Functional Path Training

It’s all a Big Dance

Look at sport differently, it is not all about speed, strength, power, it is all about rhythm and tempo, the ability to change shapes instantly. It is a big dance, a dance with the sport implement, with the opponent and with the ground. Look at Steph Curry dancing with the basketball, Summer McIntosh dancing with the water or Myklos Alekna dancing with the discus. We need to coach this. It may not be quantifiable as ground contact time, or one rep max. It is something the great ones have. It is something we should strive for as coaches. Dance – Dance – Dance

Different sports have different rhythms and tempos, so does each athlete. Listen for it, feel it and coach it. You can hear a good pitch or a good swing. You can hear a great sprint. It can be heavy medal, country, Jazz or classical it all occurs. Let it happen, get away from creating robots who are stiff and segmented. Allow the athlete to express themselves through movement. Allow then to break through and feel the rhythm. 

On Rules from Rick Rubin

This is from a great book I just finished – The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Rubin is a famous music producer. His observations and musings on creativity resonated with me. Athletes and coaches are artists, great athletes and coaches are incredibly creative. Here is what he had to say about rules: “Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to created works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to.”

An Aha Moment – The Javelin Dance

I have told this story many times in presentations and in various podcasts. It deserves to be retold to underscore the lesson I learned many years ago and is reinforced daily in my coaching.

One of my biggest aha moments in coaching came while studying for my masters at Stanford University in a Movement Analysis class in the fall of 1973. We had to choose a skill to analyse and do a presentation to the class. In the class there was a cohort of dance masters students that were somewhat annoying to me because they seemed to view movement differently. They asked questions that did not fit into my mechanistic reductionist view of movement. I chose to analyse two javelin throwers, the gold and silver medallists from the Munich Olympics, Lusis and Wolferman. I did my presentation; I broke each throw down joint by joint muscle by muscle. I illustrated my analysis showing super eight film frame by frame of each throw. The presentation went well. I opened it up to questions, one of the dance students asked me to play the film again. So, I started playing the film again frame by frame. She said no, play it again at normal speed. Immediately the five dance students started clapping out the rhythm of the throw. What an epiphany! There were looking at the rhythm, the flow, the tempo, they saw immediately how everything connected into what I have come to call the javelin dance. That class, that day opened my eyes. I quickly started looking at connections, flow of movement and rhythm. I moved away analysing segments and look to enhance connections and coordination. Looking back that was career changing moment that influences every day I coach. It’s all a big dance!

Rhythm & Tempo

When working on writing projects I listen almost exclusively to two classic jazz albums: Time Out with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Kind of Blue with Miles Davis. Over the years it is the rhythm, tempo, time, and phrasing that keep me coming back to these classics. The longer I coach the more I see that one of the differentiators between good and great, sound technicians in their sport and flawed technicians is rhythm and tempo. It is certainly something that I coach now more than I ever have. It is something that I look for in analyzing efficient movement. Great movement is jazz – it is orchestrated but with rhythm and flow allowing for improvisation. Jazz is not mechanical. The take home message is to look for rhythm and tempo and coach it.

Words of Wisdom & Inspiration From The Two Bobs

Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, two great social philosophers and poets of the Twentieth century always inspire me with their words of wisdom. These two verses that I heard during my morning walk got my day moving ion the right direction

Last verse from Forever Young by Bob Dylan

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

From Three Little Birds by Bob Marley

Don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing' don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the risin' sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Saying', (this is my message to you)

Singing' don't worry 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing' don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Hopefully this brings a smile to your face and a glimmer of hope in these crazy unselling times.

Two Books and a Movie

Physical Intelligence – The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Though Life by Scott Grafton is one of the best books I have read in quite some time.  Very well written in a style that makes a complex subject very understandable without dumbing it down. If you are coach, teacher or therapist this is a must read. I wish I would have had this book years ago, just clarifies mind body relationships and the things we do every day in coaching to improve athletes’ movements.

Another enjoyable book I just finished was Chasing the Bear – How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest Football Program of All Time by Lars Anderson. Having played college football in the sixties when every coach was trying to be like Bear Bryant there were many scenes in the book that brought back memories both good and bad. There are good insights into what takes to be the best. Worth reading.

Also recommend a very good documentary by one of my favorite musical groups, The Band. Not sure if it has made to Netflix yet. It is called Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. Terrific footage of their day in Woodstock, maybe one of the most creative periods by a group in music history. Sad and uplifting at the same time. Some great insights into the creative process. Actually, prompted me to go back and watch The Last Waltz, a documentary of their last performance together.

My Books of the Year - 2016

In 2016 I have read 148 books these are my choices for books of the year. I have no particular criteria. Generally if the book makes me think and stimulates good ideas or teaches me something I did not know before they make the list. The books reflect my eclectic interests. Often one book will stimulate my curiosity to look deeper into a topic like the Citizen Science book has done or it may stimulate me to read more of a particular author. I actually have a couple of more I will share before the new year.

Learning – Continuous Personal & Professional Development

Not long ago someone asked me what I do to for professional development and to keep learning. I thought I would share what I do, that is not to suggest that is the way to do it rather to share a process that has worked for me over the years. Even though I call it a process for someone like me who is full of questions and inherently curious it is more semi-organized chaos. Those of you that followed this blog over the years know that I love to read, so for me reading actual books (I like the tactile sense of having a book in my hands, although I do use Kindle when I travel) is the cornerstone of learning for me. I read on the average of two books a week. I also subscribe to several sport science journals, numerous coaching journals, The New Yorker, Atlantic Magazine and Fast Company Magazine. I try to devote an hour a day to professional reading and research and probably another hour to recreational reading, usually at night. These are the books I have finished in the past several weeks; this picture does not include novels, biographies and history (About six more)

I keep a notebook where I record my ideas, notes from Conferences and notes from my reading. Below are the notebooks for the past seven years and a page from my current notebook. Much of what is in these notebooks probably would not make sense to anyone but me, but it helps me organize my thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also keep of log of all the books I read. In addition I keep a Log of my training, something I started doing when I was in high school (I wish I could find those old logs, I know they are buried somewhere in a box).

I try to talk to professional colleagues as often as possible and speak to my mentors as often as I can. I can't emphasize enough the role that my mentors have played in my learning both in terms of guidance and inspiration. I probably don’t go to as many conferences as I used to, I have just become more selective. Often I will go to a conference more to interact with those attaining than to hear the speakers. I am not as good at listening to Podcasts yet, which is a new area of learning for me that I am going to exploit further.

Each day that I coach is a learning experience. I learn from the athletes I work with and the coaches I work with. More of my coaching today is of the mentoring coaching nature but I still do some coaching daily, you can’t learn if you don’t have skin in the game.

I love to watch coach’s coach. In February I was able to spend time with Harry Marra and watch a training session with Ashton Eaton and his wife. The next morning I watched Jim Radcliffe coach an Oregon football off-season session and that afternoon watched him work with Mark Rowland’s Oregon Elite group of middle distance runners. Watching those sessions, interacting with the coaches and athletes are priceless learning opportunities. For that matter I learn by watching anyone who is good at his or her craft. Excellence transcends sport, watching a chef at work an artist paint or draw or a musician play is great learning. I feel you have go outside your field and specialization to broaden and deepen learning. Everything is connected.

I love to learn, the excitement and joy of learning new things and challenging myself daily sustains me. I am constantly trying to look at the world with new eyes and discover new ideas and approaches. I hope this helps give you some ideas to guide your learning.

Odds and Ends

I am enamored on what it takes to be the best, to be great, to sustain excellence. This interview with Smokey Robinson on NPR http://n.pr/1rIZ9Qm gives some insights into what has enabled this man to sustain excellence for forty plus years. He works at his craft everyday. He runs everyday and has been doing yoga for thirty-five years he finds it fuels his creativity. He has a new album Smokey and Friends. Ifind it interesting that he like Willie Nelson and others who have every reason to rest on their laurels continue to produce great work. Powerful inspirational message to keep learning keep growing and keep creating.

Been listening to Bob Dylan’s classic album “The Times they are a Changing.” All I can say is WOW – I have not listened to it in quite a long time, but his words resonate with today’s times as much as they did fifty years ago.

Gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown

And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
Keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

Don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'

For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they, they are a-changin'

Come senators, Congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand at the doorway
Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it's ragin'

It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
Don't criticize
What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend a hand
For your times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn
And the curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast

As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

Well worth the listen. Certainly today the times are changing faster than ever and we have to be ready to adapt to the changes or get left behind.

Your athletes can’t better if you don’t get better as a coach.

Faith based coaching is when you gather an abundance of talented athletes put a heavy training load on them and hope that something good happens.

Don’t let your experience limit you. Constantly look for new experiences, new ways of doing things. Experiment. Look at things differently.

Sound training programs are not based on facilities, equipment, or exercises. They are based on sound training methodology and great coaching grounded in pedagogy. Great programs are coach driven and athlete centered. The coach drives the bus.

If you are easily seduced by fads, influenced by internet training porn, lured by fancy trends and marketing your results will be inconsistent reflective of your information sources.

”An intelligent fool can make things bigger more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” E.F. Schumacher

You train to win by winning the training. It is a process - session-by-session, day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, and year-by-year.

Dave Brubeck (1920 - 2012)

Yesterday Dave Brubeck died one day short of his 92^nd birthday. Without a doubt he was and is my favorite musician. I was trying to think when I first really became aware of his music; I think I was around fifteen years old. I know one of the first albums I bought was The Dave Brubeck Quartet At Carnegie Hall. He certainly defined the genre with his iconic signature piece Take Five. As I followed his career and learned more about him what impressed me the most was his desire to continually learn and innovate and above all his passion for music and entertaining. One of my biggest regrets is never getting to hear him in concert. Dave Brubeck will be missed. Thanks for all the enjoyment you have brought us all through your wonderful music.