A Unique Method for Improving Skill Performance

-By Dave Cross

Recently our club just wrapped up another ten session skills clinic. As usual, I directed it and ran one of the courts myself. During one of the last sessions, we were teaching the girls what we call the "cobra tip".

Basically, it is a disguised attack where the key is to "camouflage" the tip as long as possible by keeping the attack hand up high and behind the head as long as possible, then pushing the hand straight forward to tip the ball with a "cobra" strike type motion. When perfected, it is a very effective skill.

We were teaching this skill to middle school aged players and, no matter how many times we explained and demonstrated the skill, the majority were having a hard time keeping the attack hand back behind the head long enough to disguise the upcoming tip.

So I decided to use a different approach to get them to understand. I've used this approach many times over the years with great success and I thought I'd share it with you today.

I told the girls to pull their hand far enough back behind their head that it "felt weird or stupid", to them.

Immediately, they all started performing the skill much better. As usual, this unique approach worked like a charm, and here's why:

Without getting all scientific on you here, the basic concept involves how the brain controls movement patterns. When an athlete makes the decision to move in a particular way, the brain sends out signals to the muscles involved to make the movement happen.

The key here is that the brain has to learn the specific signals to send out to command the muscles to move correctly so that the specific movement pattern can be performed correctly. This is accomplished by a repeated trial and error process until the exact movement pattern is found and done over and over until it becomes an automatic response.

This is easy to observe happening in athletics. Whenever an athlete is learning a new skill, and thus a new movement pattern, the movements appear slow and calculated. This is because they are consciously thinking about the movements to be performed, and the brain is trying to figure out what to tell the muscles to do. As the athlete "learns" the skill the movements become more fluid and automatic- because the movement pattern is becoming more and more ingrained in the body. Once the skill is learned, it becomes totally automatic and the athlete only has to consciously think of the movement and it is performed automatically. Just watch an accomplished high school hitter attack a ball, and then compare it to a young, novice player and the difference becomes very obvious.

Ok, so what does this have to do with telling a player to make a movement feel "weird" or "stupid"?

Whenever we try to get a player to change a movement pattern, (like keeping their hand way back until the last moment when tipping), they have to "consciously" think about the movement being performed-because it hasn't been adequately learned enough to be performed automatically.

What they are doing is "forcing" their body to move in a way it's not trained to. When this happens, the brain is forced to figure out the new movement pattern the player is trying to perform, causing a sensation of confusion. When this happens, this "confusion" is interpreted as feeling "stupid" or "weird".

So, when you tell a player to move in a certain way so that it feels "stupid/weird", they are breaking the old movement pattern and beginning to learn the new desired one. As the repeatedly perform the new movement pattern the brain starts to learn what instructions it should send to the muscles and the sensation of confusion slowly dissipates, and therefore, so does that "stupid/weird" feeling.

This method works like a charm in teaching a player to change skill execution. Look, you don't even have to understand the science behind it, and neither do they. Just get them to perform the movement that produces the "stupid/weird" feeling. When they acknowledge that's what they are feeling, reinforce that feeling as being a good thing by connecting that feeling to the fact they just performed the skill correctly.

For example, when one of the players would perform the cobra tip correctly for the first time, I would say to them, "Felt weird", (or stupid), "Didn't it?" They will always confirm that it did (many times with a funny look on their face). Then you simply tell them, "that's good, keep making it feel that way-you're doing the skill right now."

This is so easy to do, and such an effective way of getting a player to change and improve how they are performing a skill when the usual methods of explanation and demonstration just aren't working, that you've simply got to give it a try.

You'll be glad you did-and so will your players!!

Good Luck!!

-Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball