Let's Talk

[Tim McMichael]

This board has been quiet for a while now (as have I). A lot is going on. Any thoughts on where things are at in the world of elite technique? Maybe we could focus on elite teaching techniques if we think the mechanics are pretty much ironed out now.

[Tim McMichael]

I have been studying the teaching methods of Tim Gallwey. He wrote The Inner Game of Tennis which focuses on awareness as the primary mode of learning. It's fascinating stuff. Very Zenlike. Has anyone else used these techniques?

[PVDaddy]

Kirk Mcbride chased everyone away from here. This place is dead now. Been so for a long time now thanks to kirky's rudeness. He always was jusy a wanna be.

[willrieffer]

Not exactly in the same category as your mental emphasis but I like the information included.

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein ... edcomshare

[willrieffer]

Visualization in sports. I find this very important for vault because of the nature of vaulting and that many drills are of specific parts of the whole. Also there are also only so many vaults one can do but visualization can be done even while tired.

https://youtu.be/KI3WJXNhCJ8?si=-YkRhbNYZqoeMqFD

[willrieffer]

The Backwards Bicycle

Oh, man, did this influence my coaching especially when I was club coaching.

https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0?si=GdL6P1hB_Jm--Cnu

Physical activity memory is different than other memory. It is more in the category of 'hardwired' than other memory. So once you learn to ride a bike it gets 'harwired' and you will generally remember how to ride a bike for decades even if you haven't ridden one in a long time.

So an athlete comes to you with a problem in their vault. They've done this problem vault a thousand times. As a coach you are very rarely going to be able to change this athlete overnight. So you can't yell them into change. You have to work long and hard on a deliberate program. And you might fail.

I was coaching an All State high jumper. When I started with her she'd been jumping for a couple of years. And like most jumpers without much coaching she was not blocking off her jump. Instead of leaning back and planting she would straighten up and roll her shoulders at the bar, the rough equivalent of flagging off in the vault. We worked and worked and worked on correcting this problem which was again we might say 'hardwired' into her brain. We even got to discussing changing her takeoff side...

We go to a meet. She is jumping and goes to run 300h. Comes back and tells me she's nauseous. I tell her she's got some time. But she gets up, and gets ready to jump. Bar is at 5'. She blocks off, the one and only time she did it, I guess because nauseousness put her in an abnormal state, and cleared the bar by 8". Everyone around the pit was stunned. They looked at me. Well I knew what had happened. The "new" jump was buried under the old jump, which resurfaced next time she jumped. She couldn't master the "backwards bicycle" and I failed to help her do it.

You get a kid with issues it may take a long time of specific dedicated work to rewire their muscle memory.