E42: Decision Making - When You Are Learning a New Skill

Decision-Making when you are learning a new skill

Transcript

Decision-making when you are learning a new skill

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Okay, so keep my platform out in front of me, arms straight,  hands apart in a ready position, stay low and Shuffle as I move to pass the ball. I need to make sure that I drop my shoulder and Angle my platform towards my target. I need to face where the hit is coming, make sure that my hips are facing the hitter, stay low as I move to pass the ball.  Don’t pop up.  Don’t swing my arms.  I DID IT!  Now where do I go for my base position?  Oh, right where the ball just landed… 

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I recently got a head coaching job at a Community College in Southern California. This school has not had a team for the past two seasons due to covid so I had a month-and-a-half to go from 0 players to enough to field a team and be competitive.  Our final season roster has us at 12 players of various skill levels. Some players are relatively new to the sport, while others have been playing club for years and have a very well developed skill set. 

Whether you are a player new to a sport and learning the basics or an experienced player refining your skills or learning a new technique;  when you are learning a new skill your focus gets taken away from another part of the game.  Which is what practice is for.  In practice, at the individual level, your focus is on making changes to your technique or adding new tools to your skill set.  As practices and skill level increases, your focus is also on the strategy of how you are going to play against your next opponent.

In any game or match or race or competition of any kind, your focus is on competing (or at least it should be). When you are new to a sport and are still learning the basics, then you have to devote some of your focus in a match to remembering those basic skills. It is essential in sports to be focusing on the right thing at the right time (see episode 4). When we have to focus on the basics, our reaction time and overall skill level decrease.  This is a necessary part to learning any new skill.  It is important to remember that your skill level when you are making a change to your Technique will become inconsistent and then, after you learned a new skill and can implement it effectively and consistently, your overall skill level will increase. This inconsistency can be frustrating and cause you to want to go back to the old , less effective technique that you know you can do.

How do we stop from going back to the old way?  Here are some effective TOOLS you can use when learning a new skill.

One thing you can do is Take a mental deep breath. Try to limit thinking about what you might do wrong, JUDGING whether you're going to make the right decision, WORRYING about if your teammates think you're doing it right or wrong, REGRETTING making or not making a particular move or being DISTRACTED by what you THINK you do or do not know or what you are doing right or MAY be doing wrong.  Instead focus on the skill that you are trying to learn or change and what part of that skill you did correct, as well as one thing that you can do a little better.

Have you ever seen a coach call timeout during a competition, say a couple of things to the players and then all of a sudden the team comes back and is playing a lot better? What did the coach say? Was it a strategy that the athletes did not know? Was it something that the athletes knew but forgot? Did the coach see something that the players did not, such as a weakness in the other team that the players were not capitalizing on? Did the coach see something that the athletes were doing wrong that they could do a quick fix for? Did the coach just want to change the momentum of the game? 

Let’s say the coach calls a timeout and says something as simple as make sure you get your feet to the ball. What is the coach really saying? The coach is reminding the athlete to go back to the basics and changing the focus away from possibly something that they were doing wrong to how they can do it correctly.  Let’s say the coach also gives a very specific play to run or a single thing to watch for the other team to do.  Why just one?  When you are processing so many things in competition, limiting the focus to a couple of key points is the best way for the athlete to, not only hear what the coach is saying, but also to be able to process it AND implement it in the game as quickly as possible after the timeout.

So how do we focus on making the right decisions in competitive situations when learning a new skill or modifying a previously learned skill?  Practice, Practice, Practice BUT, not just practice.  To help us in the decision-making process, the practice needs to have two components to it:  Deliberate and Realistic.  

Deliberate Practice - It is important to practice the specific moves that you want to do or the specific series of things to think about or what to focus on.  If you simply go thru the motions, then the practice will not be as effective

The second thing to keep in mind is to make sure that the practice is conducted in a realistic setting.  It is important to practice what you want to do (in this case, decision-making), in a similar situation to when you will be doing the skill.  In order to do this you need to practice making decisions in game-speed drills or drills that are mimicking game-speed decisions.  These can be drills that your coach creates or they can be things that you add to a drill that you are doing.  Such as keeping track of the number of good shots and trying to beat your last score.  You can also give yourself a consequence if you do not reach your goal.

Athletes who improve their decision-making will feel more confident and in control and can shape and mold the flow of the game.  We will go into this concept more in later episodes when we talk about mastery and flow.

To Review, The Focus four for Decision-making when learning a new skill are:

1. When you are learning a new skill your focus gets taken away from another part of the game and you will tend to see inconsistencies in your game
2. One tool you can use when learning a new skill is to take a mental deep breath and refocus on the skill you are trying to learn or change.
3. Use deliberate and focused practice to get better at decision-making
4. Practice your decision-making in a realistic setting (such as in game-speed drills). Practicing in a realistic setting will help the skills to translate over when you are in a competitive setting.

For assistance with practice or additional tools to help with decision-making when learning a new skill, contact me at RattoConsulting.com.  If you or your coaches or organization are interested in hosting a workshop or virtual seminar on this or any other sports psychology or performance optimizing topic, please email me at Laura@RattoConsulting.com. See you next week!

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” ~ Tony Robbins