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Taan Lindemans's avatar

Curious if you think Coyle's comment applies to learning movement skills?: "First, mimicry. Staring is the fastest, most efficient way to imprint a skill on our brains — far more efficient than trying to learn through the keyhole of words." My guess is that mimicry can apply to "intention" - what you are going to try and do. And yes, watching a demo will be much more beneficial than having it explained in words. But the actual "learning" of the movement skill will involve much practice in context. "Learning" is such a broad term, I think IT needs to be given some context when used.

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Brian McCormick's avatar

In the sense that we learn to walk without needing words/instructions, primarily through mimicry, exploration, and trial and error, I’d say yes. But I agree with your point that the actual learning is the doing, not the instruction or demonstration.

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James Marshall's avatar

Eddie Jones, the ex-England, Australia and Japan head coach (now with Australia again), told me that young rugby players are lacking in games sense for two reasons:

1) They only watch game highlights. They miss the ebb and flow and development of plays that you can see when you are at a live game.

2) They don't play 'footie' in the park. Everything they do is led by an adult.

My 13-year-old-son plays midfield in football (soccer). I made sure that I took him to our local team's games where he could watch at pitchside. The standard is good enough for him to learn, but not astronomical that he can't correlate.

He also plays 'pick-up' games for hours in the park and school playground.

I am convinced that both of these things have helped him develop his vision and tactics more than any coaching he has received. The coaching might help him technically but a lot of it bears no relation to what happens in a game.

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Brian McCormick's avatar

I think that’s a big reason between myself in soccer and basketball. I never watched ā€œrealā€ soccer until I was done as a player. I didn’t even go to a good high-school soccer game until 8th grade. Soccer wasn’t on TV until I was mid-way through high school. I never really understood and did not know what was possible, nor was I motivated to improve. Soccer for me was dribbling through cones, flying into reckless tackles and playing long through balls and hoping our striker could outrun their fullback. If I was watching Rice, Kimmich, Kovacic, Busquets, etc. at 6 years old, I imagine my trajectory would have been different. My disposition is to be a 6 - a deep-lying playmaker who enjoys hard tackles. šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø But when I played, I was either a center mid or a right mid because I couldn’t use my left foot and all midfielders basically did the same thing.

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