The best instructions aren't given by the coach

A story to understand how players behave on the court

Once upon a time, there was a king who had never left his castle and wondered how was the world beyond his kingdom. He sent two of his minions to explore it and report back on what they had seen. The first minion was distrustful and rude and the second one was cheerful and honest. As they returned to the castle after several months exploring the world, the king asked them to describe it to him. The former talked about the world as a dangerous place full of bandits and wild animals. The latter explained it as a wonderful place full of kind people.

After the experiment, the king had a much more blurry picture of the real world. What became clear to him was that “one sees in the world what is in one’s heart”.

We don’t perceive the entire environment around us. Every situation is full of information —in the form of characteristics, shapes, properties…— and we only detect and pick up a small part. We perceive the environment depending on what we want, what we are able to do with and what options it offers. When certain information fits us and helps us to achieve our goals, it presents an opportunity for action, known as an affordance. If it isn’t useful, it’s merely a characteristic of the situation.

Every day when I go to work, I face the following postcard.

I always went biking following the wide road. Last week, I forget the keys of my bike storage and I had to go to work running. I experienced the example that Rob Gray was talking about in Kisakallio.

The biker Martí wasn’t in the postcard anymore, that day it was the runner Martí. Furthermore, the runner Martí was late and had a different goal than usual: get to work the sooner the better.

Because I —my way of moving— and my goal were different than usual, my perception was also altered. When I was in the part of the route that the portrait shows, I was perceiving the environment according to my way of being and goals of that moment. I saw a path in the grass —that had always been present in the environment but was new to me— that fitted my way of moving and was useful to achieve my goal of not being late to work.

The path in the grass had been there every day but for the biker Martí wasn’t useful information because he couldn’t take it with his old road bike. For the runner Martí, that was looking for useful information to be on time, it was an opportunity for action, an affordance. The relevant information for a biker is different from that of a runner. The same environment presented different options for behavior.

A new personal characteristic —running instead of biking— made the same environment different. Actually, the environment was the same; the only thing that was different was me and my way of looking at it. How we are and what we want affects what we perceive.

Every team and player experience what happened to me and opportunities for action are to blame.

The Tale of Two Minions and what happened to me going to work are stories about coaching. They explain why your team and players behave as they do; why what you demand to one player doesn’t make sense to demand it to another one; and why we might never watch Puyol making a tunnel to overcome an opponent as Messi did with Milner. They are stories about affordances, opportunities for action: the most influential information that affect behaviours in competition —and in real life—. The fittest are the ones capable of taking advantage of the persistent affordances.

Milner’s open legs are information. This information offers Messi an opportunity to act making a tunnel and overcome him. On the other hand, this information tells Puyol nothing. To overcome Milner, he probably chooses to pass to the unmarked partner. In front of the same problem, Messi and Puyol have a different ways of looking, acting and solving the same situation. One feature of the environment affects each one in a different way.

A small path in the grass is information that for Martí and his old road bike is meaningless. Instead, it’s an opportunity of arriving to work a bit earlier for the runner Martí. When you’re driving on the highway, signs are information. The ones that affect your destination and invite you to turn, detour… are opportunities for action. The other signs to cities that don’t interest you are just letters that don’t affect your goal or actions.

But… What if Messi tomorrow opts for a different dribble? What if Martí buys a mountain bike with big suspensions and takes any shortcut possible? What if you start heading to a different city and what used to be letters on the highway will become affordances? Those features that weren’t perceived may start affecting your task by becoming opportunities for action… and vice versa, what was an affordance may cease to be so.

Why? Because who we are, our goals and, thus, what we see is changing all the time. The perceived opportunities for action are dynamic and evolve.

As people change, so does their perception and, thus, affordances. The same behaviour is not an option anymore. As the climbers improve their skills, their attention goes towards reaching the top —instead of focusing it on not falling— becoming better at identifying which rocks they can grip. As the fatigue appears, the explosive movement they perceived at the beginning of the ascent is no longer possible, it does not cross their minds.

As the system adapts, so do the opportunities for action. As the environment (teammates, opponents, playing field…) changes, so does the available information and players create and dissolve affordances. Agassi, as he explored Becker and his powerful serve, discovered that the German moved his tongue in the same direction of the serve that was going to perform. In the previous games, Becker’s tongue was just information that Andre couldn’t perceive. Once Agassi explored and discovered it, it was an opportunity for action for him anticipating what was going to happen.

Perceived affordances are both dynamic and individual, as shown by Messi and Puyol. Physical capacity, skills… but also values, past experiences, stones of the path… shape each one’s view of the world and affect opportunities for action. The biker Martí has always been a bit wuss playing it safe. Another crazier biker, in the same environment and with the same bike as me, would have taken the shortcut without thinking about it.

The dynamism and individuality of the affordances destroy any idea of “perfect” technique or tactic, it depends on each player or team and the specific environment they are in.

This sensitivity of the behaviour to the player and the environment makes the instructions not the best tool on which the improvement process relies on.

In all the examples mentioned before, the behaviour emerged without any need of instructions. Why? Because the useful information from the environment has much more power than most instructions. For the player whose goal is to gain spaces towards the opponent’s goal, a free space in the opponent’s field gives him more information than any shout from the sideline.

This is why we don’t see coaches in the streets of São Paulo or in the skateparks. Without a coach providing meaningless instructions, players learn to pick up the most valuable information to achieve their learning goals. The environment in which all these children play represents the most valuable competitive information.

This doesn’t mean that from now on the coach should be silent and give up any kind of order, but quite the opposite. Instructions serve as a tool to develop the players’ ability to “look” and “pick up” the useful information of every environment.

If Puyol perceptions don’t see the opportunity to make a tunnel but you obligate him, it might have a iatrogenic effect. It must be aligned with the perception-action process that every player and team experience. Don’t create dependency through instructions (what to do) but promote autonomy helping them to select the best information for them (where to look).

“You have to expose yourself, you cannot train the players in the zoo and then go to the jungle on Sunday.”

—Mikel Arteta

The coach is an important figure to improve the perception and selection of the best affordances.

If a certain behaviour is effective, the player doesn’t have any need to change it. There is no need to perceive new information, to explore other possibilities in the environment. Joan Cortés explained that every day they ordered him to make his own dinner but he arrived home and found it on the table. Stimulus-response reductionism fails. Forget the orders and don’t prepare Joan’s dinner anymore. Then he’ll start exploring the opportunities for action that the pantry at home offers, based on his kitchen skills.

Instead of using instructions, use constraints that create challenges or needs. By manipulating constraints, the players face new situations and problems, that force them to “look” and “pick up” different information, other opportunities for action.

Constrain to afford opportunities, not to act on specific options. Allow Joan to find his functional solutions, his best recipes. Don’t constrain him expecting to cook your desired meal. Constrain Puyol by rewarding the opponent’s dribbling over the pass. He’ll explore and find his functional dribble; maybe it’ll be a tunnel, or maybe not.

As a coach, it’s unrealistic to assume that what you perceive is exactly what your players see, that the relevant information you have from the sideline is the right one for a team with so different players who compete on the field against many different teams.

We can relax from the sideline, the game itself provides the most valuable instructions.

Martí Cañellas | Fosbury Flop