Movement Skills Overview

[John Waters]

Interesting paper John. Not seen that one before.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti ... 7588766/

Injuries is a whole thing on its own. I have a recurring shoulder injury right now which has kept me off the water for weeks.

Whenever we instruct we have to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the teaching techniques we might choose to use and select according to the needs of the caster. It’s never just black or white, some techniques don’t mix and objectives differ.

If you’re experienced it’s quite likely these decisions, good or not so good, have become ironed in through trial and error. When someone is new to this game of instructing, Vince’s vids offer a way of helping to make those decisions easier by giving a simple guide to some of the underpinning principles which are pretty much bedrock for instruction of motor skills.

I view injuries as being related to technique, they are interdependent. There are a few studies of injury risk in fly casting Mark, centred on the shoulder, elbow and wrist. That should not be an unexpected outcome given the focus on arm movement in the evolution of casting instruction, technique and performance. Maybe if there was more focus on other body segments and how they can better distribute the loads borne by the shoulder, elbow and wrist in arm-centric movement patterning, as is the case in other sports, that would be different. It shows the what is as important as the how and we have a bit go go with both.

John

[Stoatstail50]

I don’t disagree John.

Who? What? When? How?.

[Stoatstail50]

It’s a long paper Bernd…quotes below.

Decades ago, learning theorists (e.g., Estes 1955; Hull 1943; Skinner 1938; all cited under *Corresponding Conceptual Distinctions*), used terms in their own theories that distinguished between learning and performance…….

……In the motor skills literature, specifically, the reloading hypothesis (Lee and Magill 1985) and schema theory (Schmidt 1975) offer highly cited explanations for the learning and performance effects of distributed practice (see *Distribution of Practice*) and varying practice conditions (see *Variability of Practice*), respectively. Finally, the general idea that what can hurt performance can help learning is captured in the Bjork 1994 desirable difficulties framework. Manipulations such as distributing practice, varying the conditions of practice, and testing are “desirable” because they support better long-term retention and transfer compared to their counterpart conditions. They are also “difficult,” however, in the sense that these manipulations can impair performance during learning or training and, as a result, are likely to be interpreted as ineffective by students and instructors alike.

This last interpretation has been my personal experience for over a decade.

[Bernd Ziesche]

Thanks, Mark. I ll have a read...

[VGB]

John

I’ve copied your last answer onto a specific “Casting Injuries” thread because I’d like to keep the answers bundled. It is a very important subject in its own right and deserves a bit of focus.

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

What I have never said by the way is that nothing is learned in a single lesson, something will be retained, simply that you can have little or no idea of what content or how much content has been retained.

This, for me, means that the only option I have to maximise retention for my caster is to design a lesson around teaching techniques that most effectively support it.

I agree with that, Mark and already mentioned, that you were the one here, being much less black or white about internal and external cues, too. There are many ways to excellence in teaching.

Depends on the complexity of the skill Bernd, an extremely simple movement skill can be learned relatively quickly, for instance doing up a zip. Do you class casting as a simple or complex movement skills Bernd, and why?

Regards

Vince

[Stoatstail50]

Thanks, Mark. I ll have a read...

It is a study of the studies…a history and summary.

There are bits you definitely won’t like…

When teaching a motor skill, such as a golf or tennis swing, it is commonplace for instructors to physically guide the learner through the desired motions. Intuition suggests that this type of instruction should be beneficial; indeed, research has shown than guiding learners reduces performance errors during acquisition compared to when learners attempt to produce the skill without guidance (i.e., are tested). The problem is that on assessments of long-term learning when guidance can no longer be relied upon, the reverse is often true—that is, those who practice a skill without guidance frequently show better learning than those who are guided during acquisition (for a recent review on guidance research, see Hodges and Campagnaro 2012). Such a dissociation between learning and performance was demonstrated decades ago by Baker 1968, which showed that guidance on a pursuit task minimized performance errors, but impeded long-term learning compared to an unguided group.

1968! Blimey…long time ago.

[Paul Arden]

The best compliment I’ve ever had from a student was that he didn’t realise casting could be so simple.

That’s a great compliment

[Paul Arden]

Hi Bernd,

You might need to actually read my posts.

So in a lesson I teach and set a number of drills. Normally this number is around 7.

I then follow up the lesson with recordings of these drills, that are either publicly or privately available on YouTube and I’ll also WhatsApp the relevant drills from my phone when they are not.

Next they download the complete lesson and rewatch it. During this time they take notes.

These notes they then send to me and I highlight the important drills and correct any misunderstandings.

Between lessons we stay in contact. Which means questions and observations, and they can send me video for analysis if they want.

I get to check understanding through the notes. I get to see improvements early during the next lesson (and sometimes inbetween). The beginning of a lesson is fascinating because we candidly discuss how the training went. Mostly they talk, I listen. It really is a case of regular contact.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

I agree with that, Mark and already mentioned, that you were the one here, being much less black or white about internal and external cues, too. There are many ways to excellence in teaching.

Depends on the complexity of the skill Bernd, an extremely simple movement skill can be learned relatively quickly, for instance doing up a zip. Do you class casting as a simple or complex movement skills Bernd, and why?

In my experience what skill is complex, both in terms of understanding and/or performing, remains individual.
For closing a zipper we find plenty of instructional videos. Some instructors put closing a zipper into several steps and present the details for each of them. Fair to say I have fucked up a serious number of zippers (typically, but not only) on my wading jackets by improper handling. It was a year ago when I got a new wading jacket for a very fair price. The zipper however asked for smart treatment. First time in my live I made time to learn the details and typical mistakes I often did previously.

Fly casting has many different tasks. Some are more simple than others, while what's simple for one caster may be very complex to another one. As for closing the zipper, the more details we want to learn and adjust, the more complex it gets.

In general I prefer to think proper fly casting to be rather simple and everyone can learn it. Old ppl., young ppl. and also handicapped ppl.. That aside it's very helpful, when I as a teacher believe, that fly casting doesn't have to be complex for my student. If I form it to be complex in my mind, that usually easily can lead to barriers, which are only slowing us (my student and me) down in teaching and learning. Believing in something to be possible has always been an important catalyst in teaching and learning in my experience both as a teacher and student myself.

Good example are students trying to bring all the details they were reading pre a first lesson into their first steps of fly casting. I sometimes had to support them to stop thinking and just perform. Not uncommon, that it was students bringing a scientic based background.
Regards
B