Had the opportunity the other day to hang out with one of the coaches from the gym where I work out, who also happens to be an international basketball coach and player.
We got to talking about the use of video to teach rhythm and patterns of movement and he told me about his training arc. Apparently his coach also used video to train his students, and after a few years put together a montage of clips of him playing as his training progressed. He said his first games showed he was doing pretty much one move, over and over - it was a move that worked, but obviously showed limited repertoire. A bit later, he could see maybe 3 or 4 moves more, and by the last game in the series of video clips, he did not repeat a move once during a whole game.
He said a big part of him expanding his 'toolbox' came from watching himself as part of his training, and recognizing how repetitive he was .... This then gave him the incentive to learn to move differently.
Same with training with Sonny - I only saw how predictable I was from watching video of myself - and similarly, comparing videos from early on compared with my later training sessions, I can say I had the same arc of development - much more varied movement and rhythm later on.
All in all, a fascinating discussion, especially with someone so talented and observant of body mechanics (an interest which apparently started from having to deal with his own sports related injuries), and we parted with him asking me why I was limping! And I truthfully said I did not know I was.
Spent the rest of the day trying to catch myself doing so when I wasn't paying attention, and walking super evenly when I was ......
Sometimes it takes an external eye to see things you can't - whether it is a great coach or a video - but both are hugely valuable and highly recommended.
As an aside: Having played dodgeball against him, I can say that his faking
skills are the best I've ever come across outside of high level sword
play. His throwing accuracy and power coupled with his ability to always
throw at targets he is NOT looking at is phenomenal. That was a
valuable lesson from the receiving end ..... As a potential target, there really is nothing to be gained from standing still.
4 comments:
Having an outside eye look at what you're doing is essential. The best is a skilled outside eye -- but someone who's skilled at watching from a different arena can be very instructive, too. Seeing yourself on video can be a way that you can become a sort of outside eye for yourself, if you're able to be objective enough about it. Personally -- I find that I alternate between being hypercritical, and looking at the wrong things instead of my performance...
Hahaha! yes, it took me a long time before I got to the point that I could objectively look at myself move instead of being fascinated by how I looked and what I did or did not do.
That's the point though isn't it? To get to where this is possible, because then instead of being caught up in the weirdness, you can actually start to fix things.
I guess I never developed enough of a habit of watching myself training on video. I've seen some vids of myself at work -- and realized I was unconsciously doing things I'd yell at someone else about doing...
But an example of an outside eye... A few months ago, I had someone who's senior to me visiting my class, and he was simply training. We were going over something, and he caught that while I SAID I was doing one thing -- what I was actually doing wasn't what I said I was doing. In the same way, my teacher visits occasionally -- and I need that outside eye every once in a while to pick up things that have drifted off...
It's one of the big traps of teaching isn't it? People stop being honest with what they see .. or else don't know how to look. Good critique is a rare and incredibly valuable thing. I'm constantly striving to find the edges of what I can do, and what makes sense to teach ... how could I ever find them if no one was there to show them to me :-)
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