Teaching Chris A Skill

Using various information, techniques and theories I have learnt I am going to use them to effectively teach Chris how to perform a new skill in a sport he is not very experienced in.

 

Lesson 1

The skill I’m going to perform and teach to Chris is a drag and step over within football. The muscles that are going to be used within the skill are the quadriceps, gastrocnemius, hamstrings, the rectus abdominus and the obliques. This skill can be used to confuse the defending player creating a ‘dummy’ step over move then quickly changing direction to create space.

Activity – introduce the skill to Chris and let him have a go of the skill enabling him to understand why it is used, how it can benefit his game and knowing the breakdown of the skill.

Video

 

 

 

 

 

I explained to Chris that his ‘game’ can benefited through this skill as when playing it enables him create space and move the ball quickly away from opposition. After watching back the video it is easy to see that Chris is struggling with the skill and I explained to him the breakdown of the skill; this being the dragging of the ball, the step over and the movement away with the ball into space. As it takes an equal effort through each stage of the skill to make it effective, each area needs to be understood and practiced.

As you can see Chris is trying to take in as much stimuli as possible which leads to him struggling to perform the skill as he is trying to process everything around him and what he is doing which confuses his body and he doesn’t concentrate on the information necessary to the skill.

 

Lesson 2

Building on lesson 1 I am going to introduce 2 activities to replicate the movement of the dragging of the ball to let Chris get used to the movement improving on his technique and approach to the skill. Through the repetition of the movement and continuously performing the same action the muscle memory increases; through this the natural reaction becomes more subconsciously performed and the body doesn’t have to think about the skill it just reacts without thought.

Activity 1 of lesson 2 – in this activity I want Chris to move his was down a line 1 legged hurdling whilst side stepping; this activity will replicate the movement of dragging the ball along before the actual step over.

Activity 2 of lesson 2 – in the second activity I want Chris to ‘Karaoke’ down a line; this creating the confusion with the opposition.

Video

 

 

Through the video you can see how the movement within the activities replicates the movements of the skill; with repetition and practice Chris’ body and muscles get ‘used’ to this movement and it becomes second nature to the body which makes the learning of the skill when the ball is at his feet easier. It becomes easier as you learn like this because the repetition creates muscle memory and the muscles act in them specific movements with little thought as it becomes ‘natural’ to act in this mannor.

Lesson 3

Following on from the other lessons and activities Chris took part in; I wanted to introduce practicing the movement with a football making the control and the skill movement more comfortable for Chris. As Chris learned more with the ball through practice it would lead to him becoming better at ball control and the movement building up to the skill.

Activity – I will get Chris to follow the outline of the pitch dragging the ball along it and changing direction following the outline of the pitch.

Video

This exercise replicates the dragging of the ball building up to the skill; it shows how Chris is becoming more comfortable at controlling the ball and shows his improvement from when we started. By letting Chris start the exercise at his own pass it created a bassline that he was comfortable with then by pushing him to move at a higher pass it created a challenge for his which created drive to perform the skill better. It shows how as his body and muscles become comfortable with the movement of the skill he uses the drag continuously as he is moving along in one fluent motion; this enables the skill to look more effective and believable as a confusion to the opposition.

Lesson 4

This final lesson is putting everything together that Chris has learnt and allowing him to practice the full skill showing what he has learnt over the weeks and pointing out any other areas that he could work on with the skill.

Activity – I let Chris perform the skill practicing and even stood in front of him giving him a target (opposition) to ‘fool’ with the skill.

Video

After watching the last video you can see how Chris has developed from the lessons I put him through; you can see how his dragging skill of the ball has developed and he is more comfortable at controlling the ball at his feet from what he was on the second video. It is clear to see that Chris has developed muscle memory and his selective attention is more precise at selecting the valuable information that concerns his skill outcome. Even though there is still room for improvement it shows that taking into consideration the thought of how we process information and by breaking down the skill and getting Chris to work on each individual part of the skill it abled him to develop each area, blocking out useless stimuli and then put the skill back together creating a successful outcome.

 

Skills are unique actions that are performed to complete a task; they can be learnt then adapted to become original and personal to help the individual complete a task with as much ease as possible. Skills are believed to be learnt through information processing models, specifically Whiting’s and Welford’s models. These two models have been most popularly used over the years to design sessions to teach skills and to put across the argument and to prove how skills are learnt.

Welford’s Information Processing Model 1968

Welford’s model goes through the idea that to perform a new skill of a task we take in all the information around us possible that can effect performing the skill; then we prioritise the information and decide whether the information is useful to the situation and if is it is stored within the short-term memory. Once the information is in the short-term memory we compare the information to relevant information in the long-term memory for example pieces of information that may have been useful in a situation similar then a decision is made how to ‘go about’ completing the skill; once this is complete the information is then stored in the long-term memory for future use in a similar situation then the who process starts again when challenged again.

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Whiting’s Information Processing Model 1969

Whiting’s model portrays exactly the same idea as Welford’s model but just categorises it differently. Whiting splits up the process into three sections; the first section is Perceptual Mechanisms, this is where the bodies senses takes in all the various pieces of information from its surroundings. The next section is the Translator Mechanisms, this is where the body and the brain decide on what they are going to do with the information it has taken in and it decides how it want to perform a specific task. The final section is the Effector Mechanisms, this is when the muscular system acts upon the decision made from the information inputted through the senses.

 

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With both Welford's and Whiting's models when performing a skill you will notice Intrinsic and Extrinsic feedback; this is the feedback that alerts you when you have successfully completed a task. Intrinsic feedback is when you personally feel the success of the skill such as in your movement, muscles and joints; an example of this would be when kicking a ball in football when you feel the connection with the ball you know if it was a success or not through muscle sensory. Extrinsic feedback is when you can see the positive outcome of your skill in nature; for example in football seeing the ball you kick travel to a specific area you want the ball to go to or if you are passing to a team mate the ball reaching them.

When performing a skill you need to take in information or stimuli to be able to make a decision on how to go about performing the specific skill, this is explained through the information processing models. A person’s reaction time is very specific to performing a skill especially in a sporting environment for example; deciding what pass to make at a specific time as a quarterback in NFL could be the difference between completing the pass leading to a touchdown or having the ball intercepted. Reaction times are measured from the sign of the first stimulus taken in, to the end of the action performed such as the movement of a team mate’s leg to pass the ball then the end is when you have finished controlling the ball.

Hick's Law 

 

Hicks Law explains that the more stimuli there are to effect your decision making, the longer it will take to react to the situation. An example of this would be in rugby when passing a ball to a team mate if you had to take in the stimuli of your team mates run, if they are ready to receive the ball, opposition around your team mate and opposition trying to tackle you it will take you longer to decide when to pass the ball as you have to consider all those areas.

 

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There are certain areas that effect reaction time such as Age, Sex, Experience, Levels of ability and Anticipation responses. Age effects reaction times because once it has reached its peak as it develops when growing into an adult, as you get older it slowly deteriorates reducing reaction times. Sex effects your reaction times as males have naturally faster rates of reaction but their reaction times deteriorate at a faster rate. Experience plays a big part to reaction times as if you are used to performing the same skill and it is continuously in the same situation with the same stimuli muscle memory will build and you will naturally become faster; for example as a boxer if you continuously train blocking or moving out the way of a right hook, when it comes to a situation in a fight where your opposition throws a right hook you will react to the stimuli at a faster rate. Anticipatory responses can improve your reaction times as they are planning the action that you are going to perform because you are pre-determing the stimuli; an example of this is when a sprinter will try to anticipate the ‘B of the Bang’ of the gun to start the race creating a faster reaction time, on the other hand this can have a negative effect on performance as if you do not anticipate the start of the race correctly you will false start and be disqualified.

Memory

 

When you have learnt a skill to continue to be able to perform that skill again the information collected to perform the skill has to be stored in your memory. You have two different types of memory; you have your Short Term Memory (STM) and your Long Term Memory (LTM). When you start to learn a new skill or decide what to do in a new situation your body takes in the surrounding stimuli into your Short Term Sensory Store (STSS) for example if you were deciding when to pass the ball in football it would be things such as people around you, the weather, the pitch standard, where you are on the pitch, where the opposition is and where your team mates are; this information stays in the area for only a matter of seconds and then it is separated into useful information and non-useful information. The information that is not specifically vital to completing the skill is discarded then the information you are going to use is moved on to the STM. The STM has a limited capacity and can only store a certain amount of information, as the information builds up when the STM gets full the information is used then passed on to the LTM, in the STM is where decisions are made. The LTM potentially has an unlimited capacity of being able to store information; the LTM stores relevant information from throughout our lives and is recalled and used when we enter similar situations an example of this could be when in football when a player takes a free kick from a specific area on the pitch and it is successful when in roughly the same area again they will recall the information that helped them last time, information recalled from the long term memory helps us make decisions at a faster rate as we relate the information and have potentially experienced it before.

 

Leading on from memory and stimuli, as we get better at skills and develop our talents skills become easier to perform through selective attention. Selective attention is when we are making decisions on how to perform a skill by taking in various stimuli we only take in the stimuli that is beneficial to our situation and doesn’t even consider the information that will not benefit us. Continuously training and improving your skills will help you be able to only pick out the necessary information to perform the skill which improves reaction times and speeds up the decision making process that can overall improve your performance in a game.