Sometimes you need to get ideas out of your head and onto paper. It can feel like a luxury. We don’t always have the time to think it through, and when we do, working in sketches can make the idea feel naive and not worth-sharing.
Over the last few years, I’ve been using the example of skipping to illustrate some of the choices we face as teachers, coaches, and instructors.
My personal favourite is to transition kids out of school mode, into sports and physical training sessions by simply laying out ropes, hurdles, and hula hoops, and watching what emerges. See Design the environment in the drawing above.
I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Kelvin Giles about his journey in coaching recently, and he shared a simple PE lesson using just a piece of a rope and a simple prompt: How many different ways can you cross the rope? See Design the prompt in the drawing above.
He also spoke about how one of his keystones — a central tenet of his programming — was toes-up running, and how he had, over the years, figured out how to go from direct instruction to task-led.
What is clear to me is not the theoretical accuracy of this diagram. That’s not the point; it’s the choices that are available to us when designing a coaching session.
It can feel easier to drop a drill than to stop and begin to start in rough. It is, however, also a chance to remind ourselves that we have a choice.
I can do better than that, is one such choice. Go make your mark.