GAtwood
User
Platinum Boarder
| Posts: 85 |   |
Karma: 0
|
Re:Drills to improve quickness - 2008/02/29 18:27
coachmccormick wrote:
I read a study yesterday that basically stated that, in a certain experiment, the difference between an expert performer and an average performer was not better vision, but quicker processing of information: quicker decision-making through exerience and familiarity with the task. So, the better players made quicker decisions and processed information better and quicker, as opposed to having some natural eye advantage.
WAY OFF TOPIC... but you may find it interesting-
I was a USFS firefighter for 23 years before I got into this coaching life. My last 8 yrs I was a captain on a Hot Shot crew, and on an Engine crew. When those 14 firefighters were killed in Colorado in '96, I was very effected by the event, and spent most of my "free time" studying decision making under pressure; or what was known as "human factors" before the computer world hijacked that phrase because apparently "ergonomics" wasn't a cool enough name.
The way the article you referenced describes experience is exactly the same as behavioral science describes how decision making under pressure is linked to experience. Essentially when faced with a situation (input), the brain finds a similar, or the same situation from a previous experience and decides what to do based on that experience. In potential life/death decision making (airline pilot, fire captain, combat squad leader) trouble ususally occurs when either a poor decision is made, or it takes too long to make a decision because leadership (Who ever is in charge) is'nt recognizing (no experience) what is happening.
I have a CRM book written for pilots, and you can take the word "pilot" and incert "firefighter" through out the book and it's an excellent training curriculum for either. Some examples of the commonalities between the pressure of flying an airplane and leading a fire crew are multiple inputs which must all be continuously tracked and are constantly changing (FLYING- other aircraft, fuel, weather, navigation, time constraints, FIRE- location of fire front in relation to you, location of adjacent crews, weather, safety zones & escape routes, timing of tactics).
In both professions it's usually a combination of factors which leads to a disaster. The news paper says the fire unexpectedly swept up the mountain and burned over the FF, but upon review it becomes apparent that it was much more complex than that. Typically something will happen which diverts focus and attention to just one of the multiple inputs,and leadership gets tunnel vision, ignoring the other multiple inputs. That's one reason why good assiatants are so valuable, and though it's not life & death- we could say the same of a good assistant coach.
One of the significant findings that correlates to teaching athletic skills, is that expert level skill is something that becomes basically subconscious. The expert may actually have difficulty putting into words how they arrived at good decision becasue it's based in experience which has been internalized, not some kind of external formula, or chart. This makes the "expert" often the least likely to be able to explain/describe the decision making process. You get responses like, "I just saw what I needed to do and I did it." I believe the correlation is that just because a fantastic offensive player can get to the the basket against ANY defender does not mean that player can translate his skill into teaching others with less skill to attackthe basket and finish. And that may be at the heart of the old saying, "Those who can play, and those who can't coach." That's a very general statement, but it gets to the point of a good coach doesn't necessarily have to have had expert skills. We have to understand what we are teaching in a way that allows us to communicate it. Though expert skills combined with the ability to teach them would be best.
Post edited by: coach7, at: 2008/02/29 23:23
Post edited by: coach7, at: 2008/02/29 23:26
|
