NOTE: For those reading this article who do not know what Scalable Live Training is, it’s a translation and extension of the Constraints-led Approach (CLA). If you are already familiar with and using CLA, the 3D Model of Coaching will work just as well for you.
The Scalable Live Training (SLT) framework inverts the normal way of doing things in martial arts. These radical changes consequently reposition and modify the role of coaching and instruction within the training methodology.
To help martial arts coaches better understand their function inside of the SLT framework, I put together a model of coaching and instruction that I like to call the 3D Model of Coaching:
- Design
- Direct
- Dissect
The contents of this coaching model describe what you should do before, during, and after each training session you conduct.
The most preliminary consideration of the 3D model of coaching is that it is not concerned with knowledge transfer between teacher and student. In other words, it is not about direct instruction as a means to passing on sport-specific knowledge.
The 3D Model is about creating learning environments in which students are helped toward discovering effective solutions of their own. Stated another way, the 3D Model is about creating games and exercises that help learners naturally adapt to the demands of the sport.
That said, instruction and coaching feedback are still important parts of the 3D Model but are used at different times and in different ways than is traditional.
When in doubt about when to offer tactical prescriptions or detailed instruction about techniques, remember the iron rule of Scalable Live Training:
Try First
Optimize Later
That is, try the game first, let students start finding things that work, and then you can step in to help them improve upon or refine their discoveries.
Design Practice
The design phase is perhaps the most important phase in the 3D model. Scalable Live Training revolves around skill development through learning design, i.e. the structure of the games and practice exercises themselves rather than direct instruction.
There is also a lot of value in what exercises are selected and how they are sequenced throughout the course of a session.
Realistic Training Exercises*
At a bare minimum, all skill training must be both unscripted (self-determined) and uncooperative (antagonistic, competitive) in nature. This is covered in more detail in both the SLT simplified summary and the full SLT introduction articles.
The next two layers of realism involve (a) the rules of the training exercise/game and (b) features of the environment that might or do affect performance in the real competition environment (crowd, coaches, referees, judges, etc.).
Not all of these second layer elements need to be present in a training exercise for it to have skill building value and enough realism to transfer to competition. Generally, the practice rules need to be such that learners are likely to behave in ways that provide the same or very similar openings for scoring/action to what an opponent in competition would.
*In the constraints-led approach, the level of realism in a practice exercise is referred to as representative learning design. “Representative,” of course, describes the degree to which the exercise gives a learner an experience that realistically simulates the actual competition experience.
Representativeness is about preserving realism in exercises, but it is not about 100% accurate simulation. There’s always a trade off between more specific training and realism.
Game/Exercise Design Variables
These variables (and more) are available to you to manipulate or remove in the service of designing unique learning exercises:
- Rules
- Time
- Practice environment
- Equipment
- Training partner
Consider the openings and opportunities you want your learners to perceive during each training exercise. How can adding, subtracting, or modifying these variables help you achieve those objectives?
Individual Rules & Adjustments
Most of the design phase is concerned with what you do before class, but individual adjustment is a design activity you can use during practice in class.
If a learner is struggling with an exercise, you can adjust the rules for him or both participants to help simplify the exercise even more without changing the game for everyone.
If a student is having too easy of a time, you can also add or subtract constraints to make the exercise more challenging.
Individual and/or pair-specific constraints allow you to maintain structured practice designs while still delivering individualized coaching.
Direct Attention
Learning within SLT is primarily about attuning to the right information from your opponent. That requires the attunement of a learner’s attentional focus.
Moreover, there’s a robust body of research that shows that properly attuned focus of attention significantly enhances performance and learning. Conversely, a poorly calibrated focus of attention frustrates both performance and learning.
Instead of giving students the answer to movement problems in the form of a singular technique, 3D coaching seeks to direct an athlete’s attention to the right spots for information or toward the right effects.
Internal vs External Focus of Attention
An internal focus of attention is focused on one's body and how it's moving, the sensation. Internal focus coaching involves instructions or cues which direct the athlete to focus on his body.
An external focus of attention is focused on the target and/or the effect one is meant to make upon that target. The body is scarcely referenced except to clue learners of an intended effect. External coaching involves instructions and cues that direct the athlete to focus on his target.
A research literature founded and spearheaded by Dr. Gabriele Wulf shows that instructions, cueing, and feedback that induce an external focus of attention create significantly better performances and leads to better learning.
Instructions that induce an internal focus of attention are more likely to lead to frustrated performance, choking under pressure, and weaker learning.
Within Scalable Live Training, we understand this to be due to the coach directing the learner's attention off himself and onto the information for action in his environment (chiefly from his opponent). Without conscious control interfering with movement, external focus allows an athlete's body to organize itself naturally toward fulfilling a given task goal.
A full treatment of attentional focus, instruction, and cueing is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, this section is a broad overview of how instruction and coaching functions differently within the 3D Model and SLT than it does in traditional approaches.
There are two primary methods by which coaches can direct learner attention most productively:
- External Focus Instructions & Cues
- KR Feedback
While there are legitimate uses for internal focus of attention coaching, this phase assumes the primacy of coaching with an external focus of attention most of the time.
External Focus Instructions & Cueing
External instructions go hand in hand with enhancing the game parameters determined in the design phase of 3D.
Before discovering instruction with an external focus of attention, I would have instructed the taekwondo round kick like this, for example:
"Pivot the base leg, lift the knee and turn it like a key, extend and impact with the top of the instep near the ankle."
Instructed with a more external focus of attention, I now teach the round kick like this:
“Smash the top of the foot into the chest gear or tap it to the headgear.”
The top instep is a valid striking surface used in Olympic taekwondo sparring. In order to strike a legal scoring surface with it, an athlete must necessarily turn the hip over enough to facilitate a horizontal trajectory.
A lot of instructional information is missing from the external coaching version. However, the constraints of the task of scoring with the top instep of the foot is an effect that allows learners to reliably fill in the blanks with self-organization and exploration.
Despite seemingly inferior instruction, the learning and performance enhancements that result from the external coaching approach are powerful.
I’ll write at length about focus of attention in later articles.
KR Feedback
There are two main types of performance feedback: KP Feedback and KR Feedback. KP stands for “Knowledge of Performance” and refers to feedback about how the athlete is moving. KR stands for “Knowledge of Results” and refers to feedback which reveals or clarifies the effect of an athlete’s performance toward a task goal.
Learning to score on the Electronic Scoring System (ESS) in sport taekwondo is a good example of how to use KR feedback practically.
The ESS is notoriously difficult for new users to score with because they are accustomed neither to the leg angles required to contact the sensors nor the pressure that must be generated to register a point. Much practice is therefore necessary to acclimate an athlete to consistently scoring on ESS gear.
When students fail to score, instructors traditionally resort to internal focus instructions about how to pivot the leg, turn the hip over, and create an angle conducive to scoring with the proper surface on the foot. This is decidedly KP feedback and keeps students focused on their own bodies instead of those of their opponents.
In contrast, KR feedback entails a coach letting an athlete know if each strike that contacts a legal scoring surface registers a point or not. If it does not register a point, the student is challenged to explore angles and accelerate force production as ways to calibrate for task success.
By keeping attention off the performer’s body, the coach allows the learner to engage in more self-organized adjustments to attempt to better fulfill the task goal. The resulting skill of ESS scoring will be much stronger and more adaptable than if developed through KP feedback.
I want to note that KP Feedback has a place. It’s not always bad. It’s just not likely going to drive real performance improvement until a learner is more advanced. It is more suited overall to something like sport poomsae or competitive kata.
Dissect Performance
“Dissecting” in the 3D Model is chiefly concerned with unpacking, analyzing, and reflecting upon the athlete’s performance by both the coach and the athlete himself. The purpose of this phase is to help a learner become a self-sufficient learner.
There are three primary modes of dissection: questioning, reflection, and playback analysis. Those three are summarized in the bullet points below.
- Questioning. Questioning is a technique where the coach asks an athlete a series of open-ended questions about a problem he’s encountering or an experience he just had. Questions should always start from general situational questions and funnel their way down to more specific (yet open-ended) questions about possible solutions.
- Reflection. Reflection is a process of thinking about one’s performance during a session after the session is over. It’s worth sorting through what one did well and what one needs to work on – a process that has consistently been shown to help improve performance, inform self-directed learning, and lead to greater movement creativity. Reflection will be aided by the questioning technique as well as video playback, discussed in the next point. Prompting students to keep a training journal can be an excellent way to foster this habit in learners.
- Playback Analysis. Video playback analysis uses video recording of sparring and live exercises as the basis for finding and pointing out weaknesses and strengths in performance. Coaches should combine this technique with questioning to begin to challenge learners to read, recognize, and understand performance opportunities from the video analyses. As learners gain more exposure to video playbacks, they should be able to conduct their own analysis by pointing out opportunities missed and gained and generate a training plan or direction to shore up identified weaknesses in performance.
A couple of these methods are more useful after practice is finished – or sometimes outside of practice entirely (reflection, playback analysis). The questioning technique is applicable within the training session, during and between practice exercises, with the right know-how.
As learners become more self-sufficient, they should be able to use the dissect phase to guide their own self-directed practice. I will address these dissection modalities at length in later articles.
Conclusion
The SLT framework changes the game when it comes to coaching. Martial arts coaches operating inside the framework are no longer primarily operating as instructors, knowledge transfer agents, or biomechanical feedback providers.
Because of this repositioning of the coach, many SLT practitioners are unsure of their function before, during, and after each training session.
To help coaches using SLT to better conceptualize their roles, I've organized the 3D Model of Coaching:
- Design practice
- Direct attention
- Dissect performance
These three phases cover most of what a coach does within the framework. Phases 2 and 3 are not just there to help coaches improve athlete performance but also to foster those athletes into self-sufficient learners.
Equipped with the tools of 3D coaching, you're ready to deliver training that is far more advanced and impactful than most other martial arts schools are capable of offering.
