Ecological Dynamics Foundation Series: Part 1
First Things First
Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are.
-Don Norman
“What is THE question?”
This is how Joe Hudson starts his 1v1 coaching conversations.
Why is THE capitalized in this writing? Because when you’re trying to find out what you’re actually wrestling with, you ask a lot of questions that aren’t THE question.
To use a Hawkins term, Hudson is looking for what the critical point is. The highest leverage: if we answer THE question, we really get what we’re looking for.
This is design thinking. Something Don Norman knows a thing or two about as well, from his book, The Design of Everyday Things:
“One of my rules in consulting is simple: never solve the problem I am asked to solve. Why such a counterintuitive rule? Because, invariably, the problem I am asked to solve is not the real, fundamental, root problem. It is usually a symptom. Just as in Chapter 5, where the solution to accidents and errors was to determine the real, underlying cause of the events, in design, the secret to success is to understand what the real problem is.
It is amazing how often people solve the problem before them without bothering to question it.”
What’s the question when wrestling with how to produce players who get as close to their ceiling as possible?
The question probably isn’t, ‘how do we create more Stenbergs?’
The question probably isn’t, ‘how do we keep protecting the old way of doing things so the current powers that be can stay in their jobs?’
How do we create the best possible conditions for the best version of this player to emerge?
Maybe that’s THE question.
Maybe if we invert, we’d get closer.
How do we ensure Bjorck, Stenberg, or your kid quits hockey before he’s 20?
Make sure it’s not fun. Ensure he’s bored, frustrated, and confused as often as possible during his ice time.
Ensure he has Force Coaches the entire youth hockey experience.
Make sure he’s not in a play-centered environment.
They’ll quit for sure.
Getting Out of the Way
“If it’s not free play, EcoD, or CLA, you’re in the way.”
Before I get into the meat of EcoD, give you definitions and start citing some cool papers, I’m going to completley avoid it, and talk about free play. In the natural progression of your kids’ journey, you should avoid all this jibber-jabber of constraints and elaborate ways to change practice environments.
Be concerned with 2 things:
Small spaces
Joy
Free-play is the base. The foundation. The real way players get ‘skilled’ and the best way to avoid them quitting the sport. Playing for fun.
From the time a kid can stand up, you can give them a soccer ball. A floorball stick and ball. Or whatever else they can play with and they’ll start messing around. And not long after that, you can just start playing with that kid. 1v1 in your basement/living room with a size 1 ball and mini nets. Mini-sticks in the kitchen. Play wherever.
When that kid can’t stop playing mini-sticks, throw some roller blades on him. Change the ball, change the surface. Play outside with him on your beat-up street. The cracks, curbs and other perturbations in the street will improve his puckhandling better than any private trainer will.
Throw an NHL game on the TV. When he asks to go to the ice rink and try it, take him.
Play 1v1 in a small space. Don’t sign him up for Learn to Skate unless it’s coached by someone who understands EcoD. Otherwise they’ll bore him and steal the joyful energetic field that you and your son are creating around the game.
Keep playing.
Then help your kid make a friend or 3. Turn 1v1 into 2v2, 3v3. Keep playing.
After you’re done playing with your kid and his friends, read about EcoD in the late evenings, but don’t worry about implementing the ‘complex’ stuff until at least after puberty.
Just keep playing.
Don’t sign him up for Learn to Play.
He’ll be stickhandling around cones with his head down in no time flat.
Keep the context of dad and friends as defenders. Keep the space small. Keep the joy.
Keep him away from these people:
And these coaches:
Play in small spaces.
Don’t introduce your kid to the technique people.
Keep the context.
Keep the joy.
Don’t worry, you’re using Ecological Dynamics principles; it’s just not important that you or your kid know yet, which is why I didn’t give you any in Part 1.
Keep playing.
