What coaches can learn from locksmiths - a conversation with Scott Benbow - The Talent Equation Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, Stewart here before we get into today's podcast,
I wonder if I can ask you to do me
a favor. I'm hoping that I can get the podcast
to grow to a wider audience. But further it goes,
the more people that it can impact. I often get
letters of messages on social media from many of the
listeners who often talk to me about the impact it's
had on them and the people that they work with.
Sometimes that impact goes as far as family members and

(00:23):
relationships that you hold. I'm hoping that I can get
that message out call wider audience.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Obviously, the more people that listen, the more impact the
show can have, but also the more people that subscribe
and download, then that helps me to invest in the
show and put out more content. As you know, my
podcasting of late's been a little bit sporadic, say the least,
and that's partly due to the fact that I've just
been struggling with capacity. Now I'm hoping to be able
to enlist some help so that I can improve the
quality and improve the amount of podcasts I put out there.

(00:49):
But I can only do that with your help. To
please share it far and wide, you know, use social
media if you want to use your networks through WhatsApp
or other messaging channels that you use, or even if
you're face to pay with people, conferences, seminars, those sorts
of places, let them know about it, encourage them to
sign up and listen. Now, I've got loads of ideas
for a new ways to take the show. I want
to bring on new co hosts other than the world

(01:10):
famous Flow the Dog. I want to do some live
streamed episodes that people can interact with and do Q
and as live Q and a's, and I'm also thinking
about doing live podcasts from conferences as well as bringing
on some big name guests. But I can only do
that with your support. Every single subscription is a massive benefit. Now,
if you want to go a bit further than that,
then there is a Patreon page, and if you go

(01:30):
to the Patreon page, there's opportunities for you to buy
me the equivalent of a cup of coffee. If you're
are to do then that's amazing and that's massively supportive,
but it's not essential. The main thing is if you
could just take the time to share it on your
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you know and if you find some value in it,
then pass it on to others and pay it forward.
And if you can do that, I'd be enormously grateful.

(01:53):
Thanks in advance via support.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Welcome to the Townent Equation Podcast. If you are passionate
about helping young people to leash their potential and want
to find ways to do that better, then you've come
to the right place. The Talent Equation podcast seeks to
answer the important questions facing parents, coaches, and talent developers

(02:17):
as they try to help young people become the best
they can be. This is a series of unscripted, unpolished
conversations between people at the razor's edge of the talent
community who are prepared to share their knowledge, experiences, and
challenges in an effort to help others get better faster. Listen, reflect,

(02:38):
and don't forget to join the discussion at the Talent
Equation dot co dot UK.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Enjoy the show, well, I'm delighted to be joined for
I'm going to call this season ten maybe of the

(03:04):
Talent Equation Podcast. I don't really do it in seasons,
but every year it seems I have a bit of
a summer sabbatical that ends up being an autumn summer
and then I get back on the horse. Around about
we're getting the run up to Christmas time. So yeah,
back podcasting, and I'm delighted to welcome Scott Bembo to
the show.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Scott, welcome, Thank you very much, pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, we've one a little bit of a chat before
we started. There's a lot to get into, not least
of which the post you put on LinkedIn, which would
be going to be really interesting to Unpat got seventy
four replies. I see. God, it's like gone viral, so
there's a lot to talk about in there. But before
we jump into any of that stuff, I'd love to

(03:48):
just hear your story, find out a bit more about
you and your background and the journey that you've been on,
and then what you're currently doing and all those sorts
of things, because there's just so much to kind of
find out about and I really want to hear it.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, well, I'll keep it as brief as possible. So
currently right now I work. I own a franchise of
the Football Fund Factory. I'm in West Cumbria, the Lake District,
which is northwest England. For anyone who's not in and
around England or southern Scotland. I've been doing it for
about four years now. Previous to that, I had an

(04:23):
eleven year break from coaching. I spent on and off
six seven years in America, working between summer camps, working
with clubs, doing some development stuff there, working with competitive teams,
and by about two thousand and nine, I just had
a burnout, had enough of it, and I just left coaching,

(04:44):
moved back to England and over that eleven year period,
I wasn't sure what to do, and people kept asking, well,
why don't you go into teaching, because I do have
a love. I've always had a fascination and I guess
a passion for helping people achieve things, especially things they

(05:06):
thought they couldn't do. So I did my PGC or
my postgraduate Certificate in Education. I did not like that
at all, and I did a two year part time
and within about i'd say about three months, I decided
teaching wasn't going to be for me. But I wanted
to see it out, wanted to get the qualification because

(05:28):
I thought it's going to help me somewhere. And the
reason I wasn't really into that course I just really
struggled to align myself with how they were telling me
the best ways to teach, how people learn, learning styles,
all that kind of thing. I really struggled to get
my head around it. And at the end of one

(05:50):
of our two hour sessions, they played a quick five
minute video of a lady named Professor Carol Dweck talking
about her research, which eventually led to the book Mindset,
and I was hooked the thought that the way in
which I communicate and talk to someone, the way in

(06:12):
which I behave could have a huge impact on their
desire or ability to want to learn. That was it
I started. I read Mindset was the first book I
read on that. I looked into a lot of other
books around that, around performance and things like that. I
really enjoyed them, but it still wasn't quite itching that scratch,

(06:33):
you may say. So someone recommended I attempt to read
some scientific papers on learning and learning science and things
like that, and for someone who doesn't read a lot
or didn't read a lot, that was extremely painful. But
there were some real good nuggets that came out of it,

(06:54):
some common themes came out of it. And then I
was lucky enough what would be four years ago. Roughly
when I was starting this, I was introduced to a lady.
She's known as a learning pirate. You'll find her all
over LinkedIn Lauren Waldman, and she had hadn't quite finished

(07:14):
it just yet, but she was working on a course
called Joining Forces with your Brain Lauren if I remember
rightly as a learning development practitioner in the corporate world
and had a similar craving I guess and dived into
the learning science, but went a lot deeper down the
rabbit hole to become a learning scientist. And a friend

(07:37):
of mine had her on a podcast and then messaged
me straight after before he'd released a podcast, said you
need to talk to this lady. He introduced me to her.
We had a chat over Zoom. I could have talked
to her for days on end. She was so fascinating
and a lot of the stuff I'd been learning and
going over the way in which she put it just
simplified it right down, but just reinforced what I was thinking,

(08:00):
what I was trying to do was along those lines.
And then I did the course that she had Joining
Force your Brain sitting in two parts, so I did
both of them, absolutely love them. And then I joined
the Football Fun Factory, and it was at the same
time I was really wondering because a lot of what

(08:21):
it was was designing courses and a lot of it
looked at like learning development people in the corporate world.
I got me thinking, could I apply this to football coaching?
And if I could, would it make a difference? And
do football coaches right now use this? And then when
I started to get into it, I realized that a

(08:42):
lot of what I'd believed wasn't quite right. A lot
of what I did was not very effective, and I
just then I went on three years of just developing
me to support the children. So I would could I
apply what Lauren had put forward about learning so that

(09:03):
I could enhance my learning and in turn enhance the
children's learning, And then I would try it with my
coaches and see if I got enhanced their learning so
that they could then enhance the children's learning. And it
all worked, and it worked, and it moved forward. Obviously
it works differently for different people. Different people work at

(09:24):
different speeds, they have different interests, So that that was
really fascinating. And although the beliefs I was given what
I learned around learning and I was all having the
same process that happens within our brains, other as people
are very different and being able to trigger that process
and keep that process going that is the big challenge.

(09:47):
And so yeah, I got to the point about six
months ago. Year ago, I started sharing with local grassroots
because I was seeing sessions going on, and on one hand,
I was seeing frustrated coaches, which is never a good
thing because you know, they like superheroes, aren't they. They give

(10:07):
up all this time, these volunteer grassroots coaches to make
sure that children can play the sport of football. I
don't think over the last four years of me what
I've been doing, I don't think they're supported very well.
I think they need a lot more. And because of that,
I don't think the children get out of their football,
especially their training on the matches, what they could be

(10:28):
getting out of it. So I've decided that it's time
to share and working on doing a couple of short
courses just to help the grassroots coaches getting understanding, a
simple understanding, something they can apply quickly and use, because

(10:49):
what I've found is when you start applying it. Although
I'm learning and working on getting better, it's having a
really quick impact with the children, and it's helping them
to learn and to really enjoy what they're doing and
have a great time. Because for me, at the end
of the day, it is all about the children. It's
about Football served me really well through life. I went

(11:14):
when I was nineteen, I went out to Florida to
work for Disney on an internship program, and football allowed
me to mix in and integrate with lots of different
people who are also working out there at university. Joining
the football teams there helped me socialize with different people
traveling around America. Football was the common language. So if

(11:37):
we can get people to fall in love with football
and just keep playing it throughout their life, one they're
going to stay active and two it's going to help
them socially. So yeah, that's a big driver for me.
If we start them off now young, fall in love
with it and then trying not to get them dropping
out at their early ten years and keep motoring through

(11:59):
and enjoy and at whatever level they want to play
ut But yeah, that's that's my deep down, Miaim.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Your philosophy resonates very very strongly with mine. It's probably
the big reason I set up this podcast. Back in
the day because I felt, like you quite rightly say
that a lot of coaches out there were frustrated or frustrated.
I went through that. I went through a very similar
experience to you where I nearly gave up. And it's

(12:30):
only because I was fortunate enough, because I happened to
be working in coaching, talent development and in the sports
industry that I was exposed to people who were able
to kind of help and also challenge my worldview. And
it was about once I kind of unlocked myself from
sort of an old paradigm around learning, which is, you know,

(12:52):
it was just prevalent, I then reinvigorated my kind of
love for coaching because then I felt like I didn't
have to do all of the things that I felt
a bit icky and uncomfortable phat so and Yes, and
because of that experience of you know, sort of ten
or so years of really quite frustrated, conflict, full you know,

(13:13):
fuel scenarios where you really just didn't feel like I was,
I thought, I've got to do whatever I can to
help some other people not have to experience that. And
like you know, you and I both you know, kind
of passionate, sort of grassroots advocates, and I work at
the grassroots, but I've also worked in the talent pathway,
and very often the talent pathway is that sort of
convergence between grassroots sports. It's resourced like grassroots sports, but

(13:38):
the expectations on the talent goat is enormous because you know,
these young people are really invested now. They've got hopes
and dreams, and their parents have got hopes and dreams
and all the dynamics of that make it. And you've
also got adolescence and growth and maturation and all these
sort of dynamics extremely complex time, and these people are
just thrown into the deep end. And I'm like, well,

(13:58):
we need to be from some resources. So you know,
I'm genuinely a believer, and I also believe passionately like
you do that the coaches, because these coaches are under resource.
They're not bad people, they just haven't necessarily got the
tools to be able to do the things they need
to do, and they're given the bare minimum in terms

(14:21):
of support and then just expected to go and provide
a great experience and then they get castigated. And the
frustration I have as well as I've spoke to so
many performance directors in sport too. The thing they always
do is point down to the grassroots and go, well, coaching,
there's rubbish, so that's why we're not doing very well
internationally and go, Okay, how much time do you spend there?

(14:41):
How it's time. How much resource does your organization put
into those people? And it's usually pretty little. So I'm
a big passionate believer about that, and I'm totally on
board with you. I'm really interested in when you came
across Lauren, and I love the name learning Pirate by
the way they attracted to that concert does a kickoff.

(15:02):
So this notion, what was the sort of central thesis
of the approach, this notion of joining forces with your brain?
What was the sort of thing and what was your
kind of epiphany that you then took into your coaching.
That was sort of the change and the shift.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, no, so a whole approach. It was a blend.
It was so what's happening in the brain. So when
you're going through the learning process, what's happening? And she
walks you through. She makes it very simple to saw
the neural pathways and networks, how your neurons connect and

(15:39):
all of that the electric so basically gives you the biology.
I have it written down because I realized after doing
the course, learning and getting all of that was taking
up a lot of time, so I have it written
down so I can use it as and when. The
simplest way that she explained it was when you start
something out. Imagine a new a new tree that's just

(16:03):
been planted, and if you turned it upside down and
had a look at the roots, you'd see very small,
thin roots, very spread out. And that's a bit like
your neurons and the connections when you first start something new,
and then if you work hard at it and you practice,
and over time you come back to that tree after

(16:23):
lots of practice and time you turned it over again,
you would see this real thick roots that have taken place,
really intertwined, very thick bush. And that was the way
that she got us thinking about it that by doing
the practice, by working through it, you are building these
neural networks. The saying that you've probably heard is that

(16:46):
neurons that fire together wire together, so you're wiring your
brain to do specific things. And also that is when
I'm on LinkedIn, that is where I think a lot
of people are confused as well when it comes to learning.
We can get into that, but then she also walkes
us through the process and things that you can do

(17:08):
and use to enhance learning. So basically working with your
brain or someone else's brain to enhance learning. Things like focus.
If you don't have a person's focus, then they're not
going to get much out of whatever is it you're
saying or doing, because focus is the gateway to learning.
And then simply put, it goes the focus. So when

(17:31):
you focus, you filter out a lot of the other
noise and information out there to absorb and take in
what it is you're focused on. Now, I always used
to believe that you would put a spotlight on it,
but apparently the way in which the brain works is
what you focus on stage the same, but everything else
around it dims down. The sound and noise, whatever it

(17:54):
may be, dims down to allow you to focus. And
also that there is a process within the brain that
you can train yourself to enhance your ability to focus.
Simply by staring at something for thirty to sixty seconds
can set you up for a more focused learning period,

(18:15):
and you can if you were to do that repeatedly,
then I can't remember the name of but there's chemical
reactions that go on that actually strengthen that ability, and
so like that. Then she went in and talked about
the learning sorry the working memory and how that's the
temporary space where you're using whatever's in there, that it

(18:38):
is limited, that it doesn't last for very long, so
you have to keep using it and from there it's
then encoded and becomes a memory over time. The big
thing that she helped us to understand was that all
of the different aspects and regions of your brain that
are involved in whatever it was you would just work

(19:00):
on or going to be involved in that memory are
all encoded, but it's all spread out throughout your brain.
So that's why these networks are important, so that the
different parts of the brain can connect to work and
then retrieval, so the ability to pull out that memory
of whether it was the action your body's going to

(19:20):
do or the knowledge you wanted back to the working
memory to use again and to build on it. So
that was the process that she simplified and talked about
and then went through some of the biological stuff behind it.
And that's what I went away with and it was
when I realized that everyone uses that process, and the

(19:46):
reason for that is the brain is very energy hungry,
so it wants to be as efficient as possible. So
any neural networks you're not using a lot get trimmed
down because there's no point having them if you're not
using them. But they're they're waiting in case you want
to reactivate and build it again. And that's why we

(20:09):
create habits and shortcuts and things like that to make
things less energy hungry, I guess for the brain. And
it was that that really got me thinking, right, how
do I trigger that in everybody? If I out what
I'm going to try and work with, how do I
do it? And then the fact that we discussed quite

(20:30):
a lot about how everyone is so different as a person,
what you like, what you dislike. As you get older,
you've had more experiences in life, you've had more traumas,
more exciting, there's so many different things. With younger children,
it isn't as wide and varied often because of they

(20:52):
haven't had as much in life experiences. So it was
that got me think, Wow, how do I have to
behave how do I have to communicate? What is it
I need to be doing to be helping these. For me,
it's been children want to get this process up and running.

(21:16):
Is the way that I can do it without them
realizing that it's going on. And I found that I
can quite easily by the environment I create, the activities,
we do, what's going on, and then as they get
a little bit older, I try and work with them
on what it is and how it works and it's

(21:37):
and it's. But also as we went through it, one
of the things that was explained was that it's you're
using your whole environment if you design correctly, because a
lot of what we talked about was how you designed
for the learning right, So we use that learning process,
but how do we design for it? And the big

(22:00):
thing that came from me is that we When I
used to design, I mean I was never a big
fan of it, but we were asked to do it. It
was a lot of drills and things like that, a
lot of isolated technical stuff when I worked in America,
which I wasn't really a fan of because it just
didn't make sense to me. I away was always thinking, well,
if I wanted to be better at playing football, should

(22:21):
I not be playing football? If I wanted to be
better dribbling around cons and I could do this, that
would be fine. And then so all those thoughts I've
had for years, Lauren just pulled them all together for
me and it was just sat there going, oh my goodness,
it's like everything is now starting to make sense. And

(22:41):
that's just what I've run with. That's what I've gone with.
I've been working how do I get the children to
focus if I need to impart something with them. Simple
one is no longer do I just stop a session
with everyone standing around and just start, because I know
it's pointless because if I've got ten different people there,

(23:05):
they've probably got ten different interests in the activity we're doing.
So I might only tap into one of their focus points.
And I only have one person that wants to listen
to me now, and that don't Also, as people are
standing all around, they can't hear me as clearly they
can't see me, they're not as interested. So for me, now,
if I need to explain an activity of what we're

(23:27):
going to start, they all come in and I will
do something with them so that I know they're focused
on me. So the latest one I tried out was
we have like little size football. We have size three footballs,
and they're yellow and the newer ones are a little
bit more aluminous, so in the evenings under the lights,

(23:48):
they're quite bright. So what I decided to do was
try to write one of the children's names holding the ball,
so moving it round and if you move it fast enough,
you know it has that little bit of a trail
on it. So I would write a name. And my
whole concept was, if I can get these twelve children
staring at that ball, I'm activating that focus process. So

(24:10):
I would write one name and they would all guess it,
would have a great time with it. Then I'd do
another name, just to make sure I'm using up thirty
seconds to a minute. They guess that would have a
great time with it, and then they go, right, this
is what we're getting into. And everyone is staring at you.
Everyone is intently looking and it's a really weird feeling
the first time you do it, because when I didn't

(24:30):
used to do it, I'd have someone to be looking
for a football to kick, someone to be looking to
see what the other group's doing, four or five would
be looking at me, one would be staring up at
the stars. But once they started doing this, all eyes
were on me, all focused on what I was doing,
which but then what I realized was I would talk
too much and you would slowly see them one by

(24:52):
one that I starting to drift them, starting to lose
that focus, which I started to realize is I'm losing
them at that point. So then it was like, can
I cut it down? So now if I'm explaining the game,
I tried to keep it under thirty seconds, and that
I've learned to really slice my layers very thin, so

(25:13):
they can go off and do an activity, they can
come in, I can, they can get a drink. I
can add the next bit of the layer and send
them off again, and off they go, and and any interval.
I don't like to say interventions. I don't do corrections.
I don't believe in that. I'll do suggestions and nudges
to try and get them to come up with the
solution on the fly. But they're things I've experimented with

(25:38):
and taught myself. I've shared it with a few other
grassroots coaches lately who there now starting to realize how
hard it can be to change your behavior. And as
they're starting to realize how hard it is, for them.
Now it's clicking how hard it is for a child
to learn to do something new. Appreciation of how long

(26:01):
it might take is starting to sink in, which I
think is helping with the frustration part because they're starting
to look at it differently.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Fascinating. God, there's so much to unpack. Yeah, actually, I
think this is interesting because it's gonna take It's going
to nicely sort of segue us into the conversation that
it is at the start. One thing I'm curious about, though,

(26:33):
is you talked about thank you by the way for
going through the or unpacking the stuff that Lauren talks about.
I can it also makes sense a little bit now
your like perspective and your philosophy and kind of you know,

(26:54):
you come from more of a mixed methods I suppose
approach and rescue. You recognize utility in coming at it
from different standpoints, and it's interesting just to explore that
a little bit more. And I want to definitely want
to get into that. But you one thing you talked
about was like this sort of paradigm shift. I suppose, God,

(27:14):
I use the word paradigm too much at the moment,
But anyway, where you've seen like, so you've learned, You've
learned something about about learning and the way the brain
works and the brains approach to learning and the biological
processes and all those sorts of things, and it opened
your eyes. How was that different from? And interesting? Then

(27:37):
you mentioned this that the fact that you know, you've
never been a fan of isolated drills. You would prefer
to do, you know, kind of a more representative practice approach.
So what I was interested in was how did that
learning about learning, if you like, and learning about the
science of learning. What was the shift in approach that

(27:59):
you pain to What were you doing before? And then
what did you do differently having learned more about learning?
Just to bring that to life for me a little.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
More, Yeah, So what I was doing before was what
they teach you to do, so unquestioningly following the kind
of se so this is how we do a session,
this is why we do this, this is why we
do that, And it never really sat with me. But
back then I didn't really have the confidence to step

(28:32):
forward and say this doesn't seem right, or this doesn't
quite resonate too well or whatever. So I always put
my own little twist into things. But generally it was like, well,
here's our curriculum, or if you go on a coaching course,
this is the way you do it. But stepping away
from coaching altogether and just focusing on learning, and then

(28:55):
coming back and saying, could I apply this learning to coaching,
I've not been I made sure that when I left,
I didn't go through any more coaching courses, certifications or
anything like that, because I didn't believe in them. I
thought something was missing. And now coming back and saying

(29:16):
to myself, can I apply this learning and what I've
learned about the brain and how I can work with it?
Can I can I train myself to apply myself much
more effectively? So learning is happening. I can see it happen,
I can monitor it, I can track it, which is
meant when I've come back into football, I haven't come

(29:37):
back into football following any theories or any training or
anything like that on purpose, because I just wanted to
come in purely from here's a learning scientist. This is
what she has talked about, this is what she's taught,
what she's presented, and can I so I could see

(29:57):
how I could use that. When I was in leadership
and management training, so I work with apprentices and things
like that. When I was in that space, I could
see exactly how I would apply that straight away, how
I would change up sessions and everything. But when I
looked at football and I thought, you've got this really
dynamic environment. It's constantly changing. You're looking at both cognitive

(30:24):
learning that's got to go on and physical learning that's
got to go on, and combining them all together, and
you know you're not gonna so how do you get
the knowledge across? How do you get them to develop
the physical part of it? The biggest thing for me
is the question of well, what is it I want
them to learn? So I approach everything with what is

(30:48):
it I want them to learn, which in turn flip
my world upside down because when I look at curriculums
from different places, they don't make sense. Why you're only
going to go for six weeks doing this? What if
the child needs twelve? What if they're up to speed
in three? So it's you know, it's like now I

(31:12):
have many more questions than I ever had when I
was blissfully just going along doing whatever I was doing. Right,
it didn't quite make sense. That's fine, They're having fun.
They're playing football. That's the main thing. Now I feel like,
because I've seen it work, I now have a responsibility
to help these children, to give them the most effective

(31:34):
learning moments possible. Otherwise am I wasting their time? Like
for example, a few nights ago, we finished a session,
another team comes on afterwards. I don't know their age,
but I would guess they're probably under eleven, under twelve,
and they always start out by running laps, and then

(31:59):
they run the lap. And what happened when they were
running laps was one or two of them enjoyed it
and sprinted around the two laps. This is like a
Nino side field. Most of them weren't too bothered to
jogged around, weren't really putting it in, kind of just
got to do it. Coach wasn't happy with that, so
I had a bit of a go aut and tried
to get him to go fast as the second lap.
The second lap was even worse than the first. And

(32:22):
then because the coach was frustrated with them, there was
no intensity whatever and brought them in give them this
big speech and then went into what they were going
to do. It was fifteen minutes into their hour session
by then, and then when they started the activity, you
could see there was no energy, there was no focus,
there wasn't much. And then luckily the activity he had chosen,

(32:46):
everyone was involved. It was a bit competitive, then the
spirit ramped up, then they got involved, then they got energy.
But then he stopped it because he was frustrated because
why are you not putting the same intensity into the
very beginning. You've got to come and do it. So
I'm like, I'm watching a coach who's trying to give
the children the best opportunity with what he believes is

(33:10):
going to help them. I'm also watching children really not
enjoying what they're doing. Not much learning is going to
go on in that whole session. So then after an hour,
you've got a coach walks away frustrated. You've got children
leave that didn't really enjoy it. Well, what's the point
in that session? So for me, it's like the coach
has got to enjoy it. We've got to help them

(33:32):
have a way, right because without them we're not going anywhere.
So how do we help them enjoy it? And then
how do we do it for the children? So for me,
it's like, right, the coach wants to do a bit
of fitness work at the beginning. So when I'm driving home,
I can't help myself sat there thinking, right that first

(33:53):
fifteen minute, how if I was to talk to that coach,
how could I either give him a suggestion, a nudging,
or educate him a little bit so that he would
be able to come up with a different activity to
do in that first five or ten minutes that would
give you the engagement you want, would give you the
energy you want, and would have them running around and

(34:14):
warming up like you want from laps. But then also
the question then becomes, Okay, well, why we're doing this,
because a warm up we want to do great, But
why we're doing this? What is it we want them
to learn? So in a warm up changing directions because
you do that in a match, right, A short run,

(34:35):
a longer run, you do that in a match. And
so that all these things come into my head, which
then just kind of guides the session I would do.
And I kind of look at one that came to mind,
I have done if you've ever done it, But we
call it Foxes and farmers, where your foxes have a
little tail the bib and the farmers are the ones

(34:58):
that run around and try and catchure, right, and you
do that and then if they're quite good, you can
step that up where they do it with a ball. Well,
I was curious because the kids love it. So I
had the opportunity with a slightly older group. I think
they were under sixteen, and I just the coach kind
of trusted me, so I said, can I try this
activity to get warmed up for you? I want to

(35:19):
see if we can get the energy, the you know,
everything you're desiring from doing laps. Can I get this
for you out of this and get your so then
your sessions launched and you're flying. So we played Foxes
and Farmers and at first when I explained it, they
were like a bit dubious. Right where you know where teenagers?
Everything's changing? Do I want to do this? The moment

(35:41):
they started playing that game, the competitive side come flying out.
There was no walking, everyone was running, there were sprints,
there was change of direction, there was avoiding each other,
and they absolutely loved it. So then we threw a
balling and said, right, come on, then you've all got
a ball each. I'm going to make egg stra hard.
The catch is not going to have a ball. They're

(36:02):
just going to come and try and get you, and
they can either get your baller and get your tail.
So now what are you gonna do. You're gonna show
them your backside, You're gonna show them the ball, what
you're going to do. And so just through loads of
there's lots of little challenges. They've got to make these
little decisions about which way they're going to face, where
they're gonna run, what they're gonna do. But then we
just let them play. We didn't there was no talking
to them as it was going on. And I think

(36:24):
it was about seven minutes we stopped and they were
all they were all like absolutely exhausted. They were all
ready to go. They were loving it. There was a buzz,
there was an energy. They went and got a drink
and then the coach took them and they had a
great session. And I think now he kind of goes
with that for another one. The children would turn up

(36:45):
and just be booting the ball around and I used
to do this, but I used to notice people get
whacked in the head because young children were just walking
in front of the goal while someone shooting. So one
of the things I learned when I joined the Football
Fun Factory is a lot of our method is we
have arrival matches, so we set up the little pictures.
As they arrive, we give them a bid, we put

(37:07):
them in there. They start playing a match. I get
to welcome everyone in. Guess what, no one asked me.
When we're playing a match throughout the whole session. So
they get about five ten minutes. That means anyone running
in a little bit late, they don't have to worry
about joining in because they jump into a match. So
I suggested this to these coaches. They started doing that.
It's what now It shows no kids getting hit. The

(37:28):
kids started arriving early for practice because they wanted to
play a little bit longer in the match. So instead
of just rolling in at a bang on time, they're
rolling in five or ten minutes etally. So that's what
we're working with. What's enjoyable, what's fun, what they want
to do. So I'm working with the children because you know,

(37:51):
you you do something new, you do something different, you
do something challenging, it can be really exciting. You want
to get there, you want to get going. I mean
I was sat here ready for our podcast ten minutes
before waiting to click the button because I've never done
this before. This was exciting to me, and having listened
to the podcasts before, I was like, oh, I'm probably

(38:13):
going to get some good challenge against what I believe here,
which is going to be great because, as you said,
I'm not tied in too or I don't believe I'm
tied into a specific theory. I'm tied into what I
was shown as the science which has worked, and if
someone can show me different or how to enhance it,
then brilliantly to add to it and challenge it. So yeah,

(38:37):
it's just that excitement. How can I get better to help?
If I can get better, they can get better, and
if the coaches can get better, the children are going
to get better. And if the children going to get better,
they're going to keep loving the game, they're going to
keep playing and they're going to keep going. Some of
them might take it a long way and eventually have
the dream of getting paid to play football at some level.
Others they're just going to turn up with them friends

(39:00):
once a week and run around and stay active and
have a great time. It's you know, wherever you take it,
you take it. But for me, grassroots kind of help
the coaches, kind of help the children basically.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
So, I mean, I love so much about what you
said there. The thing, the thing that really strikes me, though,
the thing that really I take from what you were
just talking about, was the notion of putting them first,
really and working backwards from what it is that they

(39:35):
want as a starting point from a sports experience, and
then you know, and then trying to then weave in
some of the things that they might need as well,
because you can't always just do the things that they want,
because that would be a bit like just giving them
junk food all the time. And I'm not saying that
the things they want is junk food necessarily, but I'm

(39:56):
just saying that, you know, you need a bit, you
need to mix it up, and so some there are
things that you're going to do, but you don't have
to mortgage the fun if you like, you know, and
be a slave to some of a model of practice
design because oh you've got to do we've got to
learn this now you can actually weave it all in that.

(40:17):
And I definitely heard that, and you The other thing
I really heard as well was engagement and how important
engagement is in fostering a motivational climate that leads to learning,
whereas you know, the previous coach was essentially, you know,
going through the motions, let's face it, with lapse and stuff,

(40:41):
not getting the engagement in actual fact, probably getting half
the group to be really quite disengaged by that as
an experience, and then trying to force engagement into them
via lecture or you know, some sort of other approach,
you know, punishment or whatever it might be. And that,

(41:04):
you know, is a very traditional learning model that you know,
you see quite often you used to see anyway in education,
and you know this idea of you know, you're you're
going to do this and you're going to like it,
you know, because I say so, because I am the
all powerful coach here who knows best for you, and
you're coming at it the other way, which is to say,

(41:26):
let's make some I refer to this, and I've spoken
about it a lot, like it's like a broccoli burgher,
or the other way I've heard it referred to is
you're hiding the veggies in the lasagna. So you're creating
something super tasty and they love it, and when can
I do it? How can I get more coming back
for second helpings, right, But inside that is nutrition. Inside

(41:46):
that is something that's going to do them loads are
good and you know is going to help them to
become you know, kind of stronger, better, whatever it might be.
And so I definitely hear that philosophy in your approach,
very very centrally.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah. The main thing for me is they don't need me,
as humans were des are hanged to learn. That's how
we survive in the world. We learn, we adapt, and
we move on. You only have to watch toddlers, watch
them learn to walk. They don't need us. I mean

(42:21):
we can support them and try and nudge them in
the right diction. They don't need us. Children don't need
us to learn. If you go back to when we
were younger, how many hours did you spend just playing
with your friends in a field on the street. There
was no coach there. We would learn, we would get better,
we would challenge each other. So my thing is if

(42:43):
they don't need me to learn, but I can enhance
their learning if I get it correct. I need to
look at them and see, as you said, when what
is it they want? They want to have fun, they
want to enjoy themselves, they want to be with their friends. Right,
So okay, well what is fun for a four and

(43:03):
five year old and stories work great for that, having
a ball each and running around, that's great for that.
And now when I get to nine and ten year olds, well,
what's fun for them? Being with their friends, playing with
their friends, competing, that's fun for them. So we can
change it up. And the easiest way to find out
what's fun is I just talk to the children when

(43:24):
they arrive at a conversation with them, how school being,
what they've been up to, what's been great this week?
They will tell me all of that. If I can
just drop that down, remember, I can start to build
a picture of what seems to be fun for this group,
and then can I tie that into whatever it is
I want to do. But it is it's all about
the children. They don't need me to learn. As a coach.

(43:48):
I'm only ever going to do two things. I'm going
to get in the way of learning and slow it
down or stop the process, or I'm going to enhance
it and move it forward. Well, sometimes for some coaches,
if you if they just step back and let the
kids play, it probably be better for the kids. Other
coaches just that little nugget at the right time, in

(44:09):
the right kind of way just sets that child off
on another level for the next ten minutes, which enhances
the learning moment that's going on. So yeah, and my
whole approach is about the children. And like you said,
there's needs and there's wants, Right, what does a child
need to be able to? And the way I look

(44:32):
at it is be competitive, right, because if you and
I've had this before. But when I joined the team,
and I didn't feel that I had the ability of
everyone else around me, so I didn't feel like I
was competitive with them. So in practicing, training or whatever,
and that kind of like that took away a lot

(44:53):
of the enjoyment for me, and then that added fear
and took away a lot of other stuff that fear
will remove, like you're and your focus all of that.
But then when I went and I was in with
a group where I felt, you know, we're all very
similar in every activity we do, we're really competing with
each other, which then meant on a match day we
could really go and compete against someone else. What does

(45:16):
the child need to be able to do that? And
so far I've talken with lots of different people. Kind
of I'm trying to make it as simple as possible
for coaches, right because a lot of grassroots coach don't
have the time or the desire to know all the
technical stuff. But so what we looked at was ball manipulation.

(45:40):
So can the child move the ball around with their feet?
Can they stop it? Can they turn that kind of thing?
Ball control? So when the ball comes to a child,
can they control that ball fairly quickly? And I guess,
depending what age, there are different parts of your bodies
to control and then ball strike him as the other

(46:02):
Can they strike the ball in different ways which would
then allow them to do different types of passing, do
different types of shooting, all that kind of thing. Today,
I'm looking at those things and how we continually keep
moving those forward. And I believe is it Tom Bayer.

(46:23):
I believe who does soccer starts at home. His whole
thing is getting at home the children manipulating the ball
to really enhance those core skills so that when you
now are on at the training or wherever you're at
with the team, the coach can focus on the team aspect.

(46:44):
I find it very strange when a coach has a
team together, and it's focused on individual stuff, because I
think you don't get in a week, you don't get
a lot of time where you're actually with a team,
a group of players. So my belief is that in
that moment we should enhance that and all the stuff

(47:06):
that could be learned from working as a team, working together,
doing challenges. More of the cognitive side of it. I
think it should be done in those situations because they're
hard to mimic elsewhere. It's hard to mimic dribbling a
ball around in a tight space with twelve other people
trying not to crash into them at home when it's

(47:26):
you and mum or you and dad. But when you're
at the child's at home with mom or dad, there
are little games and activities and challenges they can play
together that focuses on these little course skills, and then
when you come to practice, that's where you get to
try them out with other people around. I've well, I

(47:50):
get pushed back on this a bit that, well, you
can't know individual stuff and then go and do this.
But if I take four or five year olds, the
ones who are always the most skillful, they've got the
higher level of these core skills play with the ball
at home, so when they arrive, the ability to manipulate

(48:11):
the ball, to move the ball, to strike the ball
is better than a lot of the other children. But
when I talk to the different parents, one child has
spent about ten hours over the week at home just
with the ball at the feet, doing different things, and
the other child hasn't done anything. They've gone swimming, they read,
they play different sports. Which is fine, however, because they're

(48:34):
not spending that time with that ball and practicing. When
they turn up to practice, when we go back to
thinking of growing your neural network, they're ten hours behind
this other person. So obviously the ability looks a bit better.
And then I'll say to the parents, look, if we
can create some fun games at home, then they're going

(48:57):
to touch the ball a bit more. They're going to practice,
We get used, and when they come to practic they're
going to be a little bit better. So then we
can apply it with everybody. And it works every single time.
So it's for me, it's what do I What do
they need to learn? Right? You need to get comfortable
with the ball. The only way to get comfortable with
the ball is to have that ball. Whether you walk
around the house and try not to crash into anything,

(49:20):
or whether you scatter a load of objects on the
living room flow and you have to get from one
end of the mind field to the other end without
blowing your ball up. It's because when you set it
up like that, you've got to control the ball. Yes,
you're moving through the cones, but the cones are just
laid out in any order, or the pillows or sweatshirt,

(49:41):
whatever it is, it's just laid out. So the child
has still got to move the ball around and try
different bits of their feet and going different They're still
going to choose their path. It's not like I'm saying,
here's five cones, you must go in and out of them,
because when you say that, you're you're literally telling them
which movement to use. And yes, they'll get better at
that movement, but only that movement. If I give you

(50:02):
a big scatter of everything and say get to the
other end of that, now you start. You can use
any part of your foot that you want to use,
and you're going to discover it for yourself and find
out what you like and what works for you, and
the parents all work with them and say, right, look,
if they start to get frustrated, let them go again.

(50:25):
If they get frustrated to the point where they're ready
to quit, that's where you step in with a little
suggestion and we just keep that process motoring along and
for the parents and for me as well as it's
learning about that child and their threshold. So when are
they going to get to the point of challenge where

(50:46):
they just want to give up? Because if they want
to give up learning, switch off whatever, they're not going
to keep going, or it's going to pause and you're
gonna have to reset and get going again. If I
can really challenge them and keep them going to the
brink of where they almost want to quit, and then
give them a nudge or a suggestion which helps him
overcome something, and then they reinvigorated and then they go again,

(51:09):
that moment of learning is extended. So every moment of learning,
the longer we can keep it going, the more intense
we can have it, then the better for growing these
neural networks. And the more information we can put into
it then even better. However, saying that what a child

(51:32):
who is learning to move a ball around, one thing
I have really noticed, and Lauren had mentioned it but
I often I want to experience it as well as
just being told it is that the more the closer
to the beginning of learning something that you are on
this journey, than the tighter your focuses. If you watch

(51:56):
any child who's learning to dribble a ball for the
very first time or not been doing it for very long,
their eyes and their head are fixated on that ball,
and as we'd said, we've focused. Everything else is dimmed
out around it. So I could put that child, and
I've done it many times, into an environment where there's

(52:16):
lots of other information for them to use, and they
don't use it because it's dimmed down. So the child
who I've seen this many times is with our cones,
the child who dribbles past the cones on your area
and keeps going until the fence physically stops them because
they're so focused on that ball or trying to stop

(52:36):
that ball, or the children have run into each other
because they're so focused on the ball they're not even
aware of anyone around them. And then what seems to
happen is as they get more and more comfortable with
controlling it, that focus widens out and they don't look
down as strongly at the ball, and they look up

(52:59):
a little bit more, or they seem to even if
they're looking at the ball, they seemed to sense if
someone else has got close to them, and then they
move a little bit. It's fascinating to watch. You can
just see these little changes the children. The child used
to just run into everyone, or the child who went
all the way to the fence. As they get a
little bit better, they start just picking up. Like the

(53:21):
one child who used to go to the you go
three or four times in a row, and his thing
was trying to stop the ball, but eventually he started
to pick up just the cones and would stop closer
and closer to the edge, and then eventually would stay
away from the edge as he got a little bit better. So, yeah,
I just find it absolutely fascinating. This is a nice together.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
This is a nice segue into kind of part of
what we're going to talk about today, because I actually
see the learning process really differently. So what you've described there,
I think is what is the the cognitively derived explanation
for learning, and therefore the models utilized follow that. So

(54:11):
the notion of you know, becoming very focused on the
task becoming competent at the task. And the classic language
used often is sort of you know, unconsciously competent or
you know, consciously competent, consciously incompetent, all this language. But
the idea being is that the focus is here, and

(54:33):
then as we become more proficient, the focus can move
outward and we can begin to perceive other stuff in
the in the world, and then then we can gain
the movement, the movement kind of acurity to go alongside
the bore manipulation. But in the in the first instance,
the priority is to gain the ability to manipulate the

(54:54):
ball and then to apply it into the context. And
of course, you know, an ecological practitioner or an ecologically
informed practitioner thinks of it very differently. So I actually
think there is a misunderstanding fundamentally about what the fundamentals
of let's use football as in this case, because that's
what we're talking about, fundament about what the fundamentals of

(55:16):
football are. So the assumption being is that you need
to be able to manipulate the ball to then be
able to then go and be competitive and play in
the game. So my view is, no, you don't, you
do you do one hundred percent you do eventually, but
it's not necessarily the starting point. The starting point is
you need to understand how you interact with others in

(55:39):
the environment. So you need to understand how you interact
with the people who are on your team in the
same color, and you need to interact with the people
who are on the opposition in the different color, because
what they do changes what you do, and what your
teammates do changes what you do. And if you're not
taking that information in from the get go and it's
not their present in your learning environments, that learning environments

(56:02):
impoverished because you're learning to do something that some way
down the line, you're gonna have to do something very different.
Because your Borren manipulation is great, but it's only great
in my view if you're doing it in concert with
your teammates and your opponents. Yeah, because that radically changes
the kinds of things that you might do. And I've

(56:25):
had her previous experiences of there's lots of experiences of
watching kids learn Borren manipulation techniques in isolation, then going
into a game context doing the same manipulat or manipulation
technique the wrong time, in the wrong place with no
cognizance of anybody around them or anything they need to
do around them, but just still doing the same action
over and over again because it's been something they've learn

(56:45):
and repeated. So I think that's actually a bit of
a flawed model personally. I actually think that we need
to think about It's like, I know you don't disagree
with me here, by the way, but I'm just saying
that you've you've touched on I think you know when
you talked earlier about like you didn't necessarily come in
it with a theory. We all come in it with
a theory, whether we know.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
It or not.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
But the point being is is that the majority of
us before we learn anything about learning theories. And you've
gone into a proper deep dive here in all the
different learning theories, and you're trying to, like most of us,
make sense of how you can kind of wen them together.
But what most people do without any knowledge of learning
theory whatsoever, which, by the way, is a huge failing
in coach ed that nobody learns anything about learning given

(57:27):
that we are learning designers, that's fundamentally are what we're
trying to achieve. And actually when people come into that
when we're designing things or thinking about it. We haven't
got any learning framework to be able to think about
those sorts of things. It's natural, isn't it that you
follow the patterns that are tried and tested that everybody
else has always done. Like you said, unquestioningly, you just

(57:50):
do whatever everybody else does. But it's only that question
of when you begin to start to see, actually it's
still really fit, it doesn't work, and then you start
to just look for other solutions and other explanations that
you start to go, ah, right, I'm coming at it
through different I need a different lens to this, I
need to exploreence it differently. But that dominant paradigm, that
dominant model of linear transfer from isolation or relative isolation

(58:14):
towards context is the dominant model used everywhere. It's got
pure hegemony over most educational situations and for that matter,
certainly most coaching models. Like that's definitely the dominant model
that most people default to. It's like the default approach
ecological turns out on its head, comes out of different lens,

(58:36):
comes from a different perspective altogether, with an entirely different
set of assumptions and an entirely different set of explanations
around humans learn the way humans learn, which is like,
oh right, we've got to think about this really differently
then in terms of design and everything else. And so
that's where I think I challenge that a lot and

(58:57):
work ecologically sort of semi exclusively, because, like I just
that default model is so prevalent, so people don't even
realize how prevalent it is. It's like it's like the
two fish going, God, is this water warm? And the
other fish going, what's water?

Speaker 2 (59:12):
It's just there.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, it's just there a the time.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
And I think it's really really misunderstood because I agree
with you in the the environment having all the children together.
That's why a lot of the activities we do we
start without a ball because it's much easier to interact
with everybody if you're not having to worry about the ball.

(59:36):
The individualized kind of stuff for me is I don't
I agree with you. I don't think it has to
be done first, but I think it can be a
nice little add on just to enhance what you're doing.
And I've seen it happen many times where we'll do
things and then the child will do a little bit

(59:57):
at home. However, also if they're doing something at home,
I don't believe it can be prescribed. You can't prescribe it.
It's just going to be a natural enjoyment with the ball.
And so that's I don't see it as right we
do the individual technical stuff first and then we move

(01:00:19):
it up into the match because the way I look
at it in the question I ask is what is
it that we want them to learn to be able
to do? And ultimately we want them to learn to
be footballers. So we need to give them as much
opportunity as many environments and as many learning moments as

(01:00:40):
possible to pick up on everything that is involved in
being a football player. And like you said, the environment
is the huge part to it, right, It's being able
to interact. It's all that cognitive side of stuff as
well as the physical ball manipulation that's got to be

(01:01:04):
worked together. And the way in which I see it,
when you're building the neural networks, if I was just
to start out building just playing with the ball, then
I start to build a network that's focused on that,
and if I do that a lot and become very
good at that, I have quite a solid pathway for
doing that, but it's very hard to add other bits

(01:01:27):
to that pathway, if that makes sense. Whereas if I,
like you mentioned, if I have them in an environment
where they are moving the ball around or they are
running around, when they're building and firing these networks and
building and picking up on all the different bits, they're
building a much bigger and more varied network that involves

(01:01:51):
a lot of different things. And where I think a
lot of people get it wrong is that they'll go
for the individual skills, like you said, but they have
to get to a certain level before it's then deemed
that you can go and use it. And for me,

(01:02:13):
it's like, right, we're going to do this. And if
I've got a child who's never experienced the ball and
it is quite a bit behind others, and when I'm
observing them, they're not able to interact or they're not
interacting with everyone else, and the constraints or whatever we
have in our games, they're not able to interact with

(01:02:34):
that as much as everyone else. I'll sometimes recommend to
the parents that, look, why don't you try playing a
few fun games with the ball at home, just so
they can enhance the bit with the ball. So the
next time they come back that bit with the ball,
they're already a little bit better with the ball, so
now it fits better into what we're doing. So for me,
it's like just having a little bolt on that you'll

(01:02:56):
do a little bit of here and there, just to
tweak it and move it on a little bit. I
I really don't agree with like you said that that
I ecological dynamics. When people talk to me about the
practical application, I'm like, yeah, I'm with that. When they

(01:03:18):
talk to me about how it's actually working, it gives
me quite a few questions. The cognitive side, when they
talk about what happens in the brain and all that,
I resonate with that, But the way in which most
people apply it, I think they apply it very wrong.
And it seems to be the thought that if you're

(01:03:38):
going to be the thought seems to be that you're
going to learn to do a specific skill, and then
you're going to learn to do ten specific skills, and
they're all going to be isolated specific skills, and then
what you're going to do is when it's time to
use them, you're going to find that specific skill and
then you're going to activate that pathway and then miraculously

(01:04:01):
all ten of them are just going to come together
and you're going to become a footballer. That's not what
I believe at all. What I believe and what I
was taught is that you're building a whole interconnected network
with millions, even trillions of neurons that are supporting your
ability to move around and interact with that is it environment,

(01:04:27):
whether you're in a match or whatever it is, So
we need to be connecting as many of them as possible. So, yes,
if I've built a network that's around kicking a ball,
it's not a specific network on and this is exactly
how you kick it. It's a very vast one that

(01:04:49):
might have thirty or forty different ways of kicking a
ball within that network. And because that network's connected to
other aspects of your brain for all your other senses
and everything, so as you're absorbing and taking in and
it's going back and forward, is adapting too, you know.
So do they call it? Is it achunement? So yeah,

(01:05:11):
So I agree with that everything going on around you
is sending information in and out and it's all moving around.
But I don't agree that you're selecting an individual activity
remembering exactly how to do that, and then doing that.
What you're doing is if the ball's coming towards you,
and it's coming at a certain height with certain and
all of that is, all of that information is being used,

(01:05:34):
and then work with the network if that makes sense,
and fire the appropriate areas to move stuff. Now, one
area that I want to look into more is like
what would you call it? Like the body, so like
the the interaction because I see it as a whole unit.

(01:05:56):
So I've been taught and I've seen it work many times.
Is the process which I follow right now in the brain.
Obviously my application is very different to people who would
usually be associated with that. But then I want to
understand a bit more about how movement works, you know

(01:06:21):
what I mean from like specialists in that area. What's
going on in the brain when we're moving. Now, the
basics I understand is that electrical signals are fired, they
go around to the muscle, the muscles move, and then
our body starts moving right and the other way. Yeah,
but that's what I'm saying. The information is one way, yeah,

(01:06:42):
because information is everywhere. Right. Our skin is our biggest
organ and that's feeding us information all the time, but
that information is being integrated into these networks, so it's
going back. And so as you're building the schemers and
these memories of different overall things, I don't see it

(01:07:05):
as and and the way obviously again the other one
that I find and not one hundred percent sure about
his memory. I understand that we build memories because we
can retrieve them and we can use them. However, when
we're in the moment and we're going for it and

(01:07:32):
we're interacting, you know all the different like if you're
if you're running on an AstroTurf pitch compared to running
on a grass pitch, it's very different. As my son
found out the other week. Your your balance has to change,
everything has to shift a little bit, and you're getting
all of that feedback through your feet, legs, ancles, your

(01:07:55):
whole body right, that's coming in and out. So then
you're trying to adapt how and this is where I
want to learn more. Is that what's going on now?
Because he's still able to control that ball when it comes. However,
one thing that I noticed a lot is that his
attention is very much directed on that ball coming and

(01:08:19):
the bobbles and the grass and the spit and all
of that, compared to on the aspoturf that he uses
all the time, that when the bull's coming he's looking
around a lot more and doing all of that. So
there is a shift in something going on too. And
what I believe is likely going on is he's built
this schemer for when the bulls coming towards him, that

(01:08:42):
it travels in a certain way at a certain speed.
It's very consistent. But now with a grass pitch and
how things can change and move and bobble at any time.
The speed might have been a bit slower with the
grass being long, it might be faster with it being wet.
He's now having to especially at the start of the

(01:09:04):
game when the ball's coming to you're seeing there's a
lot of this. And then it seems to be when
the ball then gets to him and he gets it,
then everything else he seems to bring into it. But
as the game went on and he got used to
the changing speeds and all that kind of thing, he
seemed to go back to the way that he would

(01:09:26):
play on AstroTurf. So it's very so I'm looking at
that and it makes me wonder what's going on here?
Because I don't believe he's just built a memory exactly.
He's retrieving that exact memory and he's using it. I
believe that he's built a network of all these neurons
and everything that brings all these experiences and everything together,

(01:09:48):
and now he's trying to figure out through everything back
and forward what needs to be firing when to help
him out.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
So, first and foremost, we're onto something here. So there's
something we can really it's quite exciting to explore. So
first and foremost, the way I see that is it's
not like you say, it's not a memory per se

(01:10:19):
as we would traditionally think of memory. I a something
that's an experience that I've then locked away in the
back of my brain I'm going to bring back when required,
you know, like a piece of software or something. But
it is an experience that has a both a mental,

(01:10:44):
psychological emotional resonance. Meaning has meaning. And one of the
reasons it's important is because it has some meaning. So
I've had an experience that has meaning, and the experience
that has meaning, because it has resonance, has stays with us.
Some people might refer to that as memory, perhaps, but

(01:11:04):
I think in the physical space. When you're talking about
physical experiences, particularly in dynamic team games, where no two
moments are ever going to be the same ever, ever,
because they're in different time and there's different variants, there's
different things happening in those things, and there's different outcomes,
constantly unpredictable outcomes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
One of the.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
Beauties of football and team games and all forms of
sport really, but in particular, the reason I'm attracted to
these is because of the unpredictability. You know, it's the
attractive thing, you know, and navigating unpredictability, in my mind,
is a coarse skill and gaining experiences that enable you

(01:11:47):
to navigate unpredictability, so you're gaining kind of like a
tool box of unpredictability navigation. So while you were talking,
I was thinking, you an analogy, right, and I think
often when where people are you've referred to this a
few times. Actually, you've referred to this dimming of of
you know, of the brightness. So actually that's not a

(01:12:10):
bad metaphor actually that I use quite a lot, which
is about how bright you want something to be, and
using environmental manipulations constraints as a mechanism by which to
brighten certain areas in the search space, in the in
the in the in the infinite possibilities that exist in

(01:12:31):
this world. You might brighten certain areas that require an
individual to act in certain ways that in order for
them to solve the problem, you know, And what they
do is they're learning then the problem solving skills, if
you like, the ways of solving the problem more than
the tool or the solution you need to solve the problem,

(01:12:54):
if that makes sense. So the way I liking it
is instead of being given a key that one day
a lot is going to present itself that you can
insert the key and it'll open it and it'll be amazing,
what you're doing is you're learning to pick lots. So
any lot that comes to you can unpick eventually, so
you get that like real adaptability, that brilliant level of

(01:13:17):
the lock picking skill, if you like. But in order
to learn to pick lots, you've got to be given
loads of lots to pick to be to become really
good at it. And the problem is we don't what
we tend to do in using sort of a cognitive
framing in my view, because the coggnotive framing is dominant
is we give kids keys. We think our job is

(01:13:37):
to give them keys, and we give them keys in
lots of ways. We either give them keys by getting
them to practice certain movement patterns because we think those
movement patterns are going to be important eventually. Or we
tell them stuff, do this, Do this will be good
for you, or try this because I think it's good
because it's something that I'm knowledgeable about and I think
you should learn. An ecological practitioner doesn't do that. Ecological

(01:14:00):
practitioner goes, what is it in this environment that's important
that might give you clues as to a way of
solving this problem. You might have a million different ways
of doing that, but let's explore what they look like,
and let's explore the relative effectiveness of them together again.
So it's a different way of coming at it. And
so you know, and going to the post you presented

(01:14:23):
where like you're arguing for essentially like what I would
call a sort of compatibilist view, which is to say,
the cognitive side of things. And I was interested in
what you said, Actually, I think you've got you're onto something.
By the way, when you said that, like, it's not
necessarily that the cognitive theory is wrong. It's that it's
a misapplied by people who finally don't understand it properly. Yeah,
and I think you're probably right about that actually, because

(01:14:45):
there's no doubt about it, right, that happens in our brains.
Of course it does, right, otherwise we wan be able
to walk around and all those sorts of things. I
think there's just different ideas about what happens and how
it happens. And you know, cognitive approach tends to sort
of put the brain as the central feature and it's
about information then being transmitted to movements, and you've quite

(01:15:08):
rightly pointed out it's way more synergistic than that, and
anybody who's involved in movement practice for a long time
will know that it's way more. You know, like you say,
the brain, the brain is getting information from the body
and the environment all the time and then you know,
relaying it back and it's like this is constant flow,
and so the environmental piece is a really key important

(01:15:31):
bit and the minute you haven't got that, then you
are then going into brain world. Now that's not to
say and I think the jury still out when we
talk about the idea of but should we never do
any brainy stuff. And if I'm honest, I don't really know.
I just know that when I do brainy stuff and

(01:15:51):
then hope, and it is hope that it's going to
manifest in a game context, I rarely get the evidence
of that that's the case. In actual fact, that usually
get the evidence of the contrary. So sort of giving
up on it a bit. It's not to say somebody
might not come along with an amazing piece of research
that will make me change my mind, but so far
I haven't. They haven't come up with anything yet. So

(01:16:13):
I'm going to stick with it for now until somebody
comes along with somebody that's got a better explanation, because
I'm definitely seeing more positive outcomes from the people I
work with utilizing a predominantly ecologically informed approach.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
No I would, I would agree with you. And that's
where I'm lost, is that the I think the cognitive
approach to it is broken because everything you talk about
with the ecological approach I completely agree with. If you
want to learn to be a footballer, then you've got

(01:16:53):
to practice in a football environment being a footballer, which
means you've got to have all of those things Now,
depending where you are on your journey, what your capacity
is to focus on different things is going to be limited.
So having those guiding constraints. And that's why I say

(01:17:15):
I don't like to correct because for me, correcting is
the coach has an idea of how it should be done,
and if it isn't done that way, then the coach
steps in to correct it. I believe like you do
that there isn't a correct way to do it. Is
there a correct way in which to pass the ball? No,

(01:17:36):
Depending on the moment, there'll be some ways it will
be more effective than other ways, right, And we see
it all the time. You're watching a football match. Someone's
tried to chip the ball over the top and you've
just if you slide that in, it's much easier to control.
On the other end, it'll be much more effective. Right.
But that was the choice they made. Could they have

(01:17:56):
slid it in. Yeah, they have the ability to do that.
They just didn't choose to do that in that moment
for whatever reason. Right. And it might be that in
training the whole focus was on playing the ball over
the top. So guess what you start doing in the
match because that's all you think about playing the ball
over the top. So that's why I really believe that
you've got to put them in there. You've got to

(01:18:16):
put the problem in there, and you've got to let
them figure out the solution. Because one thing that I
have learned is that the children will come up with
better solutions than may nine times out of ten. And
it's just I've look at it and go, this is
how I would do it, and you know what, they've
gone and done it a completely different way. And at
first that really made me feel uncomfortable because it made

(01:18:41):
me think what am I doing if I think it's
this way and they're going and succeeding doing it that way.
And then all the time I started to think, that's right.
They don't need me. So what they need me for
is to help them keep this process alive, this learning
process alive. So if you're struggling, how could I maybe

(01:19:05):
nudge you? Like young children tend to they dribble with
the ball, and they tend to try and stop it
by hooking their foot around it and stopping it dead,
or if we do like turning with the ball, so
they're running, they're going to they're running around an area
and they get close to the edge and we try
and get them to turn away from the edge and
they turn like a bus using the inside of the foot.

(01:19:26):
That always seems to be the go to for the children,
if you're just leave them to it, that seems to
be the go to. And like there'll be one that
really struggle the balls going too fast, can't get the
foot around. They just can't adapt quick enough, and it
gets really frustrated. They want to give up. The ball
rolls out and I'll say to them, look, I've got
an idea that might change your life here and oh, oh,
what's that? What's that? I said, watch this, this is

(01:19:48):
this is what I learned to do and this really
helped me. And I just put my foot on the
ball quickly. And at first they look like that's not
that's not impressive, and I said, but look when I've
done this and then I'll move, I'll run around the box.
I can go anywhere I want now. And then they
go ah, And then what starts that? Then they start

(01:20:08):
to and for like the first two or three times,
they're really looking at that ball and they're trying to
balance their body and put it on and I'm looking
at go and I can see all of that information
going back and forward, correct and constantly just to figure
out what's going to be best, and then they'll do it.
The second time they get it a bit quick, and

(01:20:29):
the third time a bit quick, and then they've got
it and it doesn't take long at all. But guess what,
that becomes part of their as you said, lock picking toolbox,
because anything can happen once I've done that, or if
if the ball's bobbling, it's all. If I just do that,
I can I can go again. And like you said,

(01:20:49):
I like the tool picking the locks analogy is we
want to help them problem solve. We just need to
give them. The way in which I see it is
we need to give them those basic lock picks. So
I don't think there's a different pick for every single lock.
But there might be a pick that used in a

(01:21:11):
certain way, could open ten locks, but it has to
be slightly different for every lock. So for example, that
might be a pass. So you learn to strike the ball,
say you learn to strike the ball with your laces
and you're quite comfortable with it. Well, from there, you
could play a long ball on the floor. You could
play a long ball over the top you could shoot
just using that tool. Well, that could unlock a lot

(01:21:34):
of different things. So when I'm saying I want the
children to get the basics of a core skill, as
we might have called it, it's so that they not
so they become great with it, because I don't want
them to isolate it become great. I want them isolated,
just to be able to do it so that when
they make the decision to use it, they can actually

(01:21:57):
use it. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
And it's got and then it's got meaning to them
as opposed to they're doing it because someone else has
said this is important, you know, because I think what
a lot of what a lot just to extend the
key metaphor I think a lot of people do is
they go around giving kids keys with imaginary locks, going

(01:22:20):
by practice turning this in that imaginary lock, because one
day there's a real lock going to arrive and you're
going to have to be able to clock it. And
the minute that real lock arrived, that real lock is
not the lock that they actually thought it was. And
the key doesn't work, or sometimes it magically does and
they think, oh, brilliant, and then they try it again
it doesn't and they're like, why, that's really frustrating and annoying.

(01:22:42):
Whereas if you've got like the master key, or and
the master key is one that you can just manipulate
because you're an amazing locksmith, you can just manipulate the
key and then it fits any lock. Well, all of
a sudden, you like, you're like, you're unbeatable, aren't you.
And I'm interested in exploring how we can we eate
locksmiths as opposed to key turners.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Yeah, and I think I think a lock pick is
a good way of looking at it, because, like when
you see in the movie, they might have two or
three little tools and the interchange them slightly. Then they
fiddle around with it a little bit, and then it
will open and you might have to attempt to do
this with the same tool ten twenty times before you

(01:23:24):
get it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
Goal.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
That makes sense, and then the next time you go
to use it, that makes sense and it's effective. So
the child doesn't have to master passing the ball. The
child just has to be able to strike the ball
with the laces for that part, or strike the ball
with the inside of the foot. Just can they get
a ball from here to there in a way that
their teammate's going to be able to use.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
It, or just to extend that a little, they need
to be able to propel the ball. Yeah, in theory
towards a teammates based on a series of variables, going
back to this point about the dimming metaphor used earlier on.
So again, the reason we want as much of the

(01:24:08):
environment to be illuminated as we can is because the
very and this goes back to some of Andrew Wilson
once said to me which stuck with me, had resonance
and meaning, which was that variability is not noise. And
that's one of the assumptions of the cognitive approach that
we reduce variability to maintain to gain focus. Variability is
not noise, it's signal. So ball propulsion, propelling the ball

(01:24:32):
in a variety of different ways using various different tools
like outside, fort in, laces, inside, for whatever it might be,
backy or whatever it might be, is determined by what
my opponents are doing and where my teammates are. Because
I've got to go over, I've got to do it
a certain way, We've got to go around, I've got
to do it a certain way. For he did it
fast and hard, I've got to do it a certain way,
and it's about understanding that that makes for skillful skill

(01:24:55):
as opposed to what people are often thinking about and
they confuse technique and skill. The assumption is I learn
a technique a movement pan, and then I'm going to
apply it in the context, and the ecological practition that
works the other way around. The context derives the movement pan,
and it's never the same twice. So we're learning, like
you say, lock picking, using the variety of Yes, there

(01:25:18):
are always going to be the certain tools you'll need
to use to unlock the unlock the lock one hundred percent,
but they used, like you say, in an infinite array
of different combinations to actually do the job you need
to do.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
And I think it's also important for what I do
is that so two things. One, a lot of the
children and I work with wouldn't kill the ball. They
wouldn't even consider it. So will we back heal the
ball as part of it so that they can go, oh,

(01:25:52):
this could be used. So that's also when I might say,
when you're at home player game, but do this do that,
because what I see a lot of is in the
isolated work, someone will get very good at a certain
kind of technique or skill, but when the game presents something,

(01:26:13):
they've only got one or two tools to use or
picks instead of having five or six. So for me,
we've also got to introduce the children to the different
ways of doing it. So, like you said, with your foot,
you've got the bottom of your foot, you've got your laces,
you've got inside, you've got outside, you've got toes, and
you've got the back of your foot. All of it

(01:26:35):
can be used, and all of it can be used
almost all of the time. However, depending what the situation is,
a different parts probably going to be more effective than
another part. Board if you've experienced all of the different
parts when it comes to that environment, you're better able

(01:26:55):
to use one. I'm finding if someone has. And the
way I see that is that within this massive neural
network you're building for having your feet around the ball,
if you're putting in there connections for the different parts
of your feet, and every time you use them in
an environment, and see what happens with this feedback loop

(01:27:15):
you strength and adapt, twist change this network you're building.
Over the years, you get to a place where we're
talking about bringing in more information. Right, So if you
can make your movements with your feet and the ball
to propel the ball as automatic as possible, so not

(01:27:36):
having to think through every step, you then allow yourself
that's going to be taken care of subconsciously, and you
then allow yourself to be able to take in more
of what's going on around you to be able to
do it. Also, what I find is that by allowing
them to figure it out, is their intention might be

(01:27:59):
to kick a bar all in a certain way or
propel it in a certain way, but their ability to
do it isn't quite there, if that makes sense. So
for example, well.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Relative to the opponentship.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Yeah, so like boy who We're going.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
Literally the blink of an eye ninety minutes and my
next meeting has started. Unfortunately, I said, I did a
hard stop. I think we're gonna have to do a
part two because we haven't even scratched the surface of
what we were going to talk about, and there's so
much more to unpack. So I'm really sorry I have
to put us off because I do have to take
this time. But I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you,

(01:28:42):
Thank you for putting up with my crazy metaphors, and
but I think there's more, there's more for us to
explore together. So then we go a wait, have a
little bit of a think, reconnect, and then we'll we'll
do a part We'll definitely do a part two. How
do you feel.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
About No, I'd love to do that. There's a lot
of good stuff come out, and it also helps me
make a bit more sense of stuff as I talked
through it. And like you said, the metaphor the lock pick, Yeah,
that's the one for me right now. I'm going to
go think about that one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll speak
to you again in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
Sounds like a plan.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:24):
Thanks for listening to the Talent Equation podcast. If you
like the show, then please consider supporting it by leaving
a review on your favorite podcast player, telling your friends
about it, or even becoming a hero and show your
appreciation by becoming a patron. Just head over to the
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What coaches can learn from locksmiths - a conversation with Scott Benbow

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}What coaches can learn from locksmiths - a conversation with Scott Benbow