Playing with Perception with Derek Panchuk (Part 2)

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Hello, Ed Womashensky here. Wanted to let you know this is a brief introduction to part 2 of the 2-part conversation with Derek Panchuk. And I guess just to build off of that, put shooting aside for a little bit, and how would things like gaze behavior change?

And I came across— I'm kind of know where I'm going with this because I did see a recent study on what they did with officials and their gaze behavior. How do things change when you're going away from a little bit more of a closed skill such as shooting, where it's a very clear, distinct, like, oh, this is the goal, whereas when we're scanning the entire environment and trying to, let's say, find an opportunity for us to gain an advantage?

Yeah, and I think that's sort of getting into almost like the decision-making side of things, right? I think is— and I think from a visual standpoint, that's kind of like, it's almost like the Holy Grail of figuring out, you know, how we can solve problems.

And talking with a lot of, you know, teams and coaches, that's something that's It's really interesting for them. So something started to dig into a little bit more. But I guess the way I look at it again is, you know, we can create different scenarios in practice where we can stress the visual system.

And that's— and put— it basically comes down to, I guess, the root of almost, you know, the ecological dynamics or CLA approach, right? Is sort of thinking, you know, how can I put problems in front of athletes?

Yeah.

That they need to solve, right? You know, it's coming up with ways to do that from a visual perspective because it's super important. I think one of the things that, you know, some of the work in this space shows us right now is that there's— it's almost like a quick then quiet approach, right?

So, good athletes are able to scan, see lots of different information around, and then— but at some point when they get closer to making a decision, they have to kind of zoom in and focus on that thing, right? So it goes from quick, quick, quick, quick.

I'm seeing my teammates. I know where the defenders are. There's that sort of almost like a tipping point where, okay, there's going to be a decision here. Then I need to lock in almost and try and figure out, okay, what that's going to be.

What's the most relevant information for that? Is it the shot? Is it the pass? Is that person covered? That sort of thing, right? So we use the visual system to sort of pick up that information. And I think the great athletes just see the game differently.

They pick it up quicker and they're able to make decisions about what's a functional good response versus a dysfunctional negative response a lot quicker than other athletes as well. So yeah, I think that's— it's an area where there's a lot of fruit to be picked yet in terms of how we can develop those skills.

But basically, and stealing this from somebody else that But how do we, how do we put old heads on young bodies, right? You know, those, those wily veterans who can see the game differently, right? How can we start to fast-track that and get them to the point where they're making decisions quicker, picking up the right information earlier, and, you know, I guess developing that game IQ faster?

I guess like what comes to mind when we talk about like that picking up that right information is Like, there's a little hesitant hesitancy in my mind because yes, that, that wily veteran may pick up the right information, but it's the right information to them that means something to them and in their body.

It fits their action capabilities and their skillset. And I guess I like, my only concern with is like, if coaches were to take, like, say, okay, Ovechkin fixates on this before he decides to shoot. If you were to literally explicitly, or not even explicitly, or guide athletes, hey, look for this.

Yeah.

before shooting, would it kind of lose kind of its luster and maybe not be as effective for other players because of the meaning it actually has for Ovechkin or whoever that be in whatever scenario?

Yeah, no, I think you're right to a certain extent there. I think, you know, there's— we need to individualize it. And I think part of the coach's role in that situation is rather than sort of prescribing, you know, look here for this long, that sort of thing, like being really explicit around what it looks like, I think it's their job to sort of help the athlete unpack what the relationship is, what it looks like, what it feels like, right?

So, you know, like we sort of talked about changing language earlier, but it could be something as simple as sort of saying, okay, well, tell me what you saw on that last shot. What did it feel like? Because you did really good. Like, you made a great decision there.

You know, instead of taking the shot, you saw an opening and drove to the basket. that was the right move? What was it that you sort of honed in on there? What did you pick up? And then, you know, because I think a lot of times we don't really think about performance in that way.

We kind of just kind of, oh, you made a great decision there. But let's start to unpack it a little bit more. Let's start to think about, okay, well, what was it? And then, you know, like, and then it's like, okay, well, then if I recreate a similar situation and put the athlete in a similar context.

Does that sort of situation start to arise again? It's like, okay, you made that decision again. What were you looking— last time you told me you were sort of focused on the hips of the defender, whatever reason, I don't know. And then it's like, okay, well, you made that decision again.

Were you looking at the same spot? And it's like, okay, well, yeah, I was, or I wasn't. And so it's starting to try and help them connect the dots through the way that you ask questions and put scenarios in front of them, right?

So if you sort of see particular tendencies around performance, then it's like, okay, well, let's start to create an activity that draws that out a little bit. And then let's ask good questions about what are they seeing, what could they do, rather than sort of making it about what you think as a coach or what is supposedly the right way to do it because we know there's no right way to do it.

It's trying to get them to tease that apart a little bit more rather than it coming from the coach.

Do I want to keep building on the vision stuff or do I want to switch gears and ask a couple of coaching questions? What do I want to do?

Happy to go either way.

Yeah. I can't think of a vision one right now, so I'm just going to go into the question. There's 2 things I want to touch on that kind of have I don't know. I'm more or less like kind of want to push back when it comes to like, I guess, the research or common nomenclature when it comes to the ecological dynamics world.

And one is the optimal challenge point and the idea of like it being a certain number. Like I always hear the number being tossed around, oh, well, you want success somewhere between 6 and 8 times for repetition for learning to occur. What are your thoughts on that before I get into mine?

I think it makes for a good social media bite. I don't think there's probably an optimal number per se because I think there's a lot of factors that go into it, right? And so if I'm working with younger athletes, for example, they might not have any success with an activity, right?

And so sometimes 1 out of 10 might be— so like 10% success might be really good for them just because the activity is so hard, right? that they just don't have the physical capability or capacity to be able to do the task. And so in those situations, I can try and make it as simple as I can, but if I can't make it any simpler or if I'm divorcing what they're doing too much from the game where it's not useful anymore, then 10% is all I've got.

And I think in that case, then it becomes very much like, let's think about how can I How can I reinforce? How can I celebrate that win more? How can I amplify and make it really exciting for that person? I've spent a lot of time golfing in the last year after having to give up contact sports through injury.

And golf's a funny one because you can have 100 shots out there and you'll have one great shot that'll make you come back the next time, right? And so it's a big part of that. You know, like, I'll have a lot of failures on the golf course, but it's sort of that one moment that I'm like, yeah, I did really good there.

I want to do that again. I want to come back. Right. And so it's sort of thinking, okay, well, how can I celebrate those wins if we're not getting them? And then on the flip side, you know, challenge, I think, is really important, but challenge doesn't necessarily have to mean failure.

In my mind, you know something. You know, like when we're talking about professional athletes, right? Like it can be hard sometimes to push them to the point where you know they're they're gonna miss eight. They're gonna miss two shots in basketball, right? Like when you're doing free throws on the line in a practice situation where there's no pressure or anything like that, it's it's going to be hard to challenge them in a way that they're they're going to fail, right?

So sometimes it's sort of. Just being like, okay, well, I can't make it any harder. You know, I can try and make it as representative as possible or do some things that are unexpected. So let's lean into that a little bit. But, you know, and then it's the middle cases.

It's sort of, I guess, reading the athletes and finding out, okay, well, what's going to be hard for this person? It doesn't have to be a failure. It can be making the process hard, you know, like overloading them a little bit. You know, like instead of having a one-on-one situation, let's have a two-on-two.

Or if we're talking about team play, let's do six-on-five. It's not necessarily realistic all the time, but we're adding that extra bit of challenge where we're challenging their process. So yeah, I guess that's a long way of me sort of saying I don't think there's the right number.

There's probably the right number for the person in that situation for that day, and let's figure out what that looks like, right? And I think that's coaches, you know, I think good coaches in my mind are really good at sort of reading the cues and figuring out, okay, well, you know, do I need to make it a little bit easier?

Are they really struggling on this? Are they starting to get frustrated to the point where it's affecting what they want to do? Let's scale it back a little bit. Or do I start to give them— throw a little bit more at them in this situation because they're getting a little bit cocky?

And that can be hard to do sometimes, especially when we're talking about really good athletes. But let's find a way. Let's find a way to really push them. So it's very individual in my mind.

That's a beautiful answer, Derek. I could not agree anymore. I mean, the thing I immediately think of is just going way back in the time machine for me, back when I was a little preteen and I was messing around with BMX and skateboarding.

And you would mess around with a trick for hours upon hours upon hours and wouldn't get discouraged because I'm like, oh, I feel it. I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. So, system, we are learning throughout that process.

Yeah.

It may not look like success, But we are actually attuning to what we're trying to accomplish. And that's— yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to encourage that process as much as possible.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's sort of reading the individual, right? I think obviously I'm Australian. I just spent 2 months almost, or 6 weeks in Canada. And my son really took to skating and he wants to play ice hockey as we call it in Australia, but I call it hockey.

But just watching him fall and fall and fall and fall. So, I mean, fail, you know, but he keeps on getting up every time and he's not discouraged at all, right? So there's nothing I could do in that situation to make it better or worse because he wants to get up.

So I just sit back and encourage it, right? Like, oh, get back up. Are you okay? Let's go. Let's go again. Just gets up, dusts himself off and go, right? And so it is a very individual thing. And I think that's where, you know, that's where sort of, I guess, almost like the art of the coaching comes in, right?

And being real, really perceptive of how people are responding is, is really what matters there.

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Very much. And I guess the, the second one I wanted to touch on was separate. Like, I don't even know how to phrase this properly, Derek. It's really like the way I can frame the situation. I'll give you like, shooting is both a capacity to me and a skill.

So is like, obviously we can toss people in contextual situations where they're shooting time and time again. But if they don't have the capability of shooting from a certain distance, they're never going to pick up on that affordance. So I think it's, it's very appropriate to spend some time.

Obviously, ideally we're doing this solo, but I think it's very like important that people realize like what you may define as a skill, whether it's ball handling, shooting, whatever, there is a capability element to that, that they need to spend time building a capacity.

Before they can actually explore the context, because context can be a little too complex for them to actually explore their abilities and develop that so you can actually see it become a skill down the line. I don't even know if that was the question, but I guess just—

Yeah, no, no, no. I think I get where you're sort of talking about it. I would maybe couch it in different terms, right? So focusing on being able to technically execute a shot, and we're not talking about technically in terms of having every little bit right, but just being able to sort of do it.

I think I would tend to agree. And again, I said I think because it's one of those things that I'm constantly thinking about as well too is how much matters because I spend a lot of time in a lot of sports and basketball's no different than a lot of other sports where it's kind of like, okay.

And I was talking with some lacrosse coaches on the weekend and basically we had a big conversation around how much time do we have to spend on the fundamentals. And it's like if they don't have the fundamentals, they can't do these other things.

And I would agree to a certain extent, but I think what tends to happen is that we get too caught up in chasing perfect and making sure it's perfectly right. So it's fundamentally sound before we let them go into a more contextual situation.

Right? And so I think a really important limitation to the technical side of things is being able to sort of say, okay, well, they need to be able to sort of perform within a ballpark, a bandwidth of performance, and then I'm going to let them go and try things and release them into the wild a little bit before sort of bringing them back if I need to.

And I think what happens is we keep them in cages for too long. And we're too reluctant to let people out into the wild because we think they can't come back. And I think sort of talked about mindset at the start, and I think a big part of that is just sort of letting go of this idea that, okay, if we're going to go do this and it's not working, I can't come back.

Because I think a lot of times that's what coaches do. They just kind of get stuck and they're like, it has to be good. It has to be perfect before we go and let them do it. And I think let's just, let's, you can always come back and go forward, right?

There's this whole sort of, I guess, spectrum of performance we're working across. And I think your job as a coach is to figure out, okay, well, what matters when, and, you know, there's nothing that says that you can't do some isolated technical work from time to time.

And I think for, for young kids, we sort of talked about challenge point, like being able, you know, like being able to shoot a ball up to a basket is hard work. And that's where the challenge lies in itself. And for me, you know, that's a fundamental piece of it.

But getting too stuck on that, I think, is dangerous. And I think, you know, when you start to see, you know, into the professional ranks, a lot of guys spending time, probably more time than they need to be doing in that situation, right?

And so they become really good practice athletes, but struggle in the game when they've got all these contextual factors around them, right? And so it's just, it's just a matter of getting the balance right. You know, there's, there's no right or wrong answers around it, but my experience, we spend too much time caging people into this technical space and not letting them into the wild as much as possible.

But if you love something, set it free. Um, and if it comes back to you, it was meant to be, right? No, I think— but that's— it's good advice, I think, for coaches.

Yeah, I tend to agree. And that's why I like the word capability. As, as you were talking, I kind of even just Thought of it in my head. I'm like, oh yeah, are they capable? If they're capable, let's introduce some context. Let's add some complexity to the situation.

And if it's too complex, we can always scale down. And I think how complex you make the situation is very dependent on what the key informational variables are and what the intention is behind the activity. And if those are aligned, I'm open to scaling things down to very simple activities for the right dosages if that's what the intention is and if that's what that athlete needs.

I think it's very appropriate.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, and it applies to like the, the 5-on-0 situation as well too. Like, you know, like I can see, I can see, you know, at the professional level, you know, why we might want to do a quick run through 5-on-0, but let's not spend 15, 20 minutes doing 5-on-0 work because as soon as you put a defender in there, I know what's going to happen.

Yeah.

It's, it's going to go off script. Right away, right? And so, you know, I think that that's where we kind of need to shift a little bit is sort of how much time do we think is valuable and useful here? It's not the fact that we can or can't do it.

It's what's going to be useful for developing that capability.

And I guess one more topic I want to touch on is the idea of training to perform versus training to learn. I guess I've always kind of had a little bit of issue with that because in my mind, Almost training to learn. There we go.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

And like, there's an issue where like people will say, well, I'm, I'm, we want to scale things back and prepare them for performance. So we want them to feel confident going in. And I'm not sure if I've always bought into that idea. I think I've actually said at times I wanted to introduce even more variability and a little bit more complexity right before performances, because it actually, it'll make the game seem a little bit easier and perhaps like prepare them for what they're about to encounter.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yes, I would agree. You know, and I think, I think sort of this dichotomy of learning to perform or performing to learn or learn, whatever it is, is a bit of a false dichotomy because, or practicing to perform, practicing to learn, right? So I think everything we do is going to contribute to learning.

You know, it's, it's the amount of impact or the return on investment is something that I like to call it. The amount of return on investment you get from that activity is going to change depending on what it is, right? So, you know, every shot I take as a basketball player, every pass I make is going to make me a better shooter, a better passer, generally, unless I'm doing things really wrong.

But there's still learning involved in that. I think what we need to start thinking about is the quality over quantity, right? So the volume, I think, starts to matter as well too. And then going on, I guess, to that second point that you made, which was really good and it's sort of slipping my mind just a little bit right now.

What was it that you said?

Introducing complexity and variability prior to performance to actually prepare.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I think that that's a great point too, right? Is, you know, but I think we also get too hung up on this idea of, you know, we're coming into a competition, we can't add anything else, or we've got to get them confident.

With their shooting. And I think what happens there is if we're not doing things or adding more learning to the environment— and I've talked with lots of people, particularly I think the more elite you go, it's like, oh, we can't do anything here.

We need to sort of focus. We can't do this in season because it'll just throw everything off. And I think what starts to happen there is we're only focusing on one thing. And so, if we're sort of focusing on this one thing and the opposition has a solution or a solve, or they can figure that out, then what else do we do, right?

We start to become really fragile because we've only got this one solution or we're only confident in this one space. Whereas I think if we can introduce variability, we're doing learning and spending time on others. We might focus on this one strength, but if I've got sort of 5 different pillars that I'm kind of working on or things that I can do in various different ways.

If the opposition shuts this one down, I've still got 4 different things that I'm working on, right? So instead of being fragile, I'm antifragile, right? And so I think that's where variability and the way that we think and approach this practicing to perform, this practicing to be confident, needs to shift a little bit, right?

Because yeah, I get the confidence thing and I'm okay with that too. If an athlete wants to go out there and do something they feel comfortable with, that's fine. But I think it needs to be part of a bigger conversation around how do we integrate these different pieces, right?

Because if I've only got one solution, I become very one-dimensional really quickly. And if I'm really confident in that one solution, then I become really one-dimensional really quickly. But if I've got 2 or 3, if I've got 1 or 2 things that I'm really good at and 3 things that I'm developing and learning, I've got a bigger repertoire that they have to sort of come against, right?

And I think That when it starts to become, I guess, more of the norm, starts to develop confidence in new ways, right? So, you know, it's sort of shifting the conversation about what does a confident athlete and confident performance look like? Is it being really good at one thing or is it being good at multiple things?

I'd say probably the latter, which requires different ways of approaching training.

Training and honestly, like looking at like our psychology as human beings in and of itself, like I think about like diversifying and adding variability And complexity to what we view as our personalities. If I only see myself as Adam, the basketball coach, if that area of my life isn't going well, then I'm pretty fragile.

And it's the same thing on the court. We want to develop robust and antifragile athletes. They got to be versatile. They're going to have to have multiple elements to their game if they want to survive in the harsh reality that is professional basketball or whatever basketball level you're at.

Yeah, life lessons, right? But no, I think that's spot on. All right, Derek.

Well, I greatly appreciate— I enjoy the chat. I appreciate you taking the time out to come join us on this podcast and share some of your wisdom. How can people get ahold of you and learn a little bit more about what you're doing with your startup company, or if they want to do some educational learning?

Multiple channels. I've got a website, derekpanczak.com. You can check me out there. Tend to be fairly active on LinkedIn these days. It's probably where I post most of my stuff. So you can, you can learn about what Derek is up to or a little startup that we've got going called Ellipsis as well.

That's probably the best place to find me. Just Google the name and you'll probably find a few different places where you can, you can learn some of the stuff I'm doing. Always happy to talk shop with people. Reach out on, on any of the platforms or just derek@learntowin.com.au.

Love talking shop. This has been fun.

Fantastic. Thanks again, Derek.

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