Convergence

I have been working through a great deal of archived material of late. I have managed to save most of my on-line work since 1991 and have stored it in a variety of locations. At some point I am keen to return to a decade of rugby union performance data that I have on file!

Amidst a lot of other material I have found a copy of a presentation I made at the Sports Coach 1998 Conference in Melbourne, Australia. I have posted the presentation (Working to Enhance Performance) on SlideShare. Discovering the presentation in the archive reminded me that I had asked permission from a local company in Wales to take with me one of the first commercially available digital cameras.

I had the opportunity to try out the camera in advance and used it with my coaching group at Symonds Yat before I flew to Melbourne for the conference. I used the camera in Melbourne too to illustrate my talk. I thought that was quite an innovative thing to do at the time.

This is the presentation:

By coincidence I met again last week one of the coaches who attended my talk in Melbourne. We had an opportunity to talk about developments in professional sport coaching and the convergence of technologies that seemed such a prospect in 1998 but is now part of our taken-for-grantedness of everyday life. Our meeting reminded me too about the biographical part of knowledge sharing and that innovation and early adoption of ideas are an important dynamic in the pursuit of excellence.

A Grand Day Out (In Rural New South Wales)

Today I had a delightful day out in rural New South Wales. I had the opportunity to meet with Tracey Dickson and her colleagues, Gordon Waddington, Stephen Trathen and Roger Adams at the Snowy Region Visitors’ Centre at Jindabyne. (For an example of their work see this paper on hydration and all day skiing, and this on wrist injuries.)

I had two options of route from Mongarlowe to Jindabyne and I chose the gravel road route.

It was a beautifully sunny day and the gravel road was very smooth and well maintained. My journey down coincided later down the route with many of the rural school buses converging on Cooma.

After a delightful meeting discussing interdisciplinary approaches to the study of snow sports I started my journey home and as it was still light I returned on the gravel road. To my absolute delight my trip home was interrupted not far after Farrington by a road full of goats. Fortunately I had my camera with me to document not a zebra crossing nor a pelican crossing but a goat crossing!

This is what you might call a no-kidding post!

Feedforward

Introduction

Over twenty years ago when I was researching my book Using Video in Sport (1988) I came across Peter Dowrick’s work on self-modelling. I have been fascinated by his work ever since.

Photo source: this photograph was taken by D Sharon Pruitt. It can be found at Flickr here and is included in this post under Creative Commons 2.0 licence.

Background

Back in 1980 Peter Dowrick wrote a paper with C Dove entitled ‘The use of self-modeling to improve the swimming performance of spina bifida children’. You can download a copy of this paper from the Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis here. This is the abstract from that paper:

The use of edited videotape replay (which showed only “positive” behaviors) to improve the water skills of three spina bifida children, aged 5 to 10 years was examined. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used, and behavioral changes were observed to occur in close association with intervention. One child was given successive reapplications of videotaped self-modeling with continuing improvements. It appears that a useful practical technique has been developed.

In my book I noted that Peter Dowrick suggests that “the visible nature of most physical skills makes them a natural target for video intervention”.  The key message for me then and now is that:

Self-modelling functions more like feed-forward than feedback; subjects see themselves not so much as they were but as they might be. (My emphasis)

Peter Dowrick was an early adopter of video technology and for the past thirty years has been exploring his insights into learning.

Photo source: The Edsel Show

In 1995 he and John Raeburn reported their work with  children with physical disabilities. In that paper they observe that:

One behavior was treated with video self-modeling and the other was videotaped without further intervention, resulting in a significant treatment effect. Self-model recordings were produced by planning and selectively editing two minutes adaptive-only behavior, which subjects reviewed on six occasions over two weeks for a total of 12 min intervention. Progress was confirmed one year later. The study supports the efficacy of self-modeling for selected behaviors of these children with physical disabilities, and suggests further investigation of structured video replay as an active agent of change.

(David Templin and Ralph Vernaccia explored the use of highlight tapes with music for training in basketball in 1995. Videotapes of each player’s best and most effective plays were supplemented by music and were viewed by the athletes throughout the competitive season. The note that “although a causal relationship between highlight videotapes and offensive field goal percentage was not established, the results did demonstrate a mean increase of 4.7% in overall field goal percentage for 3 of the 5 participants).

In 1999 he presented an analysis of 150 studies that examined the use of self modeling (mostly in the video medium) in a variety of training and therapeutic applications. This analysis is used “to argue for the recognition of learning from the observation of one’s own successful or adaptive behavior (or images of it) as a mechanism in its own right”. This 2007 review looks at 20 years’ of research in video modelling interventions in autism.

In 2006 Peter Dowrick et al wrote about feedforward in reading:

Video feedforward can create images of positive futures, as has been shown by researchers using self-modeling methods to teach new skills with carefully planned and edited videos that show the future capability of the individual. As a supplement to tutoring provided by community members, we extended these practices to young children struggling to read. Ten students with special needs participated in a multiple baseline intervention. Each received tutoring only, followed by tutoring plus video feedforward, another phase of tutoring only, and follow-up. Overall, reading fluency improved significantly for all students; in 9 out of 10 cases, rate of improvement was significantly greatest during feedforward. Other measures (e.g., word identification) confirmed student progress from most at-risk to mid-stream status. We conclude that video images of success with challenging materials may enhance the acquisition of reading skills.

Peter Dowrick’s doctoral research was published twenty years after the first commercially available reel to reel system video appeared in 1956. His doctoral thesis at the University of Auckland was Self-modeling: A videotape technique for disturbed and disabled children (1977). His work has continued through analogue video and on to digital video. This is a link to an early paper about creating a self model film (1979). His 1991 textbook A Practical Guide to Using Video in the Behavioral Sciences (New York: Wiley Interscience) has pride of place on my bookshelf. (This is a 1996 review of the book.)

Sport Literature

Some sport literature discussion of self-modelling includes:

• Barbi Law and Diane Ste-Marie (2005)
• Shannon Clark et al (2005)
• Jamie Baker and Marc Jones (2006)
• Shannon Clark and Diane Ste-Marie (2007)
• This is an article about social play (2007)
• Deborah Feltz et al (2008)
• Eleni Zetou et al (nd)

Discussion

Photo source: this photograph was taken by Garry Knight. It can be found at Flickr here and is included in this post under Creative Commons 2.0 licence.

When I first read Peter’s thoughts in the mid-1980s I was immediately attracted to the idea of feedforward. It is hard to explain to a media rich world in 2009 just how exciting video was as a medium in the 1980s. My book on Using Video in Sport (1988) contains a bibliography that was drawn from the origins of using video in sport. The earliest reference I have there is a paper by Anne Rothstein and R Arnold (1976) on videotape feedback and bowling in the first edition of Motor Skills; Theory into Practice.

There was a great deal of discussion about feedback in those days. There was an enormous sense of adventure. Early in the 1990s I read some of Richard A Schmidt’s thoughts about feedback (1991, 1997). Later this led me to explore Gabriele Wulf’s work amongst others ( 2001, 2002). This work resonated with me too and it has encouraged me to explore the possibilities for guided discovery in coaching and teaching environments. It made it possible too for me to explore performances of understanding in play, games and sport.

Photo source: this photograph was taken by William Kitzinger. It can be found at Flickr here and is included in this post under Creative Commons 2.0 licence.

Momentum in Team Sports

Photograph by (Tres) descamarado (2006) (Flickr Creative Commons image)

A weekend of watching televised sport renewed my thinking about momentum in sport. I thought I might illustrate my post with some images from Flickr.

I think about momentum as a wave (perhaps from my reading of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) and have been contemplating for a long time now the role of probabilistic approaches to sports performance. I like the idea of a wave as it suggests tidal change.

The Wikipedia article on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes that his concept of flow involves “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Photograph by Mike Baird (2007) (Flickr Creative Commons image)

Some years ago (1990 in fact!) I was thinking of writing a paper entitled ‘Do coaches need a Gamelan rather than a Gameplan?’ I had seen a Gamelan in action at the Dartington College of Arts and what attracted me then was the characteristics in this description:

Varying forms of gamelan ensembles are distinguished by their collection of instruments and use of voice, tunings, repertoire, style, and cultural context. In general, no two gamelan ensembles are the same, and those that arose in prestigious courts are often considered to have their own style. Certain styles may also be shared by nearby ensembles, leading to a regional style.

So … whether it is jazz or gamelan music … it seems to me that athletes and coaches can have an active engagement in performance by being sensitive to rhythms. I think there are three types of rhythms in team games:

• Negotiating
• Driving
• Chasing

I believe that in all three rhythms probabilistic behaviour can optimise the opportunity to drive a game and amplify that driving process. The enormous temptation when chasing, I believe, is that players seek possibilistic outcomes and abandon risk management. Clearly some teams do have a once in a lifetime experience but winning teams are able to counter most of these challenges by applying principles and probabilities. In most team games there is ample time to manage risk and probabilities so that the outcome is under your control independent of conditions and officiating.

Photograph by Jim Frazier (2005) (Flickr Creative Commons image)

(Note: Jim Frazier’s Flickr Profile can be found at http://www.flickr.com/people/jimfrazier/ and the Surfing in Chicago picture can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimfrazier/79017858/)

I hope to return to this post to add some more about Martin Lames’s idea of phases in games and Clive Ashworth’s notions of figurations.

Professor Tom Reilly

I read with profound sadness of Tom Reilly’s death. I received a number of emails yesterday following Tim Cable’s message on the Liverpool John Moores’ website. The text of Tim’ message about Tom is:

He was a very private man who was universally respected and admired by all.  He was a deeply compassionate and loyal man, profoundly interested in the development of others before himself.  His intellectual powers knew no boundaries, providing deep insights into the worlds of philosophy, literature and the use of English language.  But, outside his family, his passions were science (particularly kinanthropometry – on which he completed writing a textbook in the last week!), Everton, Everton, Football  in general (many codes but mainly the round ball shape) and Ireland.  He was a voracious reader and writer and his motivation and dedication to acquire and disseminate knowledge appeared endless.

He applied his bountiful energy in the realm of academic leadership, both within and outside this institution.  He was the first ever Professor of Sports Science in the UK, and helped forge the rich heritage of sport and exercise scientific study at Liverpool Polytechnic, LJMU and beyond. As his reputation of excellence grew, his influence extended nationally and internationally, leading many initiatives and effecting change in policy and practice in many esteemed organisations.  Perhaps the most profound legacy has been his mentoring of staff and postgraduate students (his self-titled “Liverpool Mafia”) that now exert significant ripples of influence across all walks of society, but particularly within HE.  In this way, over the years, he has been responsible for germinating the seeds of our young discipline.

But despite these powerful academic credentials, Tom will remain in my mind as a very warm, intensely caring and very humorous individual, whose eye always had a twinkle.

Tim’s final sentence is my memory too … particularly the ‘twinkle’. My last opportunity to spend some time with Tom was in May 2005 at a conference in Hvar. We had some time to walk and talk on a beautiful evening at the end of the conference. Our conversation started with a discussion of the Everton teams of the late 1950s and 1960s. I had gone to Everton games during this period with my cousins and marvelled at the ability of Gordon West, Alex Parker, Ali McGowan, Brian Labone, Tony Kay, Brian Harris, Jimmy Gabriel, Howard Kendall, Colin Harvey, Alan Ball, Bobby Collins, Dennis Stevens, Johnny Morrisey, Derek Temple and Roy Vernon. Tom recalled all these players too, had a story about each of them and we had the most wonderful discussion filled with laughter. (I told Tom that many years later as my career in performance analysis started I read his PhD and synesthesia took over recalling those days. That night in Hvar we even got round to discussing the prodigious throwing skills of the lady who threw toffees into the crowd at Goodison Park.)

On our walk back to the conference hotel I asked Tom to consider writing about his remarkable career. My interest has always been in qualitative research and I thought Tom’s story would be a wonderful biography to share. He and I had paths that crossed without knowing including his time at St Mary’s College and his work with Vaughan Thomas. A THE article in 1997 had captured briefly some of his early work but there was much much more to share. My point to Tom was that his wonderful insights would help a new generation of students locate their practice in his synoptic vision. I encouraged him to consider this phase of his career as a time for synthesis. I had hoped that by the time we got back to the hotel I had persuaded him. His parting word was ‘Maybe’ as left with the twinkle in the eye that Tim recalls so poignantly.

There will be many celebrations of Tom’s life and career. He touched and inspired many many people and was one of those unique men who are able to define and transform a generation.

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