Monday 8th October
Brazilian Soccer Schools
Year 5/6
Session 5
Having reflected upon last weeks session and highlighting factors such as individualism within the group, I have decided to devise a warm up drill that is very co-operative and very much so a group task. The effectiveness of group tasks relate to intergroup dynamics. Alderfer (1983) suggests that three dynamic affecting this are cognition, leadership and behavior. I provide leadership but I must gain the behavior and cognition form the players; two areas I feel are important to work on and get right. Cognition is a very broad term and important in skill acquisition, it denotes both conscious and unconscious thought processes (Nutten et al 1981). Prior to the warm up I decided to indicate to the whole group that I will not succumb to individualism amongst the group; it can be defined, as stated by Moberg and Piedmont (2003), as any behavior which deviates away from social norms, however in contrast Gannon (2001) states individualism as an extent to which a person will take without considering or being influenced by group norms. This gives two lights to individualism, the first suggests that the individuals are purposely disruptive because they do not want to cooperate and the second suggests they are individuals as they are not influenced by group behavior. Individualists find it hard to perform group tasks, therefore we do not want this to happen within our collective (Earley 1993). I feel it is essential for young players to socialize as a team rather than becoming individualist and as a coach I am dedicated to do so with each and every one of the players in my group, this coincides with Sabock’s (1973) research into qualities of a coach. The warm up I have devised involves several cones surrounding a central cone; each player has a cone of their own and begins on the cone until my instruction. The players will perform a variety of dynamic movements and stretches during the warm up, as they continue to move around the drill in the same manner. Little and Williams (2006) found that static stretching does not appear detrimental to high speed performance, however dynamic stretching was found to be the most effective for soccer players as preparation. The direction in which the players will move around the circle is as follows in the diagram below.
The players really enjoyed this active warm up and I feel that it allows the players to concentrate on the task without the need for disruptive conversations amongst themselves. Active warm ups are also more beneficial in helping to improve muscular power (Racinais, Blonc, Hue 2005). I found this warm up allowed me to give the players clear instruction and communicate with each other to perform the task well. “Teams that are characterise with high levels of communication also have high levels of performance effectiveness.” (Hardy, Burke and Crace 2005). I had each player shouting “in” when they were moving in towards the middle and “out” when they were moving to the outside. They really enjoyed the vocal aspect of this and it helped them to focus on the task in a co-operative manner; as intended.
I began the core work statically with each player posted on their cone. I wanted to do this at the beginning of the core work to gain the intensity from the players that I wished. In this format it allowed me to gain a visual on each player and monitor their work rates. If I felt a player was dropping to a comfortable intensity then I just called their name to get an increase. Many studies show that young athletes participate for many reason’s, skill development and fun are just two of them (Frederick, Ryan 1993). Taking note of this it seems obvious that these are two areas I must cover in my sessions to keep players motivated. Vallerand (1983) stated that by providing positive verbal feedback, players gain a higher sense of competence and also intrinsic motivation; this is another way I feel I can increase motivation and that leads to work rate. According to Fitts and Posner (1967) the acquisition of psychomotor skills occurs in 3 stages, cognitive, associative and autonomous; if we can get players to work at a harder rate than maybe they can cope with then eventually they will adapt to this intensity and become more proficient from it.; I feel the more you practice or increase work rate then more likely it will become that the players will progress through the stages of learning. However there are many theories on skill one of which proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980) they suggest that we go through five developmental stages instead of 3. Which ever theory is correct we do not know, but what we can begin to understand as coaches that there is a definite progression. I feel in order to gain the best from my players I need to use all the information on skill acquisition I can as it is all relevant; by doing this we are able understand how skill can be acquired and develop drills that coincide with research.
Today’s main session objective was to begin combating the individualism that has protruded in previous sessions, and in terms of this I feel the session went well. I created drills that required the players to work as a team in order for the drills to work effectively. I feel by continuing to devise drills like this it helps to actively promote team work and unity. Carron et al (2002) established a link between task cohesiveness and team success; they found that the more cohesive a group then the more likely they will be to succeed.
Alderfer,C. P (1983). An Intergroup Perspective on Group Dynamics.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA135582
Carron, A.V, Bray, S.R, Eys, M.A (2002). Team Cohesion and Team Success in Sport. Journal of Sports Sciences, Volume 20, Issue 2, pages 119 – 126. [online] [Accessed 30th Dec 2007 http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713776579~db=all
Dreyfus, S.E, Dreyfus, H.L (1980). A Five-Stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA084551
Earley, P.C (1993). East Meets West Meets
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0001-4273(199304)36%3A2%3C319%3AEMWMMF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
Fitts, P.M, Posner, M.I (1967). Human Performance. Brooks/Cole
Frederick 30th Dec 2007 http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5002195225
Gannon, M.J (2001) Working Across Cultures: Applications and Exercise. Sage
Hardy, Burke and Crace (2005) cited in: Murphy, S.M (2005). The Sport Psych Handbook. Human Kinetics
Little, T, Williams, A.G (2006). Effects of differential stretching protocols during warm-ups on high speed motor capacities in professional soccer players. Journal of strength and conditioning research, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 203-7 [online] [Accessed
http://e-space.openrepository.com/e-space/handle/2173/3519
Moberg, D.O,
Nuttin, J, Ydewalle, G, Lens, W, Atkinson, J.W (1981). Cognition in Human Motivation and Learning.
Racinais, S, Blonc, S,
Sabock, R.J (1973) The Coach. Saunders
1 comment:
Check the LMU booklet "Quote, Unquote" for guidance on correct form for bibliographic references, particularly online sources.
Some excellent academic reflection, well done.
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