How can we practically introduce ecological dynamics into age grade coaching?

A great new paper came out recently looking at an area of interest of mine; being an interested reader of ecological dynamics approach to sports coaching, I’ve always questioned and been curious as to how this can be both implemented and be well received in HP sport coaching. Carl Woods and Sam Robertson have been heavily involved in investigating and practically applying the theoretical framework across various sports, most recently rugby union. This recently written paper “offers a unique insight into how a professional Rugby union organization set out to ground their preparation for competitive performance within an ecological dynamics framework. This paper details how the Queensland Reds designed and integrated a set of attacking game principles that afforded players with opportunities in practice to search, discover, and exploit their actions. While this paper offers insight specific to Rugby union, its learnings are transferrable to coaches in other sports looking to situate their practice design within an ecological dynamics framework” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349608734_An_Ecological_Insight_Into_the_Design_and_Integration_of_Attacking_Principles_of_Play_in_Professional_Rugby_Union_A_Case_Example/stats)

Woods and Robertson have been supportive and welcoming (I hope!) of my many emails asking questions around the application of the framework and ecological dynamics within sport as a whole. My research background looks at the importance of coaches understanding players motivations and what they are typically trying to achieve within sport, an important foundation for integrating player led methodologies such as ED approach; Woods recognised and discussed this cross over as important as we as coaches need to understand and support athlete’s capacity to explore what works, what doesn't and how features of a task design can be re-designed. As I remind coaches, programs, methodologies and ideas in coaching are all cyclical; methods and practices should always be reviewed, discussed and adjusted based on the needs of the athletes.

Woods and Robertson with others, quoted “performance preparation is context dependent” in their Heads Up Footy paper. This quote nods its head towards my opinion that the role of performance coaches for HP athletes is highly important; coaches are “preparing athletes for consistent high-level competitive performance” (Côté, 2009) through effective tactics such as integration of professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge and developing player’s specific competence, confidence, connection, and character needs on regular basis. Therefore, identifying the mentioned cross over, understanding athlete context along with motivations or reasons for being involved in sport while acknowledging the importance of the role of developing the player as a person and not solely as an athlete, critically important for new age athletes and when using player autonomous coaching methodologies such as ecological approach.

I have previously written and expressed my concerns as to how age grade coaching has become coach centred as opposed to player led. Speaking to coaches within rugby and other age grade sport, the perception is that there is a massive gap in player leadership, ability to have played led environments and even tactically aware athletes, capable of making their own decisions due to knowledge of the game. Discussing these ideas, Woods highlighted a great point as to how coaches should guide athletes for knowledge of or in the game; from an ecological perspective, knowledge is not just something to be transmitted by second-hand information (i.e., from a coach-as-teacher - indicating ABOUT) but is something to be directly experienced for oneself (i.e., coach-as-guide - helping someone to discover information for themselves - indicating OF/IN). My opinion and what I have written in the past; coaches should assist players to identify problems as opposed to solving them, offering ideas and assistance for how to think and act as opposed to offering solutions which allows an athlete to explore personal understanding of subject or sport in question, assisted with relevant, timely and challenging feedback from coach or mentor when called upon by the athletes. This idea echoes the idea of placing the individual-environment interaction at the core of learning designs as mentioned within McKay paper.

I believe strongly in an ecological framework or constraint based/modified games learning environments for a few reasons; firstly, as a parent, I want to see kids having fun, being imaginative and creative while testing themselves in a dynamic environment which looks like the competitive game we train for. I believe this shall help increase participation, reduce injuries as training in dynamic formats while teaching players in the game as opposed to directions from coaches of the game. Also, in regards to drill based, heavily coach driven exercises, I feel we can correct technique while strengthening player-coach relationships through meaningful conversations and rapport yet this could be left as a last stage, allowing the player to self correct or peer correction, which can help develop leaders or “next generation coaches” in the game also. I just feel we are constraining ourselves as coaches by our previous experiences and memories of the game as opposed to following player creativity or imagination and should allow us to see what skills and techniques players use and develop from progressive attunement to offered practice design. What can we do as coaches to both develop and encourage this level of awareness and skills needed?

A quote from the “Heads Up Footy” paper, involving Woods and Robertson amongst others, highlights the importance and the difficulty of developing this coaching style and methodologies:

A key challenge for coaches is understanding how to create conditions within practice landscapes that afford opportunities for athletes to continuously self-regulate their coupling of perception and action

As I watch the warm up matches to current British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa, I have been re-watching the Lions behind the scenes from 2017. In this, the players discuss in their meeting the ideas of coaching each other, telling each other to roll away in tackles as the direct example. In my opinion, this displays the desire for supportive self regulation and develop skill dexterity in a highly competitive and technical performance environment. Self regulation and skill dexterity respectively are seen as being able to control self generated thoughts, feelings and actions and being able to use current skills or intentions to adequately solve any emerging motor problem correctly, quickly, rationally and resourcefully, which comes from performer's adaptability to surrounding environment.

If coaches are to develop knowledgeable athletes whom are willing and able to make decisions, capable of performing learned tasks when under pressure and not under direct instructions, I believe this shall require collaborative transfer of knowledge or greater ownership by athletes of their development, with support from the coaches as “more capable other” in an involved yet scaffolding style approach to their athlete’s development. Research by Kidman (2001) addressed ideas such as coaches developing player’s complex skills and tactical knowledge through encouraging abstract thought processes by asking high order questions, which require athletes to apply, analyse and synthesize information. This style of leadership has the coach steering as opposed to controlling decisions and actions, encouraging player discovery through evolutionary planning and organising of tasks whilst keeping sight of overall objectives and showing empathy to get the best from the athletes. Like described in Heads Up Footy paper, the ideal is having coaches shift from verbal corrective instructors to environment designers whom facilitates athlete-environment interactions. Attempting to create a successful pedagogic setting requires coordination of activities to scan or investigate, monitor and respond with honesty to players. This may require some transparency from coaches to offer rationale for processes. It may also require negotiation of processes with players to meet individual and collective performance measures of those being coached whilst matching evolving circumstances for learning and development against attempting keeping sight of overall objectives. How can we better understand our athlete’s their thoughts, actions or motivations? Let’s start by asking questions…..

Questioning is critically important to both understand player’s abilities, desires and reasoning for self regulation, as I’ve previously highlighted and written (https://www.coachingthecoaches.net/blog/2020/12/12/are-we-asking-or-being-asked-the-right-questions):

Questioning affords the coach with the opportunity to channel the attention of players to critical information sources within their practice and performance landscapes that may assist them in the solving of an emergent tactical problem. However, the important feature of such a strategy to promote self-regulation is that questioning from an ecological dynamics perspective does not involve the player verbalising their reasoning and structured response (capturing the notion of knowledge about the environment, Rather, the aim of questioning through ecological dynamics is to direct the player’s attention towards a relevant field of affordances to be actualised such that they can respond with knowledge of the performance environment exemplified through actions, perceptions and skilled intentionality

From Theory to Practice: Performance Preparation Models in Contemporary High-Level Sport Guided by an Ecological Dynamics Framework (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40798-020-00268-5)

This quote supports the concept within ED approach of the coach being a guide as opposed to a teacher. Being a guide means you have to understand which ways to offer direction, support or which directions players should look. I believe coaches should engage in contextual and collaborative learning relationships, with questions forming a strong part of this, to ensure optimal psychological functioning for maximal sporting performance. Asking questions, understanding the answers and whom they’re coming from will give you a snapshot for today yet this needs to be continually addressed and worked on, understanding people, personalities and environments shall change; be willing to ask questions of yourself and other coaches to continually change ideas or structures and match what your athletes or players need today whilst being reflective and flexible to change to what they need tomorrow.

So, how does this translate or what does it mean for grassroot or age grade coaches? How can we as coaches introduce some of these ideas in our daily practice? What small steps or initial ideas can we introduce to allow our athletes to explore and find new information, ideas or techniques to overcome task, environmental or individual constraints? Research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting”. Coaching should be recognised as an educational dynamic relationship, where the coach can satisfy player’s goals (or needs) and development but both sides have an investment of will capital, where human initiative and intentionality are both dedicated to show commitment towards goals and relationships. Akin to my research findings, understanding, appreciating and embracing the uniqueness of individuals and their cultures or identity (form of life within linked papers) in their development and environment design, allows us as coaches to focus on interactions, relationships and creating engaging and motivating scenarios for our athletes to test and seek new information. Understanding what players or athletes are striving to achieve allows us to create an environment where the search and developing knowledge of the sport becomes the goal of practice tasks.

Thanks again to Carl Woods and Sam Robertson of Victoria University for sharing papers and bouncing ideas back and forth.