In a recent workshop we looked at Implicit Coaching. This is something I had never heard of before and once I got to realize what it was I never considered using the coaching style to enhance skill.
Explicit coaching is where we coach with the performer knowing about the skills that they are being taught.
On the other hand, Implicit Coaching is where we coach without giving instruction and guidance.
A great example of this would be simply getting a basketball player to shoot from a set position on court.
If i was to have my under 18s shooting free throws. I could get them individually and get them to shoot. I would leave them on there own to think about what they are doing. This type of coaching requires no verbal communication or no retracking on previous experience (memory) on the skill, (Poolton & Zachry, 2007).
There are also other ways that we can coach implicitly:
The one that I will focus on is Analogies. Through my own experience I have come accross some interesting analogies. Esepcially as a player. But the one that has always stuck with me is ‘Reach your hand into the cookie jar’ which links to the shooting tehcnique of basketball. The good thing about analogies is that it ”essentially takes the individual components of the skill and incorporates them into a simple and easy-to-remember rule” (Poolton & Zachry, 2007). Now that I have realized what and how they can be used it has shown me that its an option to face when coachiong different groups of players.
However, not all players are going to cope with the implicit side of coaching. A study based on badmington high serves says that ”implicit motor skills were more robust under stress because the learners did not obtain excessive explicit rules of the skill and were less able to be conscious of interfering with the movement” (Liao & Masters, 2001). As it says, players may feel more stressed when being coached implicitly because they are not being coached through the skill.
As a coach coaching an under 18s team. I think it is hard to inteegrate this type of coaching into my sessions as I already know my players well enough to know that they love to have a lot of instruction when learning. However, I do strongly believe that the use of analogies especially can be a great way to get players into a constant routine when learning skills. It is certainly something that I am going to take into consideration as a coach for the future.
Reference list:
Liao, C.M., & Masters, R.S. (2001). Analogy learning: A means to implicit motor learning.Journal of Sports Sciences, 19, 307–319. Cited in. Reynold, L. W., Tse, A. C., & Wong, T. W. (2019). Application of Analogy in LearningBadminton Among Older Adults: Implications for Rehabilitation. Motor Control, 384–397
Poolton, M. J., & Zachry, T. L. (2007). So You Want To Learn Implicity? Coaching and Learning Through Implicit Motor Learning Techniques . International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching .
The Reflective Coach 