deployed, andmanaging the coach’s behaviour to meetthe needs of the player (i.e. when do I tell,when do I ask, and when do I saynothing). It is incredibly complicated to dothis. So good ‘how to’ coaching ispractised where: a coach is planned,prepared, aware of the learningoutcomes, organised, aware of their ownbehaviour, considering the players thatthey are delivering to, and actuallydelivering according to the needs of theindividual and group at that specific time.Everything is underpinned by a reallygood understanding of their athletes anda really good understanding of their sport,as you need to have this understandingfor appropriate delivery.I think there has traditionally been amodel in coaching that presents thecoach as a knowledgeable person whoshould impart knowledge, where thecoach should be seen to be stopping theactivity and intervening, and theneveryone is happy because they havepaid their money for this to happen.However, there are lots of ways todevelop knowledge, and it is not alwaysme telling someone something! Thepractice does it, asking questions does it,players thinking about their owndevelopment does it, and there is a wholerange of ways of developing players, andcoaches should tap into these methods.There is a notion about coaching that it iscoach-led and has to be done in a certainway to be recognised as coaching.Ultimately, coaches do not play thegame, players play the game, so playersneed to be able to work out problemsand face dilemmas in practice and duringgames. Indeed, there is a danger ofcoach dependency. As far as the coach isconcerned, it is really about being ‘anauthority’ rather than ‘in authority’, andthere is a real difference between thesetwo things. The coach will have a level ofknowledge and expertise about the game,and that is a resource that players canuse. It should be about educating playersto use the resource rather than being toldwhat to do by the coach”.Q: If players are at the centre ofcoaching, how can you measurethe effectiveness of a coach?“When I have worked with coaches Ihave talked about giving their playerssomething that they didn’t have whenthey arrived: a nugget of information,something about their technique,something about game understanding,something about lifestyle management,something that when they walked intothe session they didn’t have before. Ifthey leave the session with it you haveadded value as a coach. For me, aneffective coach is someone that is ableto add value, because outcomes andwinning are fickle and not under thecontrol of the coach”.Knowledge andexpertise is verydomain-specificQ: If you attempt to apply thisphilosophy to grass roots sport orcoaching within a participationenvironment, is it more importantfor coaches to focus on playershaving fun or players learning anddeveloping?“Having worked in a participation andcommunity type environment I am alwaysintrigued by the notion of fun andenjoyment, and what these actually mean.If you take a young person and ask them‘why did you have fun?’, it is probablybecause they have learnt a new skill, orthey are able to leave a session havingdone something that they could not dobefore, or they are able to do somethingthat they have seen their hero do ontelevision. For me that is learning andimproving their skills or ability. So clearlyenjoyment and fun are important, butwhat typically gives those young peoplethat fun and enjoyment? It comes fromlearning and being able to do somethingunique for the first time. That is the buzzand enjoyment that children get ratherthan just running around and mindlesslyplaying a game for the sake of it. The realenjoyment comes from that sense ofimprovement, so there is a real elementof coaching and learning within everyparticipation environment”.Q: In light of this discussion aboutplayer learning, what can currentresearch add to the age-old debatearound ‘game-based play’ versus‘technical development’?“Increasingly there are ways to embedskill development within games,particularly within amended ormodified games (Teaching Games forUnderstanding / Games Sense/ Game-Based Learning). However, this doesnot mean that you should neglect skilldevelopment. More often than not youwill watch a game and the reason thatit breaks down is because there is aproblem with the skill rather than thelevel of understanding about tacticaldecisions, about when to perform aparticular skill. So it is the skill thatneeds to be worked on and improved.Therefore, it may be that you strip downthe specific game to a point where it isa skills practice (and there is absolutelynothing wrong with doing that), but itshould not be that there is a skillproblem, and so you get rid of absolutelyeverything and focus just on the isolatedskill. Instead, look at taking away a bit ofthe game at a time. That then allows youto focus upon the specific skill within acontext that is still recognisable as thegame. It may be that you end up withan unopposed skills practice, but youshould have gone through a processwhere you have explored all otheroptions first, so that this is notnecessarily your default option.Then once you see some skilldevelopment and mastery, you shouldstart building back up towards therecognisable game. It should be seen asa fluid continuum where you manipulatethe practice as much as you can whilstkeeping as much of the integrity of thegame as possible to focus on a particularskill”.It is important to acknowledge thatthe issues highlighted and discussedby Dr Cushion represent just oneperspective on coaching, but itwould be unwise to ignore theinsight that research into coachingand coach education can bring.The exciting prospect is how werespond to these real questions andchallenges in coaching.11