Deliberate Play Being a Coach

Deliberate Play

Being a coach who employs deliberate play and deliberate practice concepts in my practice sessions, as well as during games, allows me to incorporate the athlete's feelings and thoughts into situations involving the game. It also allows me to use qualitative and quantitative questionnaires to determine the mindset of my players as well as the goals and objectives we should be setting as a coaching staff for individual player.

Both concepts consider the athlete's desires as well as the supportive role of the parents and coaches in assisting the athletes in obtaining those desires. The coaches are called upon to provide the athletes with the resources including training such as skill training, conditioning, team concepts, and positioning theories. The parents offer a supportive role as well, oftentimes becoming the sounding box for the athletes that can be both negative and positive in feedback.

Deliberate play begins when the athletes are young and requires training at a rate of 2-5 hours per week. The training time increases through the years until approximately a decade later the athletes are practicing at a rate of 25-30 hours per week. Each stage incorporated into deliberate play is defined in a certain manner.

These distinct stages of development include different types of activities through the early years, middle years, later years and maintenance years. The activities are mainly focused on deliberate activities used to ensure the athlete is progressing. This concept also states that the hours of practice should have direct results and a corresponding improvement in the performance level of the athlete.

A presentation at a recent university symposium on deliberate practice showed that deliberate play over a ten-year time frame would "confirm the 10 yr-10.000 hrs rule predicted by Ericsson," and it would "confirm engagement in deliberate play prior to organized sport participation, but expand both theories in regard to the amount of practice, the role of coaching and the role of families on experts' careers" (Da Matta, French, 2002).

The support and resources provided by the coaches and the families seemed to allow the athletes more opportunities to succeed and influenced the athlete's perception of the practices and training they received.

Jean Cote, one of the proponents of deliberate play, states, "athletes rated practices that are high in concentration and effort as also being high in enjoyment" (Cote 1993). It is important therefore to maintain a concentrated level and effort during practice in order for the athlete to benefit at the highest level from the training. Cote also found that deliberate play during the athlete's formative years was an important factor in the progress of the athlete, but that competition in both practice and play also played a significant role in that progression as well.

According to Ericsson and Cote there are four measurable periods of time during an athlete's progression. There is the sampling time frame when an athlete tries a number of different sports to ascertain which one would be the best for him or her and the specializing years during which time the athlete specializes in the chosen sport.

The third period of time is the investment period which is heavily involved in time, commitment and effort on behalf of the athlete. The fourth period is called the recreational years and this is when the athlete gradually winds down from the many hours and years devoted to the pursuit of excellence in the chosen sport.

Much of the deliberate play and deliberate practice concepts deal with the mental imagery used to motivate the player. How the particular player(s) uses that mental imagery to enhance their play is measured by the questionnaires developed by theorists such as Ericsson and Cote. The Sports Imagery Questionnaire provides feedback to the researcher, coach, parents and players on how the player views what he or she is learning and the perceived purpose and benefits of imagery training. The findings from one recent study showed that "Elite and intermediate athletes used imagery more frequently and deliberately and perceived imagery to be more relevant and requiring more concentration than recreational athletes" (Nordin, Cumming, Vincent, McGrory, 2005, p. 346). If these findings are correct, and there is no reason to doubt that they are not, then the way to enhance top level performance in sporting activities is to have the players practice the art of imagery.

It is not surprising that athletes are now incorporating imagery into their training regimes. Advertisers have known for some time the effectiveness of imagery on consumer's spending habits. Many radio advertisements are created with the thought that the consumer must 'see' the product before the desire to purchase the product is produced.

There is "for example, the Radio Advertising Bureau's recent "I Saw it on the Radio" campaign, which touts radio's innate ability to engage listeners' imaginations and have them "visualize" in their mind's eye a variety of images related to the advertised product/service" (Bolls, Muehling, 2007, p. 35).

What is interesting about the responses of many of these consumers was that they were much more likely to purchase a product that they 'imagined' than one that was viewed. The same study showed that "when a visual-processing task (viewing pictures) was introduced, consumers' responses became generally less favorable" (Bolls, p. 36). Just as in sports, however, "The pattern of responses, however, varied across ad types and processing conditions" (Bolls, p. 36).