Badminton Coaches – pay attention!

What do you pay attention to?

A friend sent this video and challenged me to pay attention

Why don’t you stop here, click the image and take the challenge below

Click to try the challenge

It’s similar to the story of the 3 coaches watching a tournament

 

I called a good friend and we discussed……

• Learning what to pay attention to when coaching is a journey of discovery (hopefully someone can help you), so we will certainly miss things.  Most often you only see what you are familiar with.
• You don’t know what you don’t know, so there will always be something that either you don’t see or don’t realise the significance of what is happening: “what we know is what we see“
• It’s better to observe with others and compare thoughts (but remember the 2 points above).  How many friends do you have to ask and what expertise can they bring?
• Focusing specifically on one thing may ‘blind’ the coach to other observations, however, observing broadly may not gather the information you need — this is an e eternal coaching struggle.
• Don’t always just look at the end result (shots out the back or into the net, etc) look for clues, other parts of the action, the context of the rally, etc. context and all its components are important.
• If what you see doesn’t fit your model (your expectation), check your model or accept that individual differences will always occur.  How flexible is your ‘model’ and all its components really essential?
• How novice coaches can become fixated on a small number of ‘critical’ aspects (in their opinion) due to their knowledge at that time.  How can they acquire the ability to see both ‘Big & Small’ observations, then separate those critical ones that need action from those that ‘can be addressed later’.   ie not everything you see needs to be actioned immediately.

What advice would you give to help with the journey of feeling uncertain of knowing what to ‘look at & look for’ ?

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Listen to this

Another great podcast from Dan Abrahams host of the Sports Psych Show.

Dan is joined by Dr Mike Ashford and Dr Loel Collins in this episode, both lecture at Edinburgh University and are both coach developers at Grey Matters

“It depends on coaching – The most fundamental, simple and complex principle or a mere copout?”

They discuss a paper written by them along with Prof Dave Collins and Dr Jamie Taylor

In the podcast they talk about all things coaching, coach assumptions/bias, coach adaptive expertise, and nested planning/thinking.

Plus the new term to me of ‘inattentional blindness’

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Want more

Have you ever wondered what coaches see when they are watching matches and practices?

• What methods do they use?
• Do they study parts of the game or movements?
• How do they record what they see?

I’ve asked other coaches all these questions and been surprised at the replies. They seem so obvious.

These 6 ways will use their suggestions and hopefully will improve your observations

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As always, I’m very grateful if you have read this far 🙂

When you are coaching what do you pay attention to and how have addressed the 6 coaching struggles above.

Would you like to share any thoughts or experiences?

Why not send me an email  contact@badmintonandy.com

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This is part of a series of conversation starters. 

Although not in detail, the posts are written to get you thinking and talking with others.