I wanted to write quickly about my experience with a video analysis product I've recently been working with and learning about at the AIS. SportsCode is software that allows users to capture, code, edit, analyse and make movies - in most cases, using footage of training and competition. If you're unfamiliar with it, this video gives a great explanation and demonstration of what it is and how it can be used.
What I've found is that one of the greatest advantages of the product, can at times be a disadvantage if you're not careful. The software is incredibly flexible, the only constraints when choosing what information you want to retrieve and analyse from your footage is your imagination. However you can quickly find yourself trying to look at so many things at once, that you easily miss things or even forget about the sport as a whole and what you're actually trying to get out of it.
Between myself, the football program's technical director and a staff member from performance analysis, we are currently working to create what is called a 'coding window', which will be enable us to gather all the information we need, yet still be user friendly to our inexperienced selves. I think one of the first things you need to do is determine what you actually want to look at within the sport. For us, it begins with the 'four main moments in football' and from there deciding which particular instances will be helpful and actually mean something to the coaches and players which we present our finished product to.
This is just one of many video analysis software products going around and I just wanted to quickly write about my experience with it. Have you ever used SportsCode or a similar product?
To finish off, here's a video where Dublin Football talk about their experience with SportsCode - giving views from coaches, players, management staff and analysts.
Leading on from my last post and still using the Nike commercial series, I wanted to highlight another genuine coaching issue which I feel emerged from the series. From the video below, you can see that as coach, Bryant was dealing with some highly-succesful 'athletes'. All these people are considered successful in their relevant industries, all possessing similar and differing qualities, or skills if you will. Not so different to dealing with any team sport, no?
This idea of coaching athletes who are so to speak, at the top of their
respective sports really got me thinking. The talent and ability that some high-level athletes possess
may often go above and beyond what a coach can actually 'teach' as such - so
how does the coach's role change?
I read a review of this idea by James Marshall in his "Secrets of success with
high-level athletes" article. Marshall gathered his
thoughts from several presentations at a North American Society for the
Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) conference and also
references some great articles. Marshall suggests successful coaching of
high-level athletes involves a more supportive and cooperative approach. These
athletes need to have a larger part in the goal setting and structure of their
training, as opposed to the do-as-I-say approach with beginners.
Similar to the strategies used for skill development throughout
the cognitive, association and autonomous stages of learning, Marshall likens
these to the Hersey-Blanchard
Situational Leadership Theory on adaptive management styles
used in business. The theory suggests that based on a combination of competency
andwillingness
of people, the leader (or coach in our case) would be required to do one of the
following:
Directing: Appropriate for people who have limited
skills and need to be told specifically what to do.
Constant feedback is required to allow such people to gauge their
progress.
Coaching: Needed when a person has certain skills, is
keen to train and can progress on certain tasks without supervision. Once they
have reached a certain level, they need new challenges.
Support: For people who have some idea of what they
want to do but may need help with the process. They are not as competent as
they may think just yet, so they will need guidance.
Delegation: is for people who have reached a level of
competence in their skills and have a clear idea of what they want to achieve.
They want to retain contact for occasional feedback, but see themselves as
partners rather than subordinates.
Situational leadership allows for the development
of individuals along a path from high dependence, through interdependence to
independence.The model is task-specific and therefore
high-level athletes may still require direction/coaching for instance
when teaching new tactics or formations. While these players maybe be beyond
competent in skill, they may not have experienced particular tasks/methods
which a new coach may bring.
The ability of a coach to adapt their
coaching role to athletes is increasingly important in team sports where
individuals within the team will have different levels of competency across
various tasks and therefore require differing levels of coach
involvement.
Marshall leaves us with four recommendations for
coaches:
1.Plan the entire
competition cycle, including individual training sessions
2.Communicate the plan
clearly and regularly, and listen to what players have to say
3.Involve the players.
High-level athletes require more involvement in their own development than beginners
and should be allowed time for self-regulated practice. Experienced players,
such as the team captain, may be involved in team selection issues
4.Adapt to the
realities of the sporting situation. If things work well, do more of them, but
if something isn't working, change it. Having a plan does not preclude the need
for flexibility, and injuries, funding problems and venue changes, as well
as the highs and lows of sport performance, all call for an adaptable, flexible
approach.
That's all from me for this post, make sure you have a read of the
articles I linked to and I encourage you to share your thoughts.
As
the name suggests this post is an attempt to catch up on all the content that
has been passed onto us thus far. Apologies for the length of it, but bear with me!
Here is a photo from my trip to Finland. It is the national sport - Pesapallo (Finnish Baseball) The coach uses a multi-coloured fan to call plays, and his team use their bats to make signals to represent that play (as shown). One of the most confusing and fascinating sports I've ever witnessed!
Before I get started though, quick bit of
house keeping - I've now got an account on Linked in. I'll be using it as a professional e-networking tool and a
way of connecting.
The Final Countdown
Firstly I'll respond to a blog post by Sam Lyons - a wonderful post about his
journey as a Slalom Canoe racer entitled "The Final Countdown". One of the first things that grabbed me
was the coming to terms with some of the realities of life, in terms of goals
that can't always be reached. I can remember being a young and naive football
(soccer) player and thinking "Well, if I don't make it to Arsenal, I'll
just play for some second division German team or something.." - not to
say in any way that Sam was naive in his goal to be an Olympic champion. As I
got older I realised how absurd that assumption was and the finite number of
players that actually make it as professionals. I see the same thing now in my
work with the AIS football team. These 15-16 year old boys have been identified
as some of the most talented young players in the country, and the reality is
not all of them will make it - it's a harsh reality given the commitment that
they have to the sport. This raises the expectations of the coach to bring the best out of these players and give them the best chance of succeeding. The second thing that got me was the mention of the
adversities he has faced in the form of injuries. Once again it is something I
can relate to as when I was 16, moving up to the level of a more serious U/18
Premier league competition I suffered a torn hamstring. I was out for most of
that U/16 season and the following year my leg was broken. It was hard to
recover from these injuries psychologically as much as physically - getting
back into it I found I couldn't play at the same level I could previously, and
I found myself hating playing a sport I had lived and breathed for the majority
of my life. It took me a while to change my thinking into "Well, football
will always be there, it's not going anywhere, I can spend the next few years
just focusing on my studies and try to further myself to the point where I can
have a job in the sport". I think it's important for athletes to succeed on an educational/career path as much sport due to the number of things that could take professional sport away in the blink of an eye. The last thing that I found very interesting was that one of his biggest highlights was his sisters promotion into Division 3. My
older brother is the main reason I got into football. One of my highlights was
being able to play in the same team as him only a couple of years ago. We truly
are a product of our environment - the more I think about it the more I realise
how much he has had an effect on me, from the music I listen to, to my
determination to succeed in what I do, as he has done.
I think that the "product of our environment" philosophy can be
directly related to coaching - in both the way we coach, and the way that this
translates to the resultant effect we have on our athletes.
The Coach as a Performer
In week 4 we turned our focus to the coach as a performer. This includes relating coach performance to being just as important and often accountable for athlete performance as well as styles of coaching/teaching.
Starting off lightly, here's a bit of a satirical take on different types of sports coaches, although to be honest, they aren't far off with some.
Here however is a slightly more academic approach by Theresa Echtermeyer from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America on Coaching Styles and How They Impact Player Development. Echtermeyer outlines 3 styles of coaching. 1. The Authoritarian (aka Commander/Dictator) - An outcome based approach where the athlete's role is to respond to the coach's commands. We saw a clear example of this in Nikolay Karpol the Russian volleyball coach. 2. The Casual Coach (aka Submissive/Babysitter) - An approach where the coach takes a back seat and lets the players make all the decisions. Often used by less experienced coach's or in instances where the outcome is of lesser importance. 3. The Cooperative coach (aka Democrat/Teacher) - An athlete centred approach where the coach facilitates and the athlete is encouraged to participate in the decision making.
Each approach has varying advantages and disadvantages, and at the end of the day, each approach can lead to successful athlete performance - both in process and in outcome. A classmate of mine - Trent Hopkinson further discusses this in Coaching Approaches blog. Another of my classmates - Leigh Sherman also shared some interesting thoughts on the dynamic nature of coaches and the requirement to get the best out of each individual in a team in his Are Players the only Performers in Sport? blog.
If I relate this back to my own experiences with the AIS football team - I've observed that the coaches are often more vocal in terms of direction during matches than the opposition coaches. A common difference between the AIS team compared to opposition teams is that the majority of the AIS athletes are 15-16, whereas opposition athletes are on average 19-20 and often older. I think that given the athletes age and their introduction to the National Youth League (a far different game to what they're often used to) that more direction and instruction is necessary. I believe that in usual club circumstances, the athletes should receive enough direction and coaching during training sessions that during a match the instruction to players should be limited to pre match prep and half time talks - with the odd instruction here and there. I feel this way because I think the athletes at that level should by then have a pretty good indication of their role and be able to self-adapt to changing circumstances - if they don't, I think the coach hasn't done their job.
Week 4 Tutorial
In our most recent tutorial, we all joined in on some basketball fun. Keith took us through a session which involved easy ways of forming groups, different ways to communicate, useful methods of modifying simple games into sports and monitoring participant performance/enjoyment. It reminded me a lot of the Active After-school Communities program initiative by the Australian Sports Commission which is intended to provide primary school aged children access to free sport and other structured physical activity. I think it is an essential course for anyone intending to work with children or even just coaching in general. They offer a whole range of tools and resources as well as support.
