What is Nonlinear Pedagogy & Why is it So Important For Basketball Coaches with Philip O'Callaghan

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.

Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Really pleased to be joined today by Philip O'Callaghan.

You might have come across Philip on social media, especially Twitter. Philip has been doing an incredible job over the last couple of years. sharing contemporary skill acquisition ideas for coaches. And I connected with Philip for the first time, I think it was about 8 months ago, Philip, when you did an amazing online masterclass session.

I think the way that Philip breaks down these ideas, it can really help us as a basketball community really get to grips with ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach. So Philip, thanks so much for joining us today.

Should be a good chat, hopefully. Excited to talk anyway.

Absolutely. So the first question I had for you, Philip, is, you know, with Transforming Basketball, one of the key kind of ways we start explaining these ideas is how learning is a nonlinear process, and it's not this kind of linearized view that we've always believed as coaches.

Would you be able to just talk about that a little bit? Because I think it's a really nice entry point into our discussion today.

Yeah, I suppose, like, when we talk about nonlinear, there's kind of 2 aspects to it. So The first thing is, when we talk about, say, human systems, what that would mean is, one of the aspects of a nonlinear system is that changes would be non-proportionate.

That might sound a bit complicated, but basically it just means small changes can lead to big changes, or big changes can lead to small changes. Say, a small change in the conditions can lead to a big change in the human system, or a small change in conditions can lead to a small change.

When we talk about nonlinear, it can refer to the humans as nonlinear systems. And then we can also, I suppose, look at learning as nonlinear, where because humans are nonlinear systems, learning doesn't follow a straight-line progression or whatever. There's going to be regressions, quite fast progressions, and things like that.

So that's, I suppose, when we talk about nonlinear pedagogy, it's going to talk about humans as nonlinear systems. And then We can talk about the learning processes being nonlinear too.

I think that's really nicely put. So I think practically for coaches, what we see a lot of within the basketball world would be a linearistic outlook where we use the same things for all players, whether that's teaching techniques or even patterns and offenses.

And then we expect them all to make progress at the same rate, or we expect it to all lead to development in this very gradual curve. Whereas exactly like you said, sudden regressions are normal, but also, you know, one, when we're manipulating constraints for one player, it could maybe really help them express more functionality and, you know, maybe becoming more attuned to their performance landscape.

Whereas maybe for another player, it might be different. Does that mean that as coaches, we've really gotta look at how we can individualize kind of our practice environments more than this generic one-size-fits-all?

Yeah, I suppose I've kind of two extremes. So like I'm a PE teacher and a tennis coach. So if I like in a PE class, it can be really, really difficult if I wanted to individualize it for 30 students, but in a tennis practice, I might have one or two.

So it's a bit easier. So like I can understand how coaches might, I suppose, have some challenges around it, but like, I suppose what's very important for coaches to understand is like that every human or every kind of problem, every human is going to be different.

We talk about constraints. So the constraints that are acting on a human are going to be different. So some people are going to be taller, some people are going to be smaller, some people are going to be fast, some people are going to be slow.

So that's going to influence how, I suppose, they see the world and see the opportunities, or as you mentioned, their affordances. So it will influence how they can pick up affordances, what ones are more inviting for them. So then if, I suppose, we try to— all the players to, I suppose, move in a certain way or to perform in a certain way, it won't work because like their action capabilities, sometimes we might refer to them, are going to be different.

So then what the information that they're going to be looking for is going to be different too. Love that.

That was, that was excellently put. So this, this is a really interesting one and, and something I'm constantly wrestling with, Philip. And it's like, where if, if we were with a coach who was first being introduced to, you know, a whole new world of coaching and these ideas that we're speaking about today, where would you start explaining it?

Because we've obviously got ecological dynamics as the base theoretical framework, then kind of we've spoken about it a little bit and we'll get more into it. We've got a nonlinear pedagogy, and then that obviously informs the constraint-led approach. So where, you know, it's very difficult to describe those 3 things and make sense of it, and we're going to get into that today, but where would we even start?

Yeah, I think even just being aware of those 3 things is really important because, to be honest, when I first got started with the approach, I only really heard about the constraints and the constraints-led approach. I didn't know that about ecological dynamics or nonlinear pedagogy.

So even knowing about that is a great start. It's actually— it is something that I'm kind of— I'm trying to build a kind of resource for coaches at the moment getting started with the constraints-led approach. And I don't know, every time I see something, it's nearly like I'm wondering where coaches should get started with.

I suppose what I've personally found myself, and I'm not sure if this would have apply to you too. But I think like what had the biggest impact on me and my coaching and applying this constraints-led approach was understanding nonlinear pedagogy and having— yeah, what I found really nice was having like, say, there's 5 key principles, and then we can maybe put in task simplification and principles of play or something in there as well.

But having those 5 principles is kind of like a framework to design your practices off. I found personally really helpful in applying it. Because I suppose like for coaches that mightn't be aware of it, like there's 5 key principles. I suppose it might like, the most important one is probably manipulation of constraints because that's how you would, I suppose, design representative learning environments.

That's how you'd create tasks that keep information moving coupled. But I suppose that's the first one, constraints. Then I'd probably say the second one then that would be important for coaches would be representative learning design. Then we'd have attentional focus. We'd have Information movement coupling.

Sorry, what's the—

Functional variability. Functional variability, yeah. Repetition without repetition, or functional variability. So I personally found that once I had a grasp of those, that I started to apply the constraints-led approach better. But that's my personal view anyway.

I agree completely, because it was actually the same for me. When I first kind of discovered this, I started with the CLA. But I'd say I didn't feel really confident and I didn't feel like I was good at it until I understood those 5 design principles.

Because then obviously, like you just alluded to, if you are following those 5 principles, well, you're gonna be using a CLA intentionally and purposefully. And then I just think, you know, the understanding of the ecological dynamics, it's kind of like it just connects the dots even more and it makes sense why we're doing this and why it makes sense.

I think that's actually what you had in one of your diagrams. You had a really nice infographic. I think I'm going to try and find it and post it with this podcast. I think you explain just how they inform each other, basically.

Yeah, so I would say while understanding ecological dynamics is going to take your understanding of how to apply the approach to the next level, but just if you were looking to get started straight away, probably start looking at some of the ideas behind nonlinear pedagogy first, because there is a lot of reading to it.

But I do think those are— I think seeing show how, like, compare nonlinear versus linear approach, and you can kind of maybe get some ideas from that. So I suppose that is where I personally would start.

Definitely. I think that's actually a nice opportunity for us to go a little bit deeper into nonlinear pedagogy, because just reflecting on some of the podcasts and the resources we released through Transforming, I think we've neglected it a little bit, and I think this is a great chance to really help coaches and practitioners understand it.

Maybe we could just go a little bit deeper into some of the design principles for that. I mean, maybe in the context of basketball, looking at something like representative learning design. Traditionally, we see a lot of equipment activities around defense. What does that mean for coaches?

Basketball is actually quite an interesting one because there's some nice studies done using representative learning design in basketball. If I'm looking at representative learning design, like what we're looking to, I suppose, represent in practice is like the key affordances or the key information or the key opportunities for action from the, I suppose, competition or from the game environment or performance environment.

And we want to kind of create those same opportunities for action or affordances in the practice tasks. I suppose misconception sometimes I see is that like it needs to be fully representative.

And it's impossible. You can't always have 5-on-5.

I think one of the nicest ways to apply representative learning design down is through task simplification, or a really nice phrase I've heard before. It's from Cal Jones. He stole it from someone, he doesn't know who, and I'd love to know so I could reference it, but it's reduce without impoverishing.

So we reduce complexity without impoverishing the key information or the key opportunities for action. So I suppose if you're a coach looking to use representative learning design, a way you could do it is kind of like think of a scale or think of like a continuum or something.

That like 1 might be a task where there's none of the key information present, maybe like dribbling around a cone, for example. And 10 would be full 5-on-5 game. A lot of the time what we do is we kind of look to be minimal.

It's probably where a lot of the practice should be. And then you can be a bit more complex, a bit less complex, depending on the needs of practice. And what we do is like, we, I suppose slices of the game is a nice way I've heard it before.

I like to think of it as like creating live slices of the game.

Yeah.

So like, it's kind of combining. There's one, there's 2 really nice papers that came out, I suppose, recently. One by Sean Mischka, Tyler Yearicki, David, I think, like one was around American football and one was about like designing a live problem. So like combining those 2 ideas together, I think is quite nice, creating live slices.

I love that. So many golden nuggets in there, Philip. If it's cool, I'd love to just spend a minute. I want to just break down some of those things in basketball language. And then maybe you can build on it after, and then we can go back to the next design principle.

Coaches listening, just to recap affordances, so opportunities for action. So let's imagine that maybe there's an offensive player standing in the left corner and a teammate from anywhere has done a drive and kick and they've passed them the ball and it's a closeout situation.

So all we mean by affordances are what are the different invitations for action in this situation now? So maybe The player might perceive information and they choose to drive it along the baseline with the intent to try and score a rim finish. As that happens, new affordances may emerge.

So for instance, maybe another help defender might come across, opening the invitation to pass. Maybe no help defender comes across, the invitation to finish exists. The whole game of basketball is obviously these affordances are ever-present and the affordance landscape is constantly changing. With this concept of representative learning design, it's a case of how can we as coaches design in some of these affordances into the game?

And that's where, as Philip, you just spoke about, it's a representative dial. Just playing 5-on-5 isn't good enough because we're not going to amplify these affordances enough. Where going a little bit low on that dial, maybe some 1-on-1, some 1-on-1 plus 1, some 2-on-1, 2-on-2, We're amplifying affordances even more.

Would that be correct?

Yeah, no, definitely. So like, I suppose if you're a coach listening, you mightn't really have heard of affordances before. Like, as you said, they're kind of opportunities for action and how you— I suppose they're kind of perceived or they're picked up in like relation to what the person can do, their action capabilities.

Like, a lot of it would be like, if you got the basket, I know a lot of it you can just like add ability to the end. So like the shootability of the shot or the dribbleability or the passability. So people with different action capabilities are going to pick up different opportunities for action.

So I suppose if you're someone that is a very competent 3-point shooter and you get the ball and you're open, you're probably going to take a shot. Whereas if you're not confident and you're maybe a bigger player who likes to get to the basket, you're going to look for the opportunity to drive instead of shoot.

So affordances are kind of based on that specific individual's action capabilities. And then when we're— I suppose why we wouldn't want just 5 against 5 games, because if I suppose if you look at that situation where that you described where someone gets a kickback pass and that's a situation that player is struggling in, that might only happen once in a 5 on 5 game in an hour.

Whereas what we want to do is we want to give them that opportunity way more through our design of practice tasks so they get better at picking up the key information that will help them make better decisions in that scenario. So.

Yeah.

That's kind of why just playing the game or something like that isn't kind of what we'd do. And we'd scale the task back or we'd simplify it, but keep the key information.

That was fantastic. I love how you built on that point because I think that was such an important point you raised, Philip, that I neglected to highlight how players perceive affordances in different ways. So going back to the closeout example I gave, maybe it's Seth Curry, Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

They're all going to act very differently in that situation because they're all unique individuals and they're perceiving affordances differently too. So I think that's, that's a really nice dive into representative learning design for coaches. And I think naturally for coaches kind of abide by some of these design principles, they sometimes get some of the other ones too.

Right?

Yeah. You know, we might cross back to some of these as we go on, but maybe let's go on to relevant information movement couplings.

Yeah. So I suppose like if we're looking at that, it's that like the players are learning to Couple or to yeah couple there that was the key information environment. So like I suppose like if we go back to that close out example, if the player that's being closed out will have to learn how to I suppose couple their their movements to the information that the defender is giving them.

So like what foot does he have for? Does that does that let me dribble? Would it be better if I dribble? Did he close at an angle so I can oh so there's a pass open that way something like that. So They're learning, I suppose, move based on the key information that they would be seeing in a game.

So rather than, I suppose, they get the ball and at the cone they need to stop, that they're actually, I suppose, picking up information from a player because that's what they're going to be doing in a game.

Fantastic, great stuff. So manipulation of constraints, I think this is a really important one, Philip, because we're seeing a lot of games approach activities in the Barça world, and I think this is kind of one of those design principles which can help coaches naturally just move towards a CLA instead?

The manipulation of constraints is probably the most important principle because it allows you to do the other ones more effectively. So to design a representative learning task, we manipulate the constraints of the task, such as like where the player's starting position, things like that, so the task becomes representative.

We can also manipulate the constraints to design tasks that keep information and movement coupled. So I suppose that's how you'd implement the constraints-led approach, through manipulating constraints. And then those are the, I suppose, the other design principles then follow along from how, and they'll guide how you manipulate those constraints.

So I'm not sure if you want to get into the different type of constraints or anything like that, but—

That would be great for them. And then after that, we can, I think the closeout example we've got is a really nice one. So then I think once you've touched on that, then we can just go back and I can give, we can both give some practical examples of how we can manipulate in this closeout situation.

For coaches that are interested in learning, I suppose, about the different types of constraint, it actually came from like a researcher called Carol Newell. So it's called Newell's Constraints Triangle. So basically there's 3 categories of constraints. There's individual, which can be divided into structural and functional.

So like the individual constraints are like the constraint, like a functional or structural constraints would be like someone's height, someone's weight, someone's strength. They're not really ones we can manipulate very easily, or we'd have to manipulate them on, I suppose, a macro level.

So like someone's strength, it would take a few weeks to improve. Um, it's not something— then like the functional individual constraints, some of them we can manipulate. So it would be like someone's motivation level, someone's, uh, what other, like someone picking up information, things like that.

Yeah.

While some of them are harder to manipulate, there's is some we can. So like their emotional state, their motivation levels, things like that we have a bit of impact on. So while we can't manipulate them that much, it's very important for coaches to be aware of, especially like a nice example is like if you were a coach that was working with a player that was growing, that's actually going to have a big effect on the way they can move because they're going through a growth spurt.

Their coordination might be a bit all over the place. They're learning to move in their body. So We know that, that, I suppose, individual constraint might have a big impact on the way they're playing. Then if we looked at environment constraints, I suppose some of these coaches can manipulate, especially if you have a big budget and you can play in a place or you have lots of— a nice practice facility.

But for everyday coaches, maybe not as much. So like, it could be—

Yeah.

The structure, or it could be like the environment you're in, the light levels, the weather, the temperature, things like that are going to be environmental constraints. So I suppose like if you were, if you were part of a wealthy organization, you might go

warm weather training, that would be an environmental constraint. Or like in tennis, you would play on different surfaces, things like that. So that would be an environmental constraint. And again, really important to understand. And those environmental constraints can also be, I suppose, can be shaped by the culture.

So, or the sociocultural, we call it sociocultural, but it's basically just a culture. So like a really good example is how like Brazilian soccer prioritizes flair. I think there might be in basketball, I suppose, they're like New York street basketball or like street basketball or like European players.

Exactly.

play in it, they're generally— I don't know if I'm right here, but they're maybe or something like that. So that would be like sociocultural constraint, and they're also ones that coaches need to be really aware of. And then getting to the task constraints, this is where we have— this is where I suppose we have more power to manipulate constraints.

So we can— I suppose some of the task constraints are going to be the rules of the game. So like in basketball, you have to dribble the ball. That's going to Constrain the way you move. You can't like run with it, you need to dribble.

You have 24 seconds to score. The height of the basket, things like that. They're all going to affect the way a player plays. And then in practice, there's some of them we can manipulate or change to design our tasks. So sorry, I know that was kind of long.

That was brilliant. No, that was absolutely brilliant. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to take everything you just outlined for us and I want to create a basketball-specific example with the closeout. And then maybe you could build on that based on what I miss, if that's cool.

So coaches, we've got— yeah, I want to think about, you know, we've got these 3 principles of nonlinear pedagogy. So recap: representative learning design, relevant information movement couplings, and the third one we've just had, manipulation of constraints. So we've got to create an activity where there are affordances for a closeout.

So we've got to think, how could we start the offense and the defense where this affordance appears? So let me take a really simple one. We're going to have an offensive player in the corner. We're going to have a defender who is blind to them, maybe standing in the mid-range area.

And then we're going to have a passer under the basket. So the passer, they're going to just rebound the ball, throw it off the backboard, catch. As soon as that happens, the offensive player can— they can— the space, the task constraint is constrained.

The space is constrained, so they can only move between the deep corner and the wing, but they have to catch outside the 3. The pass goes and it's a live one-on-one, the defender can move on the pass. So that's a really simple starting point.

Now, this is the key difference, coaches. If we stay on that activity for an excessive period of time, which is something I'm seeing a lot now, it's a games approach. And we've got to think, why are we manipulating constraints? We're doing it for a very specific reason.

You know, maybe there are affordances we want to amplify, or maybe different movement solutions we want to encourage players to maybe explore in a more unique way. Some ways we could change constraints. So respecting the role of individual constraints, frequently changing the offensive, the defensive players, and even the passes.

Why? Well, Philip spoke about action capabilities. Players move in different ways, so obviously playing against a much taller defender is going to be very different to a smaller defender. Quicker versus slow, bigger versus weaker. So by constantly mixing up these pairings, different solutions are going to emerge.

So that can be Individual constraints. Environment constraints. Maybe we're playing loud music in the gym. There's not much of an opportunity to communicate. Maybe we're blasting crowd sounds, which is something I did a lot— I do a lot with my teams. Really simple example.

Then the task constraints. Obviously loads we could do here. We could change the location of the pass so it's always variable. We create more repetition out of repetition as opposed to always starting under the basket. We could change the space where the offensive player starts.

Maybe some players struggle with traveling on the closeout when they move, when they receive the ball, they travel. So maybe they begin with some type of drift or lift before the closeout. Maybe they do it off another trigger. And this is where we can really individualize it.

The opportunities obviously are almost endless when we're manipulating these constraints. Philip, I hope I did a good enough job there, just putting it into this example.

Yeah, no, definitely. As you alluded to there, I suppose, because there's so many constraints there, Like the coach, the amount of freedom the coach has to be creative is quite, is nice. I really enjoy like challenge of creating tasks or trying to make them challenging.

It's the best thing. And I suppose, yeah, I really enjoy it. And I suppose one important thing I'd kind of add is that like, say if the player, we were to close out and say we wanted to work on their shooting when they were getting closed out or whatever.

An important thing is that like we're constraining to afford it is a really important concept when we're using constraints.

So.

When I first started with the constraints-led approach, or using constraints, because I actually wasn't using the constraints-led approach, I was just using constraints, was I'd be like, okay, if he's struggling with shooting, when he gets the ball, he has to shoot. So now the defender knows he has to shoot, they can adjust their behavior.

So what I'd do instead now is that like, in that situation, I'd reward the player for shooting, but I'd also keep the option open for them to dribble past the defender and maybe go towards the basket because They need to learn when to shoot, when to dribble, when to pass.

So we want to keep those options open for them, but reward them for taking the ones that we want to work on. So we might give them maybe 5 points if they get the shot, and we'd give them just 2 points if they get to the basket.

So we really are encouraging that option. We're rewarding them for going for it, but we still want to keep the other options open.

That's such a great point because I'm seeing a lot of these contested shooting games, Philip, one-on-ones in the basketball world. I think small doses of that can be good because it's like we're really kind of pushing adaptability. But then at the same time, like you just said, it's not conducive if we're doing that excessively, which is a common trend.

So I think obviously using points is key. And then I'm just imagining this closeout situation. We've added the scoring system. I think having some element of a time pressure is key because obviously if we're really talking about representative learning design, a closeout situation.

It's only, you know, if we lose the advantage, we're back to 5-on-5 and the advantage is lost. It's gone. So maybe we play with like a 3 or 4-second shot clock, and maybe the space is limited so they don't go into spacings which will be occupied by other players.

You know, maybe there's like a small rectangle or maybe another defender's there stunting. It's obviously more representative because they're playing in the space that will exist within the game.

Yeah, definitely. So like, we want to kind of keep something that's quite important when you're doing these tasks is like there's some sort of Consequence present. And like, we don't mean consequence like, oh, if they miss, they have to do 50 pushups or something.

It's more like if they don't take advantage of that opportunity, there's going to be another defender there and they're going to lose the ball or something like that. So a consequence like is that if they lose the ball, the defenders can do something, or if they don't use the advantage, then they, they're going to lose it and they're way more likely to be successful.

So when we talk about tasks having consequences, that's what we mean by constraints. Exactly.

20 push-ups.

Yeah.

And I think it's great because naturally, obviously, we focus, you know, a lot of coaches will be thinking about this example and focus on the offense. But then what we see a lot traditionally in the closeout defense, Philip, is coaches doing very kind of dead drills where, you know, they have coaches, the ball is passed, and players have to close out, high hands, choppy steps to the coaches.

I can imagine a coach character. What is it? Exactly right.

And obviously, you know, that's not what any of the things Philip and I have spoken about today, coaches. Instead, you know, what we're getting at with here is we don't have to have offensive and defensive drills when we're using a nonlinear pedagogy and we're following these 5 design principles.

We are getting offense and defense at the same time, and we can construct, you know, we can think about point systems for the defense. So maybe if negate the advantage and they get back to neutral, maybe it's over and they get extra points.

There's so much we can do within this.

Yeah.

So Philip, I want to get to the last 2, and this is a killer episode. I think it's— we're covering so many topics. Let's have a look at functional variability.

Yeah, so I suppose like the— when we're— from the way we look at skilled performance or like skill learning is that like variability is an important part of it, and it's actually like something we want there rather than something to be avoided. So like we don't— we're not like striving to get the textbook shooting technique.

We're looking for a shooting technique that gets the outcome we want, and they can adapt their technique to get the right outcome. So like, even though it might look like shot— like the best shooters shoot the same every time, they're gonna have to make different subtle adaptations to their shot to make sure that they're making it.

So when we talk about using functional variability in practice, it's that we— For one, we encourage the athletes to, I suppose, solve the problem in a number of different ways. And also we set up the problem so they are required to solve the problem in different ways.

So like in the closeout example, the defender might be starting in a slightly different position every time. The attacker gets the ball in a different corner maybe, or they get it at a different zone in the area that they're closing in. They might get the ball like they might maybe they might have to start sideways with the ball and they have to work to get their body, something like that.

So like I kind of look if I'm designing a task I try to alter either the starting position of the defender or the attacker every time, maybe where the pass is coming from, things like that. So that's what kind of what we, we're talking about when we're using functional variability.

Like, the other— the name of it is repetition without repetition. So we repeat— we don't want to repeat after a repetition, which is like just rote repetition. We want to repeat the process of solving the problem using different solutions. Yeah.

I loved how you spoke about just different movements before. Something I've loved trying is having, you know, this closeout situation off a drive and kick, and then you actually have the offense starting in a quote-unquote bad spacing location. So they've got to, you know, find a way to get to a better spacing location out to space, but then they're going to catch it maybe in a slightly weird position and just adapt from there.

And like, I suppose it can work both ways. So like sometimes Like, especially what I hear sometimes from like coaches with beginner players is that they can't use that variability because they don't have the fundamentals or like something like that. So what we'd actually do then is like, we still encourage the variability.

We want them to explore. We kind of give the attacker more of an advantage. So we actually disadvantage the defender. Then as they get better, more confident, we could actually disadvantage the attacker. So it's kind of—

exactly.

It's very important for the coach to kind of be aware of the skill levels and make sure that the tasks we're designing are suitable.

So true. Like, that's actually before we hit the last kind of design principle. I think it's a good segment. Like, we have coaches from NBA to under-8s beginners, you know, listening to the podcast. And I think it's these principles apply to every age group, like you just spoke about.

And that's where I think you spoke about it earlier with task simplification. So as opposed to, you know, coaches, if we see players are struggling, as opposed to decomposing the task, AKA we remove the key informational sources and we go back down to drills and technique work.

Yeah.

We want, as Philip just spoke about, reduce complexity, make it more simple. So this could be maybe something I actually did very recently with younger players is in this closeout situation, I had the defenders holding a basketball. So it made it a little bit easier for the offense because they weren't stealing the ball as much, but they could still block them with the ball.

And there's lots more we can do.

Yeah. And this is especially really important for if you're working with young basketball players. So you want to make sure that the ball they're using is suitable for them, that they're able to shoot. You want to make sure their ring height is at a

is at a suitable height. So like, I suppose what's important for the coach is like you can identify what is stopping them from achieving success. So sometimes that could be, that could be the weight of the ball is too heavy for them to actually be able to shoot a 3-pointer.

So we have to, I suppose, instead of using the size 4, we might use a size 3, and then suddenly you'll actually see they're able to do it, something like that. So exactly, it does— like, these principles do apply to any skill level.

It's just, um, I suppose there's some subtleties that are important, and it's important for the coach to understand the skill level and then how you are going to simplify it. And then again, like, if you're working with players that are really, really skillful, you might actually like disadvantage them so they have to adapt.

And like, we're constantly looking for them to be able to adapt. So there you might put them in scenarios that they— like, we want to actually— we wouldn't task simplify, we might actually like make it more challenging by using variability and stuff like that.

So. Yeah, that's a really important point, I think, as well.

Excellent. It's really interesting too, because that's the biggest difference with Europe and the US, where North America, it's mostly 10-foot hoops, size 7 balls from the immediate, you know, as soon as kids start. Whereas in Europe, we do a far better job, you know, lower hoops, ball sizes proportionate to the age.

And I think that's one of the biggest differences in why European players are generally thought of as being, you know, more skilled. Last point, as we do this and we cover attentional focus, I'm going to try and think of an external cue in this closeout situation, but

Maybe Philip, you could just give us the briefing on what attentional focus is.

This is actually something that— not that my opinion has changed on, but there's a brilliant paper that I read recently. It's called Every Side Has Two Stories, and it was talking about how ecological dynamics account for focus of attention. Because I suppose there's been a lot of research around focus of attention, but most of it was based from an information processing point.

So when we're talking about focus of attention, I suppose if we're looking at it through an ecological dynamics lens, sometimes— well, basketball, most of the time an external is going to be better. So external is when like the focus is away from our body, and we can either— I suppose there can either be an external focus on our movements, but I think a lot of the benefits of an external focus of attention from an ecological point of view would be that they're attending to the key information, key affordances.

So if your attention is on your body movements, You won't be looking at the affordance or like you, your attention won't be able to focus on 2 things. So if we have our focus of attention away from our body externally, we're able to pick up the key information better.

So that's, I suppose sometimes the external focus of attention is seen as like, oh, it's for like, I suppose the performance of the skill. But a lot of the time it's—

Yeah.

I think it helps that we're able to pick up the information better. And then that enables us to perform the skill better.

Like an example that this morning I had an under-14 group, mix of beginners, older players. And we started with 20 minutes of different small-sided games, warmup, mostly related to some dribbling and passing. We weren't using the rims yet. And it was all, everything was obviously with an opponent.

And it was very simple, but it was things like dribble tag or dribble, I call it stay alive, where you have to stay alive in a small space and another defender's trying to steal it. And then we just manipulated constraints. And Then we added a passer.

So it was like a 1-on-1 plus 1. They have to stay alive and then find where their teammate was and make a successful pass wherever they were. And naturally what we saw after 20 minutes is at the beginning, players found it really difficult to dribble with their eyes up.

And what they'd traditionally be told is they'd do static dribbling 1-on-0, and the coach would say, put your head up, put your head up. Right? But we didn't even have to say that once, just because the design of the task, players were naturally looking and trying to take in information from their environment.

That's where it's like, I think if we're using these principles, we kind of like, you know, external versus internal, maybe, um, feel free to challenge me, but I do feel like it's a little less important than the other ones. We're not even necessarily, when we're using this well, we're not having to even talk about, you know, techniques and things like that anyway.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I do agree. Especially like, I think if you have, like, I suppose if you have the constraints manipulation nailed, you have the representative information and you have information movement coupling, I suppose a lot of it naturally would happen. But then I suppose it is really important coaches to be aware of then, that like if you had all, if you had all that stuff set up and then you're like, make sure your elbow's at 90 degrees when you're shooting, right?

Might be counterproductive. So that's it. Yeah. So it's not like, I do agree with what you're saying, but then I suppose it is, I suppose it shows how nicely all the 5 principles are linked then.

Yes, completely.

If you did that, then it would, it would.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No, that's a great point. And that's actually, I didn't even think about it. And that's more just because for me, I haven't done that for about 4 years, but now I think back when I started, yeah, I was doing small-sided games and Correcting.

So makes complete sense. And then too, I guess it's different for every player. Like a nice external cue could be nice here and then. Like I had a player in an individual, well, not an individual, 2 players and me, and he was really struggling just shooting in our 2-on-1.

And I just, I gave him the cue, aim for a BRAD. It stands for back, rim, and down. So as opposed to, you know, correcting or doing anything, he just focused on his arc, self-organized naturally. He was way more successful. And that's where, you know, I think it can resonate differently with different players.

Yeah. And I suppose that's like why I suppose our approach is very individualized because even like the, our instructions are going to act as a constraint.

Yeah.

And I suppose that's quite important for coaches to understand. So like anything you say to the player is going to be a constraint. So then it's kind of, I suppose it is important to think about what you're saying and does it align with the way that I'm coaching?

Definitely. Look, Philip, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join today. I think it was, I really enjoyed this episode because I think not just did we get the theory in, but it was so practical at the same time. I hope that every single basketball coach out there listening to this signs up to your skill acquisition course, which I can't wait to take part in myself.

How can coaches find out more information, follow your content, et cetera?

Yeah, I suppose the best place is Twitter. My handle is like Mr_Tennis_Coach. And then I try to get a newsletter out every week. It's going to be every week from now on, but over the summer I was away, so it kind of ended up being every second week or something like that.

And then what I'm working on at the moment, it's going to be a free resource for coaches because one of the most, I suppose, common questions I get is, where do I get started with the constraints-led approach? And what I wanted to be able to do was to kind of point towards, I suppose, I could send them this.

And I've tried to write it in a way that is accessible for coaches. I'm getting— I kind of sent it out to a few coaches and I'm getting some feedback, which is good because Like around maybe, like I've tried to simplify it as much as I can, but they want like, I suppose, examples in it.

They want, I suppose, explanations of the key terms, things like that. So yeah, I was hoping to have it done by the time I went back to school, but I'd say it'll be another maybe week or two before it's complete. Hopefully as soon as possible.

Well, that'll be out by when this is released, so that's perfect timing, Philip. I'll, uh, I'll include that in the notes. And I've just exchanged the clay courts of Northern Italy for the hard courts of East London, so, uh, I, I wanna— I'll have to do another one talking

about more tennis. I play a lot, and it's, it's just frustrating for me seeing still how, you know, the things we're talking about today in basketball, it's not just unique to the basketball world, but these same kind of, I'd say, problems we're seeing in kind of all sports where, you know, this dominant approach to coaching is just so different.

I think that's why it's these ideas that we shared today and, you know, all the work you're doing, that's what— just why I think it's so important. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks. I actually really enjoyed it too. It was nice to kind Talk through the principles in a practical way, and can I— hopefully the coaches can take something away from it.

Absolutely. Thanks again, Philip.

Yeah, thanks, Alex.

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