#184 Environment and culture in enskilment

In this episode of the Progressão podcast, we continue our discussion on enskilment. This time we focus on the role of environment and culture in becoming skilful.

What kind of environments do players grow in?
And how do those environments shape the way they perceive and act?

We explore skill as something that develops within a human–environment system, where surroundings, people, history, and culture are all deeply intertwined. From different football cultures around the world to everyday training environments, we look at how variation in context creates variation in skill.

We also reflect on atmosphere, shared ways of playing, and how culture lives in the details — in how we move, what we value, and what we recognise as “good football”.

At the centre of the episode is a simple but important idea:

If we want better players, we need better environments.

This episode continues our series on becoming skilful, where skill is understood as a relational, ecological, and cultural phenomenon.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Ruka on Podcast Leurnätijä Jana Staneli ja Juusi Pekkaninen. Kalaansa kaikista kujää Rukka sanoa. Haluamme Mitkudia fotka. Weilitaan yjavisen kujänä kompleksia relajosti meillä on hyvä ja environment ja the näytti kiluja fotkailuita. Welkoma. Jäytka diskussion on enskilmen. Tämä kokussaan the role on environment ja kulčia ensin skiljolla. And already on näitä environment ja kultura are not separáne thäksita, ne on deeplyn intertwinä, but we use these verjustaja to help us approach the topik. By environment we mean the whole landscape in which a person lives jail, not only the physical surroundings like pitches, surfaces and objects, but also other people's situations and the possibilities for actions that emerge in those contexts. And by culture we mean the shared ways of living in that environment: how people behave, what they value, how they play, how they speak and what is considered meaningful or skillful. So environment is not just a backdrop and culture is not something abstract. Together they form the living context in which skill grows. Why this is important?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Let's briefly return to the enskillment. Enskillment is becoming skillful through engagement with the world. It is learning within the world inseparable from doing and from place. Skill develops as a gradually deepening embodied attentiveness that is tightly connected to the environment. We often say that a coach can help guide a player outward into a world, for example the football world. And the player in turn stretches toward that world. This process requires an environment. And that's why environment matters so much. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

If you travel across different places, in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America or wherever, you notice that people are different, they speak differently, they move, behave differently, and there are reasons for this. It reflects the environments in which the people have grown, and the same applies even beyond humans. For example, birds sing differently in different environments. In cities they sing at higher pitches because of background noise, and even their dialects vary depending on where they live.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

The same phenomena applies to humans. Our ways of speaking, moving, perceiving are shaped by our environments. There is also research showing that people who grow up in different environments navigate differently. People who grew up outside cities tend to navigate better in less structured environments, and people who grow up in cities tend to navigate better in more structured environments. So the environment shapes not only what we do but how we perceive and act. This leads us to football.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Football itself contains different kinds of environments. Sometimes the game is more organized, sometimes it's more chaotic. For example in Afghan or European Championships you will see different kinds of dynamics of the game. And think about the moments when the ball is bouncing, the situation is unclear and players need to adapt quickly. These are less structured situations. Or think about perfectly organized buildup phases. These are more structured. A quick question is: what kinds of environments are players growing in?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

If we look globally, the football environments vary a lot. In many African or South American contexts players grow in less structured environments, uneven pitches, different surfaces, different balls, often without formal coaching. We saw an example where children were playing rond on a sand and mud barefoot and still playing beautifully and skillfully. Then in Europe we often train in highly structured environments: flat pitches, consistent surfaces, organized drills. This also shapes our players. So variation in environment creates variation in skill.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

If players only experience stable, predictable environments, it becomes harder to adapt when conditions change. Highly unstructured environments can also create challenges, for example adapting later to organized teamplay. So the key is not to copy another culture. We need to understand better what effect the environment has on our development. What does our environment produce and what might be missing. emotion, values, languistä, buildings, history, culture, all things that are around us. And all of these form the environment in which skill develops.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

We can think of this as a human environment system. A player does not exist separately from the environment. The player and the environment form one system continuously shaping each other. This also means that history matters. Karl Marx wrote that people make their own history but not in conditions of their own choosing. And then philosopher Maurice Merley Ponty described how our past, present and future form intentional arc, shaping how we perceive and act in the world. So every action in football is influenced by past experiences, current environment and future possibilities. Culture is part of this environment.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

So, like we said, culture is not something abstract or separate, it grows within the human environment system, and it is visible in how we speak, for example, about football, what we value, what we want to see in the game, what we don't want to see in the game, how we behave and what we consider good football. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called this a form of life. Each culture develops its own form of life and this shape how players become skillful, and we can see this clearly in football cultures. In Brazil for example, concepts like chinga, the rhythmic deceptive body movement are deeply connected to cultural history and ways of living. Street football or pelada, by the way we will talk about pelada in the next episode creates environments where rules are flexible, teams change and there is a lot of creativity in the game. So these environments shape players in very specific ways.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

This creates a challenge. How do we support players in becoming adaptable, creative and responsive when their environments are increasingly structured? One answer is not just more training, it's different environments. What we can do is vary the surfaces we play on, vary the tasks, drills and exercises, allowing more free play to the players and encouraging them to play with others, not only training alone. So football is a shared activity. Skill grows together. And now we arrive at an important idea. The development of football is not primarily about individuals. Exactly, Ipe.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

It is about environments. The key to developing football is not found in individuals or isolated methods or rigid models. It is found in the environments we create. If we want better players or more players, we need richer environments where players want to play. If we want more skillful football, we need better, in a sense, better forests. Not just better individual trees, but better forests. This means shaping training environments, shaping club culture, shaping everyday experiences. And as some have said, the coach can act like an ecologist, not controlling every action but creating conditions where players can grow and flourish.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

So skill grows in environments. Culture shapes skill. And football development is about learning to build better environments for people to become skillful. That's all for today. Professional, thanks for your listening, and we continue next week.