The Constraints-Led Fencing Coach

I get it, but why reduce CLA to a “tool”? In ECOD, strategy, tactics and decision making are constraints operating at different timescales. To ignore that is to misrepresent the entire methodological philosophy/ontology; half a story makes for less than half an argument.

The table of contents says it all… My new book, 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞, is packed…jam packed…with techniques to help you be a better competitor in sport. At first I invite you to take control. I invite you to take charge. I then provide you with a skeleton framework to do this - my Elite Competitor Model. Next, I introduce you to the three mental skills that are constantly mediating performance and break those down in detail… 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧…𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲…𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 I then move into my simple yet powerful mental techniques - the ones that help mediate those three mental skills… 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭…𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭…𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞…𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬…𝐒𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐬 I then give you ideas to help build your ‘Confidence and Energy Bars’…learn how to ‘influence and follow’….build your ‘competitive motivation’….incorporate mental rehearsal and pre-game routine…and then reflect and garner feedback. 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬…𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬… Ambitious competitors deserve simple and powerful ideas to help the high perform, more consistently, under pressure… 𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬… Introduction Chapter 1: Elite Competitor Model Chapter 2: Your Three Mental Skills Chapter 3: Focus Flashlight Chapter 4: Match Script Chapter 5: Game Face Chapter 6: Controllers Chapter 7: Squashing ANTs Chapter 8: Confidence and Energy Chapter 9: Influencing and Following Chapter 10: Competitive Motivation Chapter 11: Rehearsal and Routine Chapter 12: Reflection, Feedback, and Intentional Training Conclusion - Go Again 𝐏𝐫𝐞-𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎% 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐰𝐤𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 buff.ly/kjR3CHu

Want more overhead play? Raise the net. Adjust the constraint and let behaviour do the work Head over to the link in the bio to for the full episode and membership options.

Great to work with Brendan Moy on this research project to investigate how the constraints-led approach can be used to teach swimming and enhance intrinsic motivation. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

New: Toward an ethic of response-ability in coaching science. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… Well led by Fernando and great to work again with @markstkhlm and @skillacqlascu

Excited to announce that the next book we are going to tackle on the Perception Action Journal Club is: Gibson (1979) - The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. buff.ly/xtDN4WQ

"The kind of skill that is most likely to survive reality is the kind that was cultivated there in the first place".

In our monthly members meet ups we focus on providing solutions to coaching challenges. Focusing on challenges that our members are expeirencing in their context. Check out our membership options at theconstraintscollective.com

Is technique the precursor to skill, or the outcome? How we define and understand repetition goes hand in hand with this view. 🔗 nicksmallridge.substack.com/p/is-technique…

Consistency is an oft misunderstood concept. For me it’s about functional reliability, not uniformity of form.

A clip from our monthly meet ups. If you're getting value from our podcast check out our membership options and coaching community at theconstraintscollective.com Support the running of the podcast at patreon.com/TheConstraints…

@jcassidy_sport Is the coaching intention behind the direct instruction used as a constraint to self organised around, or is it a direction to do it the coach wants it done? I doubt however whether may coaches link their decisions to a particular ontology.

skilledathleticism.com/post/epistemol… A few thoughts on direct instruction, an incredibly powerful and flexible tool (both the theory and the behaviour).

@ConstraintsColl discussing our recent paper on the value of opposed and unopposed practice. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Absolutely loved this book.

It's always so exciting to see your books in the wild. Thank you so much. geni.us/practiceofchan…

Teaching actions to be replicated has its limitations. Coaching for adaptation is freeing up time time to explore, experiment and exploit.

@Mike_Jagacki @nasthe3rd @MyFootballCoach @movementcoachkm Misrep or difference of perspective? Skill is highly context/individual (capacity and capability) specific. No argument. Technique build skill or is a bi-product of skill? CLA = skill as a functionally adaptive and emergent property, not a list of techniques to be accumulated.

I’m not misrepresenting CLA. I’m pushing back on an oversimplified version of it so many promote. Action capacity does matter. It doesn’t replace ecology — it’s part of it. But never talked about by promoters of books and courses. What a player can do physically and technically changes what they can perceive as possible.

For all those SSG and CLA coaches out there, this is a very important thing to understand. Technique/abolity can shape decisions. We don’t only need to train decisions but the skills that allow them

You can in-form the individual about stuff; trans-form them via tasks doing useful stuff; and intra-form the culture by attending to the really useful stuff.

Fencing remains closed skill, scripted, unopposed, technical, form-before-function and is anti modern pedagogy because of failure to understand tradition and build critically thinking coaches from it, evolving the culture of education as we go.

Getting right up to date, teaching the same things in the same way to technical templates. What I call Pavlov's Lunge - a coaching method that sets the fencer up to fail - allowing their opponent to ring their bell.

There is a long tradition of cut-and-paste teaching methods in fencing. Let's start at 1320.