One of our favourite resources is the The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey. It’s a common book in the sporting world and cited by plenty of coaches as a useful approach to skills based practice. If you want to read more, you can refer to The Inner Game website here.

This article explains some of the underlying concepts outlined in the book and how we have utilised them in the world of Ultimate, in particular, with a focus on improving your own throwing sessions and enhancing your skills-based coaching sessions. 

Our main takeaway from this book and the associated resources are that we can balance the way we try to learn new skills and teach new skills by trusting our bodies and brain to work it out!

More information here.

The most cited motor skills learning framework, published in Human Performance by Fitts and Posner (1967), outlines typical skills acquisition as a linear process (albeit we know, and it’s plenty researched, that this is not a strict linear progression by any means!) following 3 distinct phases:

Cognitive stage

Associative stage

Autonomous stage

Essentially the framework outlines that as we learn skills and we become better at performing them we can do so with less active cognitive input and instead perform them with autonomy. This leads us nicely into understanding self organisation.

What is it? Well, you can read a comprehensive article around the role of self-organisation at a team tactical level in invasion sports here. The way we summarise the concept of self organisation when we have coached skills based sessions, is,

"The brain + body are pretty good at figuring things out for themselves based on the environmental constraints around them. We don’t need to actively tell them exactly what to do or hyperfocus on body mechanics, especially when what we really care about is the outcome of the thing we are practising.”

An example of where we’ve seen players overly focus on trying to instruct the body what to do is heavy correction and feedback around types of throwing grip used, types of shin angle in different types of throws or even the minutiae of which angle the knee is facing during hucks vs. break-side throws, only for this to never work out on pitch because of the variety of positions, scenarios and external factors that we face during any given playing moment.

Simply the task of actively trying to remember these things is impossible, given that we’ve both played countless points of frisbee where players can’t even remember the force for 30 seconds of line calling...

We can view skill or tactical adoption as a spectrum of instruction focussed to self-organisation focussed. In practice this looks like:

• Instruction focussed: pivot here, with this shin angle, holding the disc with this many fingers.

• Self organisation focussed: get the disc to this spot, at this speed, with this shape.

The Inner Game of Tennis uses the description of Self 1 and Self 2 to describe these two ends of the spectrum but focussed around the individual mental state.

Self 1 is characterised by thoughts focused heavily on perfecting technique and correcting mistakes. Examples of Self 1 thoughts in throwing include concerns about grip, pivot, and release point. The impact of Self 1 thoughts can be negative, leading to overthinking, self-doubt, and decreased performance. Players can experience performance anxiety, erratic throws, and slow progress in skill development due to constant readjustments in technique with little focus on the outcome of the throw and inability to move towards the autonomous display of a skill.

Self 2 is centred around trusting one's instincts and allowing the body to perform naturally.

Self 2 thoughts in throwing might involve focusing on the target, focussing on a positive mental state by breathing, relaxing or smiling*, or visualising successful throws before they are thrown. Self 2 thoughts generally have a positive impact, they support learning, growth, and better performance by reducing the amount of conscious effort needed when executing a skill. Players can experience improved consistency, increased confidence, and a more enjoyable learning process.

Over reliance on Self 1 as a feedback mechanism can lead an athlete to a higher chance of "choking" in highly pressured scenarios. Self 2 can support athletes to enter the “zen” like state we can feel when we're "on form" or "in the zone" and often the reason why we view players as “clutch” in specific scenarios.

So, how does this actually help us with throwing practice? Well, rather than spending too much time focusing on specific technique or body mechanics, we can instead manipulate our surroundings by giving ourselves a scenario with some external constraints.

That way, the body can self-organise and explore solutions that move us towards an autonomous version of the skill, something we can deliver in-game, in flow, without overthinking. Instead of relying on detailed self-instruction (which often breaks down under pressure), we’re training the body + brain to feel the action and respond to the environment, just like it would in a real game.

We’ve seen examples of players spend all off-season working on a particular type of detailed throwing mechanic, only to seemingly forget about it in-season and yet still deliver excellent throws in the most pressured scenarios, only to express disappointment at the end of the season that they still didn’t “fix the thing”….