Critiquing the constraints led approach, with Dave Collins

Dave Collins (: 00:00

So questioning is a good tool. Is it an ecological tool? No, it's a coaching tool. So when you say you see things that are quite beautiful in ecological dynamics, then I'm going, good on you mate, yeah, fine. Are you sure that they're only ecological dynamics?

Mark Carroll (: 00:07

Hmm.

Mark Carroll (: 00:21

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Labours of Sports Coaching. In today's episode I was joined by Professor Dave Collins coming from the University of Edinburgh to discuss a recent paper that Dave wrote which is entitled Ecological Dynamics as an Accurate and Parsemonious Contributor to Applied Science, a Critical Appraisal. And that is in essence what it's about. It's a really constructive conversation that discusses good

coaching towards still learning in general and actually tries to act as a way of like not necessarily, you know, trying to bash ecological dynamics but just to actually bring in the value of also considering coaching from an cognitive perspective. And we do that maybe at a stage of ecological dynamics where it's became so accepted and a constraint led approach for those that familiar more with that terminology, it's been so accepted that we are at risk perhaps of

blindly taking it in an absolutist way. You know that it's the only way and it explains everything 100 % and I think that's a wee bit folly.

I think what we should do is be critical of ecological dynamics, just to counterbalance a little bit.

just to ensure that there is a voice there that's also saying, you thought about this and that doesn't really hold there a little bit. So, all in the spirit of enhancing still acquisition knowledge and getting us closer to truth so that ultimately we can help practitioners. It made me reflect a lot. There was some questions that I posed to Dave and he was able to respond to and it made me actually consider how I think and see things.

So yeah, really enjoyed the conversation and I hope you do too

yeah, we'll get right into it.

Mark Carroll (: 02:01

So Dave, it's great to have you here. How are you? Just to start.

Dave Collins (: 02:05

All good mate, thank you very much indeed and thank you for having me.

Mark Carroll (: 02:08

Yeah, no, I've been really looking forward to this conversation. Obviously we're going to chat about your recent paper, which was taking a bit of a look at ecological dynamics and, you know, helping us perhaps, and I say us, but you know, as a community of researchers helping certainly for those that are positioned within that realm to just consider some points as we sort of then take it into the next level and hopefully aid its future development as well to a degree. Ultimately serve the coaches. So.

We'll chat about each of the different points that you kind of made in the paper in turn, but I think before then it'd be quite interesting and I think helpful for the listener to kind of understand what are we talking about in this paper and what motivated you to write it as part of the research team.

Dave Collins (: 02:51

think what we're talking about in the paper is it's presented, start again, ecological dynamics is an extremely

presented, pushed, encouraged. There's a lot of material about it, there's a lot of presentation about it. But I have to say, Mark, I think it's often sufficiently uncritical. It doesn't necessarily look. I would expect, as a scientist, I'm after trying to make the most parsimonious argument. I'm trying to go...

What's the best explanation for what we see? And frankly, as an applied scientist, I'm after helping coaches, teachers, people who going to use it well. And I think my fellow authors and I were just a little bit fed up when there's a lot of difficulties that seem to be crossed over. There's also a lot of, I mean, for us, the it depends idea.

conditional knowledge idea, the idea that there are lots of different ways of doing stuff and that some might be more applicable to certain circumstances than others. But that doesn't seem to be accepted. So I think what we were trying to do was to say, actually, here's a critical look. And it was important for us to do that at high level. So getting it published in SportsMed is quite nice. But it's questioning the

the absolutism of it. That this is the way and it's the only way and it's the best

Mark Carroll (: 04:18

Mm.

And what are the potential dangers of that sort of more absolutist narrative around still in so far as maybe not just seeing this as an academic activity, but actually as a practitioner, there's a coach at the end of this that's going to use this information. So what's your feelings on that, I suppose?

Dave Collins (: 04:44

I think, right, first off, it's not a versus. So it's not an information processing or traditional or cognitive, call it what you like, versus ecological dynamics. Yeah? And it's not versus by us because we're going, this applies really well here, this applies really well here. In other words, it's not a versus, it's a balance. I think the second thing is there are three approaches now and if you were to look at active inference or

Mark Carroll (: 04:48

Mm-hmm.

Dave Collins (: 05:11

predictive processing, which is the newest kid on the block, you'd be going, okay, so there are lots of different ways of looking at this process. And I think the third thing...

is if I'm a coach and I coach in a particular way what you watch, what you see them doing if they're an ecological dynamics approach or if they're a cognitive approach or if there wouldn't be much difference the differences come in the mechanisms as to what they think is working so perhaps, can I give an example?

Mark Carroll (: 05:45

So yeah, definitely.

Dave Collins (: 05:45

Yep. Could I give you an example? Okay.

So, I've coached weightlifting for a long time. If I'm teaching basic weightlifting, one of the things I might do is to get someone to squat facing the wall. And the minute they squat facing the wall, they have to stay upright, their nose has to stay like that, they don't bend forwards, all sorts of good things happen. So I just use a constraint, as I understand it, to say to them, this.

Using that constraint means I don't have to say look up, keep your back hollow, so I can use the constraint and then something happens. Now the difference for me as a coach is that I then go when you face the wall what did that make you do? Well I had to do this and this and this. Okay, now interestingly they're good style. If you put a hollow back, if your head's up, etc. these sorts of things will happen. So now there's the constraint.

I'll add in the understanding so the person knows why they're doing what they're doing and now away we go. So there's no versus there. How I would coach, you could look at and go, they're using their constraint set approach. Fine, yeah.

Mark Carroll (: 06:48

more

And yeah,

yeah. So it's a little bit, it's just that the word, the word's almost been captured slightly in terms of constraint and what it means.

Dave Collins (: 06:59

I think, yeah, you see,

words are important because they explain why you're doing, I've long said it's not what you're doing, coach, it's the why that you do it. So it's the why I use that particular mechanism. And that's an idea that's been around with us for years. Most of Moston's work in teaching and having the different teaching styles depending on the outcome you want to have. Shane Pills.

Mark Carroll (: 07:09

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 07:24

recently done some work on that and taken that into a coaching line. So it's important. There's a variety. People seem to recognise it depends and that knowledge and application is contextual. So I'm just just fascinated why some people have such a problem with that.

Mark Carroll (: 07:27

you

and is.

And it seems like what you're getting at there, if I've interpreted that Dave, is it's like the theory isn't pedagogy, because pedagogy is an implementation. Pedagogy is in the coaching. That's how you actually, know, it's how you take knowledge forward. That's how you do it. Understanding the mechanism, it's a related element. And I think people can do well to build pedagogy out of mechanism, but it doesn't need to be wedded to it.

and such isn't it because the pedagogy is the messy part that's dealing with people that's where you not what's optimal but what's needed sometimes I wonder situationally

Dave Collins (: 08:11

Yes.

What do you mean by pedagogy?

Mark Carroll (: 08:19

So when I think of pedagogy, I think about strategies, tools, practical tools that I can use as a coach. So, or it might be even the ordering of exercises. It might be the feedback that I give during exercise, but it's a plan of process for achieving outcome. When I think of style acquisition models and theories, it feels like it's helping me understand underpinning mechanisms and science of when A occurs, what preceded it.

how things are occurring. That can help me in my pedagogy, but it's not necessarily what the, it's not visible all times to the athlete, it's not visible all times to me as a coach. It's not maybe always helpful either because I mean, I find myself sometimes when I'm doing things that is a morphine of different ideas, different models probably, it goes away from them. You know, it's like the, I think what I'm trying to get across is that it doesn't always seem that.

the science has the mirror, the human element of coaching and the realism of what you're actually doing at the time with athletes, which is kind of like professional judgment decision making about what the situation needs a wee bit. That's at least how I see it.

Dave Collins (: 09:25

Bye.

Yeah,

which is why we did professional judgment decision making. But you see the interesting thing, so if pedagogy used the method on practice of teaching, which is what I think you just said.

Mark Carroll (: 09:37

Hmm. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Dave Collins (: 09:40

What would suggest that I'd use that method or that method? And part of that, surely, is the mechanism of learning. So in other words,

Mark Carroll (: 09:49

Mm hmm. So mechanism of learning

versus mechanism of what mechanism, so would you differentiate like, we think about learning, at least as I don't know, for looking back maybe in education elements, like learning where it's maybe built upon like pre-learning and it's built upon progress and those sorts of things. Is that a different learning from how an athlete learns, gel and performs in sport? Is it the different context that changes?

Dave Collins (: 10:10

No, they're just different contexts. But

you see that a big part of that is how this thing picks up and learns stuff. whether you're talking about a three-year-old learning to just do something pretty fundamental, or you're talking about a 33-year-old perfecting a technique in a highly technical sport or other environment, you're still talking about them

Mark Carroll (: 10:21

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 10:36

taking in information so that they can then execute it. ecological dynamics, as far as I understand, presents a very different picture as to the drivers of those mechanisms. In other words, how that works. Now, if they're right, then it makes a lot of sense to coach in different ways. So it makes a lot of sense to...

Mark Carroll (: 10:40

Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 11:02

to not insist on a particular perfect technique which to me makes a lot of sense. If Mark and Dave do weightlifting, Mark and Dave are slightly different shapes and Dave are certainly different ages so therefore they'll do it in different ways. So the idea that there is one perfect technique which must be imposed is a nonsense and I agree with them completely. They're right.

Mark Carroll (: 11:10

Switched it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah.

Actually, it's almost like, you know, if we suggest the learning is non-linear, the approach to learning, maybe the pedagogy that helps learning shouldn't necessarily be linear. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, I know.

Dave Collins (: 11:40

But you see learning is linear. It's just not linear. If you step back far enough, it's linear. If you go

into it, it isn't. And that's OK. I completely agree with you that the progression that a learner makes is not linear. They tend to go in jumps.

Mark Carroll (: 11:57

Hmm.

Well, it

makes me think a little bit about, because I mean, similar argument's been given around, or debate you've seen sometimes about modeling the coaching process, for example, where some people say you should or you shouldn't. And I'm actually starting to, I think this makes me think a little bit about just the fact that, yeah, there's contextual differences in the way in which it occurs, moves through whatever orchestration, know, these different ways of looking at it. But actually, there is a systematic element to.

at a macro level, like there is certain things that do occur and that is a linearity to it. And it's just that we don't always want to use that word. Cause I wonder if this, and we are going to, you know, structure the conversation a bit here soon. I know we're just going to jump back and forward, but I wonder if this is a little bit of a bad words in coaching now, cause we're not allowed to say things like linearity. We're not allowed to say things like traditional. We're not allowed to say, well, you get the sense of that. You know, it's the connotations I suppose, like you get the sense of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Collins (: 12:49

Are we? Who said? Who s-

No, no, no, but this is again you see it's

it's I mean this it goes back to what we just said to what I just said about why we did the paper because there are people who were saying it's their thought place if you if you look at the literature in group think you'll see that one of the things about group think is that there are people who sanction your language and sanction the way you think about stuff that's not good

Mark Carroll (: 13:03

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 13:22

That's never good. You I mean, you say, what's wrong with an absolutist stance? Oh my gosh, do we need to look around the world of politics at the minute to not see what's the problem with an absolutist stance? Whereas if you go, there are different ways of this operating. There are different ways of learning. And those different ways of learning might be more or less appropriate in different circumstances. Again, that's the basis of

Mark Carroll (: 13:40

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 13:50

any sort of model of professional judgment and decision making that gets the coach to think about how she or he is best going to teach this in this particular context. That's all it is. if someone tells a kid, I'm a sloppy little kid from Essex, and if someone says you mustn't, that's usually an encouragement to me to do so. But the idea of there's language that mustn't be used, my gosh.

Mark Carroll (: 14:01

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 14:18

That's worrying.

Mark Carroll (: 14:18

So as part of your motivation and teaching us the words are parsimonious. If I've in terms of the meaning of that, is that around? Is this about trying to make this simpler or is this about trying to reduce?

Dave Collins (: 14:23

Yeah.

It's a trying to,

okay, there's a lovely quote, I Einstein says so much, but one of the things he said, make everything as simple as it can be, but no simpler. So yeah, of course that's my job. That's my job as a coach, that's my job as a coach developer, and I think it's my job as an academic. So it's not to come up with new words and new constructs, unless those new words and constructs

Mark Carroll (: 14:37

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 14:55

offer a better explanation. This is the point. I'm going, the number of papers I've read that says in ecological dynamics for example, an ecological dynamics explanation for this would be such and such. And I'm going, that's okay, but this is a better explanation. And I'm more than happy to recognize that lots of the explanations offered by an ecological dynamics approach are

Mark Carroll (: 15:12

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 15:22

I mean how could you not agree with direct perception? Because in direct perception the idea that the brain is little snapshots and doing some calculations, it just doesn't work. But at the same time if I come to, okay so imagine I'm a cricketer or a baseball hitter, the idea of perception-action coupling as an explanation for how the heck I can hit it is a very good one and I wish I had it because I can't.

Mark Carroll (: 15:26

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 15:50

so badly coordinated that's it. But when you come to, I don't know, coaching a team, getting a rugby team to work in a coherent and coordinated fashion, now I'm going actually the cognitive approaches of, for example, shared mental models seem to make a bit more sense. So once again, it depends. What sort of learning am I after? What sort of change do I want to see in my learners, my athletes? Now let me use a particular method.

because I think it will be more less, more effective.

Mark Carroll (: 16:22

Could you scale that up a little bit? suppose to also, if you're talking about the learners, a lot of times this conversation isn't used within coach education. I sometimes think about what does a learner coach actually require and what helps them because even in my own teaching, I've actually found it very difficult. even when I'm first, think, at least knowing how to practically utilize some of the elements of ecological dynamics. But a lot of student coaches I find and young coaches, they actually struggle to.

It's starting to pick up and understand ecological dynamics yet, whereas an information processing, human things can feel simpler for them to understand and importantly use is what we're seeing here. think going back to your point, not about trying to reduce complexity, but you do want people to be able to actually use the, and get on with coaching and get on with what they're trying to do in a way that allows them to develop the craft, know, experientially. And I sometimes actually think the fact that it's very difficult for people to

pick up the approach and use it. Maybe he's telling a little bit about the approach needing to get its conceptual clarity in order a little bit more because I find that it's difficult sometimes working with young coaches to actually implement. I think it's difficult sometimes as well. Without going back to actually, know what we want, ultimately what I want you to think about, I want you to think about representative design. I want you to think about getting some contextual interference in there. I want you to think, you know,

Dave Collins (: 17:37

See, I'm not sure that it's... Yeah.

Mark Carroll (: 17:49

But that's core, that's their traditional coaching. They can pick that up and use it. And I just wonder, coming back to what we're thinking here around not being adversities or, it seems sometimes when you start using the limelight constraints and you start, you feel like you have to put B with A and C with A and B and it just becomes this whole difficult conversation.

Dave Collins (: 18:11

interesting point I'm not sure that constraints a constraint set approach is harder to teach coaches to use yeah but the reason for that mark is because I'm so much into this idea of conditional knowledge I mean for example representative design do you always want the environment to be highly represented

Mark Carroll (: 18:18

Hmm.

no, because the parent game for example isn't always the best teacher. You want some sort of compartmentalization to a degree I think, personally speaking.

Dave Collins (: 18:42

So therefore

sometimes you do want a highly representative design and sometimes you don't. I'm happy, you know, that's where I am. It depends, where we go. Now, what element should be representative? Should it be the complexity of the display? Should it be the pressure felt emotionally? Should it be the problem solving, the complexity of the thinking? Da da da da da da. So now all of a sudden, there's more context.

Mark Carroll (: 18:46

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dave Collins (: 19:10

There's more contextuality. the whole point of where I'm coming from, is that being a coach is complicated. It doesn't get simpler as you get better. just, you know, the complexities change. But what you're trying to do is you're trying to get people to think about the declarative knowledge. So rather than the what you do, the why you do it. So what is the best, what's the best approach in this?

Mark Carroll (: 19:33

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 19:37

Yeah, so if you go back to my favorite, you go back to Boston and you go here is a teaching styles continuum and at one end there is personal guided and personal or guided discovery and at the other end there's command style. If I'm teaching app sailing, teaching app sailing by guided discovery is not a good idea because it's messy, people die and the paperwork is just too horrendous, right?

Mark Carroll (: 19:52

Hmm.

Yeah.

Dave Collins (: 20:04

So therefore I go to a command style and I say I want you to do this, then this, then this. They feel safe, I feel safe, everything's better. If I was teaching a dance class, yeah, and that would be scary, I mean my colleagues at Edinburgh would probably be laughing, you know, I don't teach many dance classes. But if I was, to teach a dance class by command style would be nonsense, complete nonsense. So what we're actually talking about is there's a variety of different approaches based on a variety of different

texts when I want a variety of different outcomes with a variety of different learners. Thank you very much. Therefore, does it not make sense that there would be a variety of different methods? And if it does, becoming a good coach is starting to think about which method I select. That's all it is. That's all it is, buddy. Nothing, nothing, nothing, you know, and if the words are complicated, sometimes they need to be.

Mark Carroll (: 20:39

Hmm.

Hmm... Hmm... Hmm...

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 21:01

Years ago

there was a thing called the NCF, National Coaching Foundation, it became Sports Coach UK and now it's UK coaching. And I used to write materials for them, I'm a qualified in strength and conditioning, and I was writing materials and they said, you can't use anaerobic. Why? Oh well the coaches won't understand it. And I thought that was dreadfully condescending. And of course it was an important concept. Let's use it.

Mark Carroll (: 21:17

Mm-hmm.

Dave Collins (: 21:30

So I'm not showing away at words, Mark. That's not a problem. If I need to use constraints, I use constraints. If I need to use affordance, I use affordance. I just don't, I sometimes wonder, sometimes in certain circumstances, wonder whether they are the most appropriate, the easiest to use constructs. That's all.

Mark Carroll (: 21:33

Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm because that was actually the question I was going to put back at you there just in so far as being devil's advocate I was going to say well but I think your answer is actually ready in so far as you're not trying to reject complexity but just be selective about what actually was helpful, what's useful for that athlete or for that coach as it had been, what level we take this. Maybe we'll jump ahead a wee bit but we'll take each that are finding in turn, not finding as such, each discussion point in turn that made because I think all five of them.

Dave Collins (: 21:56

sorry.

Mark Carroll (: 22:20

are really important to kind of chew on. What we actually didn't do just for those that maybe aren't as familiar with this concept at all, maybe it's a bit of a whistle stop to her. We're also trying to look at here about is, and you can add on the third model here from the Dave Grimmel, actually I'm not familiar with the third model, but where we often would position information processing, we see it as like the athlete looks at the environment, there's cues, not exact solutions to what they have to do, so they make predictions.

That's an assumption that the predictions have came from experience. There's been a representation of knowing what to do maybe in the past. Maybe that's attached to then, you know, we remember those things, we adjust a motor program and the variance of how we do that to then attach to what the task requires. That's built up of a more generalized motor program and then therefore that allows us to readjust the reparametised trial to fit different situations. That's the more sort of information process and view of things. I probably butchered it slightly, but that is that in a nutshell in a sense.

versus the ecological dynamics view, which is more that movement emerges, we take away, or at least we dilute the role of condition. Again, I this was actually one of the first points you spoke about, about the conceptual clarity, we take away that has been a major driver in it. And we actually think that we act to perceive and we perceive to act that the solution is there in the environment. And therefore, because of that, we need to start where we want to finish training should be about high variability from the start.

because there's that assumption that we don't want representation to be a big factor. We played a big factor in it. And then the third one, could you actually add to that? I know it's not necessarily brought up in the paper, but I just want to know, this is obviously from my own learning here, Dave, the third part, the third model of how we might view the mechanism or the process of still and performance. What was it?

Dave Collins (: 24:08

There's a lot, okay, so, again, as with any theory, there's a lot of different wrinkles and stuff like that. But, I mean, the best way, of course, is to buy our new book. In which it's, which it's, in which it's, all three are explained. But simply, you just used it. You said predictive, mean, one of the terms, active inference or predictive processing. And predictive processing is the suggestion that it is,

Mark Carroll (: 24:12

hi.

there you go, that's that flag. There you go. That's that flag.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 24:33

you know that the brain is a, mean animals do it as well, but the human brain is a prediction engine. It's saying I think this will happen so I'll wait my attention to looking for that. So there's a few rugby games on tomorrow. I think the star one is going to be Ireland, France, but I think Scotland are playing some small country to the west of it now. So Scotland...

Scotland-Wales, do you think that the Scottish and Welsh coaches have been scouting what their opposition does and predicting certain types of moves that might be more effective? Do you think they're doing that? Yes. So I think that the technical term here is no shit, Sheila. Of course they're doing that. Do you think that when Finn faces a defence

Mark Carroll (: 25:14

Yeah, otherwise there's no such thing as performance analysis.

Dave Collins (: 25:25

He's now going to be, okay stop lads, freeze frame. Let me just work it out and do a bit of calculation or is he just going to be reacting in a split second to the movements of what's going on. Yes. What does that tell you? It tells you that both approaches are right. Duh. It tells you that you want to predict and what that prediction will do is make you more likely to look for certain things.

Mark Carroll (: 25:44

Hmm. Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 25:54

and more likely to take certain options. But in the moment, in the moment of the highly hyper-dynamic control situation, you're reacting to information that is within the display. It's just that that information was primed, but in the moment, you're controlling it like that.

Mark Carroll (: 26:07

Is that kind of like

yeah.

k it was Ashford, there was a: 2021

Dave Collins (: 26:41

hang with it why not no no no no no no no no

let's say that's I mean like I know Mike used to work for my company we I published with Mike and I'm well I actually didn't agree with that paper we can go into that if like but never mind but tell me why doesn't the brain have different systems why doesn't our body our body does have different systems our body is a mess of different systems yeah you only have to look at you know the old knee knee jerk reaction yeah

Mark Carroll (: 26:57

I know, I know, I know.

Mm-hmm.

No.

Mm-hmm.

Dave Collins (: 27:09

that don't use the brain or the, you know, don't know, which might use the brain, you know what I mean? We're used to, we're a mess of different systems. What's the problem with having different

Mark Carroll (: 27:21

Hmm.

the evolution of, so you see sometimes with psychology as well, and obviously strategists being within psychology, has neuroscience caught up with this debate, I wonder? Because actually, I know we're jumping back and forth here, but a lot of this stuff, you meant, just because you see a lot of, I would say that a lot of this debate is preceded the more recent.

development of understanding. We still don't really understand how the brain, like there's so much complexity to how the brain works and I wonder is the brain more malleable than what we probably are giving it credit for and maybe that's

Dave Collins (: 27:51

I would say...

I would say

that this argument has ignored some parts of this argument have ignored what neuroscience has. So if we know that there is perception-action coupling then it would be good, it, to see how that worked. clearly we've got that. I'll give you an example. When a long jumper runs up to the board, the classic method is to measure out

Mark Carroll (: 28:09

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 28:22

the run up and put a marker, a little bit of tape on the side and then to start there and then away you go and then if you overstep the board or you're short then the coach will go this or do this, they'll tell you to modify. An ecological approach says that that doesn't happen what you do is as you run up the board subtends an angle in the back of your

back of your eye that's called a tau angle as in the Greek letter and that when you hit a particular value of tau because of course if you're getting closer and closer to the ball the angle is getting bigger and bigger when you hit a certain level you then make adjustments unconsciously almost automatically to hit the spot okay fine now I don't agree with optic tau

an explanation and we ran a study that said okay what's the prediction of the traditional what's the prediction of the optic tau and we found that of 12 world-class horizontal jumpers only two followed the optic tau and the most followed the other okay but it's a case of if that operates where is it operating is optic tau detected at the back of the eye

is optic tail in the optic nerve? Is it detected in the occipital cortex, the visual cortex? Yeah. Now that would be a really good study to do, wouldn't it? Why hasn't it been done?

Mark Carroll (: 29:52

And

is that maybe, that just maybe not, I don't know if it's a, there just hasn't been enough collaboration between neuroscientists and maybe what I look into that just to understand performance and perhaps the narrative that is still very trying to win an argument perhaps that's from the ecological side of things that maybe that's not what I go into. So I don't.

Dave Collins (: 30:12

I you what, I've

been dropped off enough people's Christmas carols for this mate. I'm not going to go there. But my point is this, if you want to get better quality evidence, then surely you use a variety of tools. I'm very, I mean, my own work, as I say, my doctorate was in EEG, electroencephalography, I've used movement kinematics.

Mark Carroll (: 30:19

No, no, no, I know we can. But.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 30:39

I've used

biochemistry, I've used blood, you know, I've used a broad range of measures because I think that broad range of measures enables me to get at the truth or an more accurate answer. So if I'm presenting a certain position, then surely I would go away and look for the best evidence.

Mark Carroll (: 30:54

Hmm. Well.

Well, I don't know, to be fair, I'm getting into that sort of thing, because actually, think it's a good segue, however. Yeah, it's a good segue, however, I think, into talking about, I sense that uncertainty, and I think, and what really resonated with me was the first element of the conversation, the conversation piece, I know if that's the right word, your conceptual paper around just debating some of these things, where you speak a little bit about inconsistencies in the narrative when you actually read the paper, not just like,

Dave Collins (: 31:05

Yeah. But it's a good thought, Mark. It's a good thought. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Mark Carroll (: 31:31

cross papers, but within it where we go, well, there is no cognitive element to then not necessarily in the same words. So maybe if you can expand on that because and again, or maybe we've already talked, we've maybe spoke to that enough actually, it seems obvious that that isn't really helping us understand what you actually get at. And also I think where do we go next with that because researching very easily going to a rabbit hole where it's just.

Dave Collins (: 31:39

you

Mark Carroll (: 31:57

you get five other studies that do that idea and if we aren't very careful and direct about where we go, then you end up getting a lot of studies that aren't taking any of the truth of things and you know, at least we need someone to just not be on the fence too much with it.

Dave Collins (: 32:12

Give you an example.

I did a paper in: 1990

you do these sorts of tasks and these sorts of studies. And I think that's a very common issue, I think what people tend to happen is they almost look at problems and design studies that give them the answers that fit with their existing proposal. So if I'm into ecological dynamics,

I would tend to do a task, very short term task that was very see-do, very perceptually actiony, yeah? Like hitting in baseball. And I'd go, okay, let's collect some data, and by gosh, if I manipulate the constraints, I can improve performance. QED, there it is, I'm right. If I was into most cognitive methods, then I'd go and look at

Mark Carroll (: 33:20

Hmm. Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 33:30

the extent to which there were shared mental models across a team and that drove the team to take more consistent actions and predictive actions for each other under certain circumstances. Now I, because I am sitting on the fence, well I'm not sitting on the fence, I'm actually saying I can have my legs on both sides of the fence which is a slightly uncomfortable position depending on how sharp the fence is but

Mark Carroll (: 33:51

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 33:55

That's okay. I can see that both work. I'm comfy with both. I accept both. I look at the data and I go, they're both the best explanation. They're both the most parsimonious explanations. But what that means is that we've got at least two systems being operated.

Mark Carroll (: 34:12

So it's that yeah, it goes back to the malleability element. Yeah, yeah Good you mean you remain me because I know I mean that has been addressed before in some papers that there is sort of methodological bias and it's Even in so far the tools probably news like it's not as common for example I think from like ecological dynamics position papers to like use things like interviewing and stuff like but then if you consider

Dave Collins (: 34:14

And then that's fine. Yeah, that's fine.

Mark Carroll (: 34:37

Like other things that I think jumped out and tell me if I'm not connecting the right things here, but you mentioned at one point in the paper, Dave, around like metacognition. And metacognition is quite an important thing. It's coming out more, I think, I mean, some of the stuff around gamifying, learning and coaching is really cool. And I think because it's starting to help us understand it's not just about teaching someone how to solve problems, but teaching them about how they know themselves to solve problems. And like, you know, that's expertise. I don't think all of performance can be.

Dave Collins (: 34:45

Hmm.

Mark Carroll (: 35:05

can't be purely procedural. There is an element of knowledge and understanding at least what they're doing and why they're doing it. And I would wonder if that's maybe not being equipped as much. Similarly, I would wonder from an information process inside of things, I wonder if that's also taking advantage of, does, mean, and look, you're more versed in this lecture than I am, Dave, but is there an element of not seeing consistency of experiments in the way that they're designed? Or is it just that...

Dave Collins (: 35:28

think

it's hard to comment because I don't see lots of studies that go, we're going to look at this from a cognitive point of view and then away they go. think that where they're coming from is that that's where the person is situated so that's what they do. So you could look at naturalistic decision making.

Mark Carroll (: 35:31

Tell her his then based ideas on and

Dave Collins (: 35:53

The idea of what's called recognition prime decision-making so all I've been here before I've recognized it I'll do this the idea of shared mental models the idea of sense making Okay, so that's that's all quite cognitive ease cognitive ease stuff But then at the same time I've described you know a number of a number of studies Which a very elegantly the most elegant explanation for what's going on is this idea of?

know, dynamics flow. There's a very simple idea that I've read about called looming. And the idea of looming is that if something comes towards you, you go all the way out the way. So if I do that, you do that. Yeah, you don't because of course you recognize on the screen, but that's the idea, right? Now looming, most animals do it, very young babies do it.

Moving is a perfect example of perception action. Yeah? Okay. Fine.

If I'm a boxer, I don't do that. If I'm a boxer, as the punch comes towards me, I slip it and counter. So what I've had to train to do is to acquire a new action associated with a similar perception.

Makes sense? How might that work? So if you've got any karate, boxing, taekwondo, know, any of those sorts of coaches listening, that's something they have to do. They have to condition away from what is a very inbuilt sort of almost reaction to something coming towards you and you have to learn a new one. that's fine.

Mark Carroll (: 37:09

Yes, but is that not where... Yeah, that's the last one.

And does that then come back into that question? And I don't know if this is, keep asking the wrong question with this. I then wanted to just naturally go, is that because is performance postural? Is that because they've developed this generalized motor program? Or is it because they're deciding the situation's different so they're emergent? And is this maybe, again, the wrong narrative? Is it that we're just seeing, look, they're both remembering what they've drilled, like jujitsu or whatever, they're remembering what they've drilled 100 times over.

but they're also aware of the environment and the environment's helping them get information and that's fine. That's not, both things seem to be occurring.

Dave Collins (: 38:08

But

you see that but okay and that you're making a really good point mark because what you're now saying is but the Mechanism as to how it's working is actually quite important Because if it is just an emergent property Yeah, and just and my apologies on that's not me being pejorative or dismissive at all. That's bloody complicated However, if that's what it is, then I would coach in a very very different way So if that's this is the way you've been drilled

Mark Carroll (: 38:28

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 38:37

do it. And so now all of a sudden what the coach is going to do, how the coach is going to do it is very, very underpinned by how she or he thinks the things operate, the mechanism again. So this is why I keep harking on about mechanism, not because I'm not being particularly sloppy, I'm just going if you know how something works.

Try this, if I'm an endurance coach, I would design sessions for my athletes with a really good thought about the mechanisms, the impact of that on them physiologically. Now all of a sudden the mechanisms through which long slow distance, aerobic intervals and aerobic intervals and furthermore it's very very not recipe. It's very very, let's try it.

I have these methods now and it's also very contextual. Yeah. As to what Mark and Dave might do because the different ages and stages and you know, whatever. then of course, there's loads and loads and loads of conditionality. So again, why the problem with conditionality in mode of control?

Mark Carroll (: 39:30

Hmm.

Hmm.

hmm. I thought also like in a, to see a connection between that point, I think there's almost, there's also a question here about how, in arguments where we are comparing more contemporary approaches to coach coaching, if there is such a thing with traditional approaches, sometimes I think traditional is traditional approaches, they're portrayed as a bit of a caricature.

Like no one but Alan, there is such a thing as really good traditional coaching. Like there's really bad drills and there's really good drills. You know what mean? Like there could be good.

Dave Collins (: 40:21

mate, mate, I'm

right with you. look at the straw, can I say straw man? that okay? The straw person. If I look at the straw person created by some of these authors as to that's traditional coaching, that's dreadful, I have to say I've never seen it. I've been around a long time and I've been teaching it. No.

I mean there are lots of parallels here in Wark which we could go into which aren't necessarily pertinent to this but it's you know I don't see a lot of you know hard drilling type coaching and I haven't in the past oh by the way I did in the military but then I was then I was being trained to jump out of an airplane and sort stuff out you know when it went wrong or I was taught to do a stoppage on a weapon which I had to do

the right way and very quickly under pressure. again, that's a very traditional Drury which I love as the Scottish abbreviation for a PE teacher. It's a very Drury sort of way of doing stuff which is fine. But in that circumstance, go back to Moston and the Moston, the command style, the drill style is good. So again, I'm in a quandary. I don't know

When we published a paper called It Depends, and the sub, the Sit Depends coaching, and the subtext to it was either the biggest cop out or the most fundamental principle of coaching. Yeah? Okay. Which do you think it is? Is it a cop out or is it pretty fundamental?

Mark Carroll (: 41:50

read the paper, the skip paper.

Oh, do you it's just, and again, if you would debate this, my personal opinion, I don't think it's a cop out if we believe in structure. I think you use it's like improvisation's a form of expertise, like the structured improvisation to that extent. so I like, no, I don't think it is. I don't think it is. I think there'd be more risk attached to doing the other way, as opposed to if I'm doing like probabilities.

Dave Collins (: 42:08

Yeah.

Bye.

So I understand that a couple of guys have written a paper on one of the constraints websites, constraints collective or whatever, that says that's a nonsense. We're picking and choosing. It's, how can you mix? I'm going, well of course you can mix. We all do. We all do. Fun fact.

Mark Carroll (: 42:36

Well that comes back

a wee bit Dave, you make me think of like we were a little bit of a drill. So I've done drills before where they've been shooting the beaver and maybe it's you know the players getting different shots that they take around the bots. It's not dynamic play but it's we're trying to create create variability but it's still within a controlled space as such but and it's like.

That's all right, if I do that well, it's not gonna damage them, it's still gonna give them repetition without repetition to some degree. It's not like, know, and I think that, but whereas I think the way that we think about traditional coaching, and I even see this in higher education, like I need to make a point now about making sure when we do modules with students that we don't show them traditional coaching and then show them new coaching because it's like, just makes a villain of it. And it's just that, you know, bad traditional coaching's pretty poor.

could just cones and there's nothing else to it. And it's just, you know, dribbling in a very, but good traditional coaching. It's good, you know, it's good coaching. I wonder, it's...

Dave Collins (: 43:33

You

Mate, did you ever

see a film called Rob Roy?

Mark Carroll (: 43:40

No, I'm aware of it, I've not seen it, Dave, no, no.

Dave Collins (: 43:42

It made me

laugh because all the goodies had Scots accents and all the baddies had English accents and all the guys who were like in the middle had Anglo-Scots. It's like a sort of black hat, white hat in Calgary. Now I'm happy, clearly I'm English and clearly very bad, but it's the same thing. There are different courses for courses. Things fit into certain circumstances.

Mark Carroll (: 43:46

Alright, okay. Alright, that goes, that goes.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 44:11

And again, I cannot see the problem with that. is almost evangelical. You know, this is the way, how can you not, sort of, no, there's a variety of different explanations. That's fine. And if you were to go into neuroscience, for example, for Secule,

there's a dorsal and a ventral stream. So information comes in and it goes through one pathway in the brain if it's going to get named and identified and it goes through another pathway in the brain if it's going to be very rapidly reacted to. So there are two systems at least.

Mark Carroll (: 44:45

Hmm.

Is there also, Dave, what's your thoughts? And I don't suggest this, to suggest that there's then, means that I think you're wrong. But let's say like, there's what's optimal, right, on paper and sometimes there's what's needed when dealing with a person. You know, like in coaching, like, you know, so let's even take the example of drill. Imagine in some world, right, there is a more absolute that drills are just bad, right, let's just say, But what if my athlete, and I've done this before as well,

Dave Collins (: 44:53

yeah.

Thank

Mark Carroll (: 45:16

Players sometimes feel confidence through doing certain things and there's a psychology sometimes to doing it. And sometimes, I don't actually think every session needs to be about learning. Sometimes sessions can be about performance and just getting athletes doing something with ease enough times that they feel, know, there's all reasons for why we do things. You know what mean? So, I think that comes into it a little bit as well. And this is where we need to be careful, I think, about the science of star acquisition being too...

Dave Collins (: 45:35

you're right. Yeah, you're right.

Mark Carroll (: 45:45

are far removed from the art or the relational element of coaching. It's far more messier.

Dave Collins (: 45:48

you are completely

right so if for example you're familiar with a biopsychosocial model yeah right so if we if we put that into this context and the bio bit would be psychomotor this is the way in which motorically I best acquire and execute the skill but there's also psych the psych of the hey you the psychological bit in the middle that says actually if I was to do a drill on that

Mark Carroll (: 45:53

Hi.

Dave Collins (: 46:14

It might not be the most efficacious way of me improving my ability to do it, but it might make me feel confident. And then there's a psychosocial bit that other people look at me and go, Dave can do that, that's alright, I can trust him if I pass him the ball in that circumstance. So you're very right again Mark, that what we're talking about is that we're not just talking about the control of movement in a particular context or contexts, we're talking about

a biopsychosocial model and again you'll find this covered in our excellent book published by human kinetics available for all good books. Sorry, I'm going to make it. Okay, apologies. It's basically scale acquisition integrating theory and practice. and that's edited by Jamie Taylor and myself and then it's a cast of a

Mark Carroll (: 46:53

What is the title actually Dave, what is the title of the book?

the great philip lates not

Dave Collins (: 47:10

for the top class people. I'm up on my screen to show you where the thing is. it's, as I say, human kinetics, start in January, help yourself. you see, the way we wanted to title it, it depends coaching, for a whole variety of reasons. Because what we were after was a view that said, here are lots of different ways of doing it.

Mark Carroll (: 47:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Collins (: 47:40

Yeah, but all of those different ways of doing it are they have their validity. Here we go, sports skill acquisition, integrating theory and practice. you go. Human phonetics.

Mark Carroll (: 47:52

I'll

try and leave a show link for that in the show notes just to help you. That's great. But just another, well, I think we're getting to this. I think maybe you're all ready to do this already, but it makes me think about conversation of how different we were. actually, I a conversation recently, we spoke a little bit off air. had a conversation not that long ago with Mark Williams. And it was this whole thing, I think, going back to yours. It's like just getting away from some of the stuff that's confusing things for us.

Dave Collins (: 47:55

That'd be absolutely super buddy. That'd be absolutely super.

Mark Carroll (: 48:18

not in the sense of trying to look at this complexity, but just let's just focus on what really matters at the macro level sometimes. At least maybe if I'm not the coach listening in and I just want to use information. We know that like specific practice is really, really important. know, and you're not doing things that aren't related to the sport you're doing. That's where again, I worry a wee bit. And I want to just actually come on to talking about what the real.

Benefits and value of ecological ancestors so much with a constraint-led approach I think's like quite beautiful actually as a concept and how it explains things but like and Like there's some wacky elements to I say that right in the sense of like differential training I really like that as a bit of a franchise mechanism if you want to call that but We can take things too far sometimes and I just I just think that you know we can go too far into it that if you take if you if you

dilute the importance of one thing in order to talk about the other. Although again, what ends up happening is specificity becomes, I don't know, it gets put to the side, or whatever, and we start seeing the million different balls getting used and training different sort of, which should be good to a point, but it's like we need to bring things back in sometimes to what can be, what allows for reps, what allows for organization. So I just think that all the core principles that we spoke about, yeah, these things, to simplify it enough.

Dave Collins (: 49:36

Okay, right. Let's

try two examples. First example.

using a tennis racket that's the right sort of size for the learner.

Is that an ecological?

Mark Carroll (: 49:50

just call it the sounds like common sense. Yep.

Dave Collins (: 49:52

Thank you.

But if you were to read in constraints that approach textbooks, they claim that as being, that's it, that's, you know, look, you're manipulating a constraint. You're not, no you're not. You're just doing what's common sense. Now try this. What's the difference between a conditioned game and a constrained practice?

Mark Carroll (: 50:12

It's just to me, like this is what I mean. And find that I can detach myself from this a little bit. I just think it's just the language that you're using. It's the same thing.

Dave Collins (: 50:20

Right, now you're right except for one other thing that I think might be a difference and the difference is the extent to which in the conditional game you then question to bring out the principles of what was going on and then you talk about those principles as to how you might transfer it into another angle. Now I, as I was getting myself ready for our chat this morning, I looked at a

a rugby coach putting out a constraints-led approach method for teaching offensive play. And pretty much what he did was he went, okay, so there's this drill or this drill, and then he would stop and say, now let's talk it through, what's happening here? So you stop and then you get them to talk about what's going on and what might work better.

mean you're getting them to engage cognitively in reflecting on what's Hmm. So all of a sudden I'm going, well there might be not too much difference. Shouldn't, if all the information is in the display, why would you get people to talk about it? Now I'm completely agreement. don't know, what's your sport, football? Okay, fine.

Mark Carroll (: 51:31

FITBOX. Yep.

Dave Collins (: 51:33

So, you know, I like my balls pointed, but you know, I'm right with it, that's okay, I've worked in football. And I'm looking at a circumstance and going, it makes sense to me to get people to think about and talk back and forth and get, you know, get sort of ideas that they can use to make sense of it. Yeah? It makes more sense to me to do that with a bunch of 18 year olds than it does to do it with bunch of 8 year olds. However, it's still a good idea. Okay?

Mark Carroll (: 51:51

Mm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 52:02

So questioning is a good tool. Is it an ecological tool? No, it's a coaching tool. So when you say you see things that are quite beautiful in ecological dynamics, then I'm going, good on you mate, yeah, fine. Are you sure that they're only ecological dynamics? Or are you sure that they're being used in a mixed way? Now I'm happy with them being used in a mixed

Mark Carroll (: 52:10

Hmm.

No, no.

Dave Collins (: 52:33

I think it's important that they're used in a mixed way. But it's when they are and when they're not. So it's the why, the why and why not, that's the key bit. Now if that's a bit long-winded, I'm sorry. All I'm saying is it's the conditionality. And I'll keep hammering that.

Mark Carroll (: 52:33

Hmm.

Yeah.

No, no, makes...

Yeah.

But it makes me think, and you think back to what we mentioned earlier on about sometimes the traditional being seen as a character. I also think sometimes people who are quite heavy in the information processing thing, also make constraints appear as if there's no element of prescription to a degree or there's no element of telling people what to do. For the same reason why I wouldn't just continuously just

subject an athlete to a circumstance in training where they're just repeatedly failing over time. You eventually need to step in and tell them what to do sometimes to a point and sometimes, and even guided discovery, where the athlete is self regulating to a point, you're still leading the process. There's still a, like there's coach direction within that, there's still an element of that happening. Therefore there's an element of prior knowledge being passed on and there's an element of athletes having to cognitively think through what they're doing. Like these things all happen anyway.

You know, and I think there's an irony, if I could even speak from my own field a little bit. If we want to give athlete empowerment, we want them to lead the process. Autonomy is meant to be supported, otherwise the coaching process kind of collapses in and itself. There's got to be an element of coach has a plan, coach helps deliver the plan. And even in a still learning conversation, there's got to be an element of coach direction in that. I don't think that.

Dave Collins (: 54:12

Do we really want it always to be happy?

Mark Carroll (: 54:15

No, because there's like what the athlete wants and what athlete needs are different things, isn't it? It's like...

Dave Collins (: 54:19

Yeah,

exactly. So I have some real concerns with the overly simplistic ideas that are engaged in some things. The idea of play their way. So the children should always decide what is they're going to do. Sorry nonsense. From safety point of view and anyway from a, I've coached karate.

They don't know what they think that's why they're there. They're there to do it. But all I'm saying is that you're right. It's it's we we mustn't be prescriptive and and anybody who's prescriptive in any direction is Probably sometimes going to be wrong Again, there's a quote Jamie uses in you know in our book Everything works somewhere, but nothing works everywhere

Mark Carroll (: 54:56

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dave Collins (: 55:04

And I'm right with that thing. Now,

whether I'm watching Mark coach and I go, hey Mark, what are doing? And he goes, I'm constraining to a Ford. He uses that chart. Or he says, I'm using a condition game because then we can do this, that. OK, that's fine. Now, his explanation as to what he's doing, i.e. the why, is an important bit of Mark as a coach. And if I'm a coach developer, I'm going to him, so what will we try and achieve with that?

And were there better ways? But that doesn't mean that I'm going to be prescriptive and chase him with a baseball bat and say no it should be that way. It means, okay if that's the way you coach me, there are consequences. Let's explore them.

Mark Carroll (: 55:35

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've come from coaching kids and again, if we even relate that back to the science and then actual art of dealing with people in the biopsychosocial realm of it. I mean, you can ask a kid questions, but see if you aren't then conscious of the fact that see if the kid gets the question wrong and that can impact the confidence and ability to engage with more discovery learning. You probably better tell the kids enough information to give them a baseboard to which they can then start to engage in questioning.

You know, so there's those things like that that come back into it. I wonder, I think we've managed to touch. Yeah, sorry Dave. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Collins (: 56:19

Just a quick example of that.

So one of my colleagues, lady called Amy Price, who's a superb football coach. She's English but... No, no, it's not gamification and this is the point. She's doing a VG... This little baby. some... Actually some webinar people...

Mark Carroll (: 56:27

Is that gamification stuff? Amy? sorry, yeah you're on.

Video game design led. Yes. Yep.

Dave Collins (: 56:44

hijacked it and called it gamification and I think she said no it's not now the gamification is good but it's something different but were you to look at Aimee's use of a video games approach to coaching football with younger performers works beautifully yeah but again it's coached it's coach it's coach led and athlete centered fine with that sorry I interrupted

Mark Carroll (: 56:58

you

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I said, I'm not.

I'm glad you made that distinction, actually, to correct me on that, because I think was, I think, gamified stuff, it's more about the emphasized intrinsic value and how they get engaged with it, but Amy's stuff is more about the metacognitive components with it. Yeah, it's a good distinction. So yeah, the one point I think we haven't maybe touched on, or maybe we have, but I thought it was a useful, maybe it's anecdotal, or if it's useful, is it useful?

Dave Collins (: 57:11

There we go.

Please.

Now go for it.

Mark Carroll (: 57:36

point of your argument in the paper was where you talk a little bit about how what we can maybe learn from still refinement as a way of understanding this sort of how both things maybe work together because still refinement is asking people to deliberately focus their attention internally to a point to reopen up maybe I don't know you know postural elements that we then need to automatize again so is there any relevance to me saying that? Have you already touched on that or do you think that's useful David?

Dave Collins (: 58:02

No, think

that's, you know, that's a, I mean it's one of several arguments that we make in the paper. And again, let me please, please, please emphasize, the paper is not eco-bashing, yeah? It's, no, no, no, but it's important. We're just giving some examples of where it's not absolutely the, you know, the mutts nuts.

Mark Carroll (: 58:18

No, no, no, no, no.

Dave Collins (: 58:29

When you're talking about skill refinement, so something that I've learned to do, and I mean learned, and internalized, and it's automated, but there's a flaw in it, or I want to change it for some reason, then one very good method to do that is to de-automate it, to call it out into consciousness as you just described it, do some tweaking and put it away again. And this is a work I've done with guy called Harry Carson.

Colleen at Edinburgh and also an author on this paper and skill refinement is a good example of calling things into consciousness. Yeah? To then make a modification and put it away again. So yes, if I'm a coach and most coaches would probably, you know, no, that's unfair. Lots of coaches will look at a situation and go, gosh, this person's got a flaw because they weren't coached properly early. I'd like to change that.

And in which case, they can draw on the literature. Our approach is called the 5a model. We're doing a lot of work in that with golf at the minute. But then all of a sudden, you come out and go, oh, OK. Here's a method that makes use of a cognitive approach to pull something in, do something with it, put it away again. So no, it's a good example.

Mark Carroll (: 59:48

Yeah, yeah. And what is yet to get to, can we have it? I think we have got to this point in the conversation, I mean, I certainly, I don't see this as you've said it yourself, this isn't eco-bashing or anything. Like, I mean, at the same time, I think an information processing led view of things that say the defense will even get onto the fence talking and there's things that they maybe aren't so great answering either, if it's even just how.

Why can't athletes maybe describe how they do things? There's elements of tacit knowledge inside of that. How do beginners manage still to coordinate movement when they just don't have any prior learning? There's loads of things and that's what I think. And what I think maybe we can give this little segment to is actually really praising the work of ecological rabbits and that they are really bringing to the forefront the interaction between the athlete and the environment in a way that I think.

offers another piece of the jigsaw puzzle, like in the same way I think the Kodato side is also bringing in an element of that puzzle that we just aren't able to give attention to. I think that's great and I just think, I just, it's like.

Dave Collins (: 1:00:42

I'm fine with that. I'm absolutely fine with

that. Absolutely fine with that. No problem at all. The classic triangle. know, person, environment, know, that's task. Absolutely fundamental. And of course that's going on. Interestingly, you've brought in something else as well, which is the psychosocial dimension.

Mark Carroll (: 1:00:51

Yeah.

I

Dave Collins (: 1:01:09

which is external to that triangle. So yes, of course you're right and that's why there's nothing so practical as a good theory. But part of that practicality for a consumer, like a coach, is how good is this? How generalizable is this? Are the circumstances where it's less effective?

Mark Carroll (: 1:01:19

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 1:01:35

Now I would, that for me as a coach educator, as a coach developer, as a researcher in this and as a coach myself, I would be looking and saying there are circumstances in which this explanation worked really well and there are circumstances in which it's a bloody silly idea. Yeah, just like using guided discovery to teach absenteeism.

Mark Carroll (: 1:01:56

And yeah,

but that kind of comes back to the point I made earlier in the conversation, David, where I was saying about why I think it's difficult to teach and it's maybe that I need to teach it, but sometimes it's like your iPhone, you you want to be able to use it to do good things, but you don't need to know about how it was made. And I think it's difficult sometimes because the conversation seems so entrenched in the process of learning that I think we...

Dave Collins (: 1:02:15

Huh.

Do you think so? say, don't, I don't, I don't...

Mark Carroll (: 1:02:23

We lose sight we lose sight sometimes

I think coaches want I just think coaches want not simplicity But I think they do want something that empowers them to really act on it creatively I think once you give them like talking about I like somebody almost comes like physics It's almost like talking about physics a lot of stuff like we call us your dynamics. I think maybe it's about how do we Do we need to buffer some of that? think when we were working with coaches because I think coaches just want to know how they make us representative how do I

make this in a way that you know variable how do I get the athlete to be good and I don't know what your experience has been

Dave Collins (: 1:02:56

But

you see, you've just said, how do I make it more representative? And yet, earlier in our conversation, you've agreed that there are circumstances in which you don't want

Mark Carroll (: 1:03:06

I don't know.

Dave Collins (: 1:03:07

So a

thing to do would be to say to a coach that there aren't absolutes. It's not that better representative is always better. There are certain circumstances.

Mark Carroll (: 1:03:14

Yeah, yeah.

That's true, that's

true Dave, actually, because even when I say that, I go, we need to make the core tenets, but actually in itself, in fact, in itself is tricky.

Dave Collins (: 1:03:29

But what you're saying in terms of jargon, you know, the explanation,

and I go back to that Einstein quote, make everything as simple as it can be, fine, but no simpler. And if we oversimplify it, and one of the things that the early work in the cognitive approach, the information processing approach, because it was driven at the time, was staggeringly oversimple. You know, the idea of a simple motor program.

or a central command strike, clearly didn't work. And in actual fact, the researchers at the time, I'd highlight the work of some of our Dick Schmidt in this, would very much know, no, this isn't how it works. But if you were to go and look at the work of say, Björk, in desirable difficulties, when it is useful to put someone in and make them

Mark Carroll (: 1:04:13

Thank you.

Dave Collins (: 1:04:26

have difficulties. Or our own work which talked about why executing errors is good for learning. Now there's just a paper, know, Rob Gray I think just has a paper out and he's saying look how important this is, look how good this is about using errors in learning. We're going yeah but it's done, it's out there, there is an awful lot of, as we say in the paper,

Mark Carroll (: 1:04:46

you

Dave Collins (: 1:04:50

old wine and new bottles. So if I am a coach and I'm really, I just want the best practical answers, yeah, I'm right with you, yeah, but recognize that the right practical answers have to have a bit of qualification in. Like most of the time a representative design is best, but not always.

Mark Carroll (: 1:05:05

Hmm.

Hmm, that's one of them dirty press conversation. You've almost you've done well there eliminate more than consistencies I've actually seen that as like do I got something here? But then you need to be consistent with us. It's true So let's give me does it it's quite a face quite up that you've went on to that because at this point the conversation they've what I try and do is a With some I guess is I want them we can I give me two or three like coach hats So like again because we want that coach is listening to this to have some tangible they can take away. I know this is

Dave Collins (: 1:05:13

Sorry.

Mark Carroll (: 1:05:38

Partly practical, but there's a conceptual element, there's a wee bit of a strappedness to this. What would be if you were to summarize this conversation and you want coaches to take three things away from what we're saying, or two things, you tell me what matters most, what would it be, building what we've just spoke about there?

Oops, sorry, think we just, we a wee, we disconnected just momentarily there, Dave. Yeah, you can hear me now? Yep.

Dave Collins (: 1:06:00

Yeah, sorry, I've got

your back mate. I can do that. Okay, fine. So we've got a thing called the Big Five and we've used it as a good effect to work with quite experienced and you know, experienced coaches to manipulate change. So you go, right, so you've just done a session. What did you do? Why? Give me three alternatives.

that you considered before you started the session, what would have changed in the existing situation to make you use one of those instead? And finally, when and how will you know that you made the right decision? So what have you done? Why? Three alternatives that you considered. What would have changed to make you choose one of those alternatives? And when and how will you know that you've got it? Right? Okay. Now that is a method.

Mark Carroll (: 1:06:47

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 1:06:50

You don't do it all the time because you'll go bloody mad, but you do do it sometimes because it requires you to think about alternatives. Coaching is... Coaches are creatures of habit, humans are creatures of habit, and you tend to get in, this is my favorite practice for this. And every so often you need to look at it and go, what did I consider as alternatives? Second of three, take-homes. Think about how it works.

someone's told you that this is down to shared affordances go hmm that's interesting how does it work where is it stored you know what sort of other things go on yeah third and final there's loads of different ways of skinning a cat if I can say that with the RSPCA listening yeah so therefore rather than you know confine yourself to one

Principle or another get on you know I have I have friends who are Hindus Muslims Sikhs you know Buddhists Whatever whatever III mix with Celtic and Rangers fans. It's all alright. Yeah It's okay. We can talk to each other. We don't we know we don't need to Put ourselves into one camp because I'm absolutely sure

Mark Carroll (: 1:08:07

Hmm.

Dave Collins (: 1:08:09

that one camp is not absolutely right.

Mark Carroll (: 1:08:12

Yeah, yeah, and that's the main thing I would take for that conversation. Actually, I really like the first point you made there as well, think. And it's interesting because it's not the typical response you get from a guy in sport at-style acquisition because you put it more on just let the coach reflect and learn from their own experiences and get better at coaching as a craft because of that.

Dave Collins (: 1:08:29

It's very hard to reflect

and learn from stuff you don't know about.

Mark Carroll (: 1:08:33

Aye, exactly.

Dave, thank you so much. You've been really generous with your time and it's a great paper. It's like, I think it's well placed and we need the intervals of, I think, any idea. We need some people to be critical and it's part of moving the practice forward. I think that's something everyone should get behind. think that's part of it. Yeah.

Dave Collins (: 1:08:56

not being too pushy, Mark, but I think that's what we tried to do with the book. We tried to go,

here are, there's not just two, there's at least three, but now here's the way they work, and here's how you might choose between them. So have a gander. See if it's useful for the guys at UWS.

Mark Carroll (: 1:09:05

Yeah.

D'uh.

Test from Alan.

Brilliant, and the listeners as well. Absolutely would encourage anyone that's listening in to check that out. And just to keep up to date with some of Dave's work, it's good work. It's very critical in all the right areas and complimentary in all the right ones too. So great, thanks so much. And for those that are listening, I hope this conversation has been as useful for you as it certainly has for me. We will see you next time. Thank you, Dave.

Dave Collins (: 1:09:23

Alright.

See ya!