Gallimore, R., Gilbert, W. and Nater, S. (2014). ‘Reflective Practice and Ongoing Learning: A Coach’s 10 - Year Journey’, Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 15(2), pp268-288.

- Reflection mediates between experience and learning (Dewey, 1933). Ponder, review and question experiences so as to adapt and change future behaviour.
- John Wooden put a heavy focus on reflective practice. Coach Bias deliberately sought to change and improve coaching by analysing videos 7 years apart. It showed increased efficiency of coaching behaviour (less talk). Also, more effective teaching as pre-instruction decreased, concurrent instruction increased and post-instruction decreased = more organised and more immediate skill feedback.
- Ermeling (2012) 4 key features of reflective practice in teaching contexts:
1. Identify and define important and recursive instructional problems specific to local context
2. Prepare and implement detailed instructional plans
3. Utilize evidence to drive reflection, analysis and next steps
4. Persistently work towards detectable improvement.
- Teach rather than react.
- Coach Bias' improvements:
1. Fixed length practice, start by explaining objective.
2. Write a plan and stick to it. Plan better and implement changes next day.
3. Transition between drills - no wasted time
4. Transition between drills - equipment ready to go
5. Drills 8min max.
- Coach Bias' changes to his instructional talk:
1. Decrease number of coaching statements, less interruption.
2. Keep corrections to 10 seconds max
3. Be specific in teaching behaviour.
- Implement conditioning into elements of game
- Practice as we play applies to instructional language too - same type of message and tone.
- Measure self by quality of teaching, not results.

Gallimore and Tharp, (2004). 'What a coach can teach a teacher, 1975-2004: Reflections and Reanalysis of John Wooden's teaching practices', The Sport Psychologist, 18, 119-137.

- Wooden's teaching points "short, punctuated, numerous"
- Practice was highly organised, constant activity and high intensity.
- Planning essential to be efficient and concise.
- Praise better when specific and information, and most effect if focus on effort and mastery (Stipek, 1993).
- 4 laws of learning: Exploration, Demonstration, Imitation, Repetition.
- Master fundamentals to allow creativity.

Hodge, K., Henry, G. & Smith, W. (2014). 'A case study of excellence in elite sport: Motivational climate in a world champion team', The Sport Psychologist, 28(1), 60-74.

- In sport, Coach typically regarded as most influential significant other in athlete experience (Bartholomew, Ntoumis and Thogersen-Ntoumanis, 2010; Pensgaard and Roberts, 2002).
- Contextual environment (climate created by coach) influential on athlete motivation and behaviour (Gagne, Ryan and Bargmann 2003).
- Key findings for motivational climate in elite teams:
1. Elite Olympians: importance of coach as creator of MC, and support of Mastery climate (Pensgaard and Roberts, 2002)
2. Elite soccer: Prefer positive feedback and democratice coach behaviour (Hoigaard et al, 2006)
3. High perception of master climate and low performance climate associated with increased perception of task cohesion and collective efficacy (Heuze et al, 2006)
4. Strong master climate associated with greater performance improvement and satisfaction (Balaguer et al, 2002)
5. To decreease player perception of distress, focus on mastery climate for elite athletes (Pensgaard and Roberts, 2002).
- Study with NZ All Blacks generated 8 main themes:
1. CRITICAL TURNING POINT
- Drinking issue, so meeting Captain/VC/Coaches to create leadership group. This increased accountability, more ownership and dual management. Coaches' desire to foster autonomy.
- After 2007 RWC, sought feedback from previous NZ coaches. Looked at reasons for failure in past campaigns and planned strategically to try and combat past errors.
2. FLEXIBLE AND EVOLVING
- Evolving coaching style
- Smith changed approach depending on situation and goal - sometimes tough and directive, others empowering and encouraging. Depends on needs of players, group awareness, time in week/season etc.
3. DUAL-MANAGEMENT STYLE
- Dual-management by players and coches. Players feedback on training intensity and game plan.
- Reminiscent of Autonomy-Supportive Coaching (Lyons, Rynne and Mallett, 2012), Emotionally Intelligent Coaching (Chan and Mallett, 2011) and Transformational Leadership (Callow, Smith, Hardy, Arthur and Hardy, 2009).
4. BETTER PEOPLE MAKE BETTER ALL BLACKS
- "What you do shouts so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying"
- Link to on and off the field decision-making so all influenced selection.
5. RESPONSIBILITY
- Empowering he players, ownership and accountability.
- To problem solve on the pitch, do it off the pitch = Analyse self/opposition, present to squad
6. LEADERSHIP
- reflects Transformational Leadership
- Leadership Group / On Field LEadership / Season Planning
7. EXPECTATION OF EXCELLENCE
8. TEAM COHESION : COACHES AND PLAYERS
- Horizontal coaching structure: give other coaches ownership too
- Alignment and clarity
- "Keep it fresh", coaches swap roles and mix up training etc
- Enjoyment and fun
- Love.
AUTONOMY SUPPORTIVE MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATE (Mageau and Vallerand, 2003)
- athlete presented with choice and rationale for tasks, feelings acknowledged, opportunities to show initiative and independent work.
- Empowering, noncontrolling competence feedback (increase strengths, not just decrease weaknesses)
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP (Bass and Riggio, 2006)
- Build relationship with players based on personal, emotional and inspirational exchanges with goal to develop player to their fullest
- Arthur et al (2012) transformational leadership model in elite sport:
1. Inspirational VIsion
2. Support to achieve it
3. Provide Challenge to achieve it
Also: Individual consideration; inspirational motivation; intellectual stimulation; foster acceptance of group goals; high performance expectations; appropriate role modelling
- Emotional Intellgence and Character Building.

What Steve Hansen can teach leaders about empathy, on McAlpine Coaching
- Empathy is more than to sympathize, it allows people to use their knowledge to improve their companies in subtle but important ways.
- How to cultivate empathy?
1. Listen deepy and actively
2. Be curious
3. Be vulnerable
4. Work on your self-awareness
5. Put yourself in other people's shoes

Why do you make stupid decisions.... on TheConversation
- One reason for making stupid decisions is our inbuilt cognitive biases = we make quick decisions then seek to prove ourselves right.
- Humans tend to avoid Cognitive Dissonances = if a fact doesn't fit our beliefs, we seek to change the fact rather than our belief.
- A further reason to ignore experts us to avoid social discomfort, it is easier to rely on the judgments of our peers instead.

Leadership lessons from the All Blacks, on i-l-m
1. Build a "We" culture
2. Empower your teams. Individual responsibility. Create a self-managing, self-improving environment.
3. Create an environment where individuals learn to make great decisions.
4. Make it fun.
5. Get the mindset right.

Captaincy: Why authenticity matters, on espncricinfo
- Many different approaches to leadership. "Only prerequisite is a degree of authenticity. So long as the captain is being himself, he has a fighting chance".

Why cultures beat policies every time, on growingleaders
- A new culture creates a new normal
- Culture is shaped by:
1. Action and behaviour of leaders
2. What leaders pay attention to
3. What is rewarded and punished
4. Allocation and attention of resources

Seven tools for thinking....  on learningspy.co.uk
This is a series of 7 blogs commenting on Daniel Dennett's 7 Tools for Thinking.
1. Use your mistakes
- trick to making good mistakes is to not hide them. Savour your mistakes and delight in understanding what led to them.
2. Respect your Opponents (Principle of Charity)
- The Principle of Charity is to assume, until proven otherwise, anyone who disagrees with us is as intelligent, informed and ethical as we are, and we should strive to interpret their claims and evidence in the most positive way possible.
3. The "Surely" Klaxon
- Use of the word "surely" often indicative of weak point in argument.
4. Answer Rhetorical Questions
- Rhetorical questions show willingness to take a short cut. Pursue the line of reasoning, is there an unobvious answer to be considered?
5. Employ Occam's Razor
- "All things being equal, simplest solution is usually the best one"
- "It is pointless to do with more what is done with less"
- Remember it is only a heuristic device and proves nothing
6. Don't Waste Time on Rubbish
- there is plenty of substandard if you look for it. Don't waste time with it, focus on the best stuff you can find and critique that to learn.
- Don't trust sweeping statements. In a complex system, average isn't very useful.
7. Beware of "Deepities"
- Deepity = proposition that seems important, true and profound, but achieves this by being ambiguous.
- Something may sound profound but is it bland to the point of being meaningless? Avoid ambiguity.

Role of the Coach : Learn and Develop, on lineoutcoach
Develop your coaching...
1. The right mindset
2. Appetite to learn
3. Learn from other sports
4. Practical is best

What is the role of a coach?, on lineoutcoach
- Know your role and do your job
- Player development
- Train to play the game
- Understand the players responsibility
- Provide core life skills

7 skills for becoming an emotionally intelligent leader, on General Leadership
- Daniel Goleman says five areas of emotional intelligence:
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Regulation
3. Motivation
4. Empathy
5. People Skills
The 'Big Seven' of the Emotionally Aware...
1. Patience
2. Compassion
3. Flexibility
4. Able to communicate more than just words
5. Trusting and trustworthy
6. Authentic
7. Respectful

The Sports Gene Chapter 2, by David Epstein
- Ackerman = skill acquisition, practice and improvement depends on the task. Simple task = people closer together, difficult = further apart.
- Variance = statistical measure of how much people deviate from the average

The Sports Gene Chapter 3, by David Epstein
- importance of vision and eyesight. MLB players may not have better reaction time than average population, "they do have the superior vision that can help them pick up the anticipatory cues they need earlier, making raw reaction speed less important"
- 2008 Olympic Games study by Laby and Kirschen: softball outstanding depth perception and better contrast sensitivity than any others. Archers had exceptional visual acuity but not great depth perception (target is far away but flat). Fencers very good score on depth perception (make rapid use of tiny, close range variations in distance).
This implies visual hardware is increasingly critical the faster the ball is moving. Good hardware increases download speed of software (practice)
- Future professionals traits also behavioural - practice more but also take responsibility for practicing better
- large and growing body of evidence suggests early specialisation not only is NOT required to make highest level but should be actively avoided

Tom WIlliams Interview, on fifteenrugby
- Good practice to open it up to players and ask them questions
- Primarily on the lookout for attitude in young players as a lot can be taught/learned in time

Steve Hansen on the art of coaching, on NZ Herald
- Coaching is an important balance of tactics/coaching and man-management/emotional intelligence to understand people
- Get to know people's culture to help understand them as individuals
- If you can acknowledge pressure if present then you can start to work out how to deal with it
- So many things can be learned when you lose, so long as you're open to it
- Job as coach is to create environment that inspires players to use motivation to get better = right balance of stimulation and fun

The Brave New Coach, on AFL Community Club
- There is a lack of bravery in coach and player development
- Elite coaches and X Factor players, bravery summed up in areas of Drive, Boldness, Colourfulness and Imagination. Also have accompanying factors of Care, Outstanding Preparation and Resilience
- Just because something has always been done that way, doesn't make it right
- Becoming a Brave Coach:
1. High Risk/High Reward. Accept mistakes. For every mistake, identify one excuse and two plans
2. Devil's Advocate role in all planning
3. Brave in appointments
4. Bold and imaginative coaches
5. Bold and driven coaches. Quality over quantity
6. Imagination. Atmosphere of optimism, smarts and inspiration
7. Feedback
8. Fun
9. Sports Science. Link of emotion to thinking/performance
10. Music
11. Care. Anxiety clouds learning
12. Time. Value those who do extra or different
13. Less training, more improving
14. Food
15. Medicos
16. Expertise. Don't be conservative
- Always try to learn and improve, surround self with best people and best ideas

10 Skills Any True Coach Must Balance, by Dan John
1. Constant assessment
2. Constant upgrading
3. Ignore perfect - strive for (a) Pretty Good (b) Better
4. This isn't moral theology - there's time for everything just maybe not today
5. Everything works - for a bit at least. Did it get you closer to the goal?
6. Achieving a Goal Vs Success - enjoy the process
7. After the peak is the cliff - what will you do when you reach the top? Always plan the route down.
8. Self-disciple is a finite resource - communal support needed
9. Fundamentals trump everything else
10. Take a moment to thank those who came before you

Why are Team Sky so successful?, on BBC
- Brailsford: "Elite sport is like a treadmill - stop moving and you fly off"

Pete Carroll, NFL's Eternal Optimist, on si.com
- Where some people say 'worst possible decision', Carroll says 'worst possible outcome'
- PC has "very deliberately created a culture that encourages passion and perseverance - the two components of grit"
- Carroll is "what psychologists call an Authoritative Parent: warm but demanding, unconditionally supportive but with hig expectations"
- Less about victory, more about process
- Striving FOR something, not AGAINST something
- Encouraged different, individual personalities - a celebration of uniqueness
- He wanted to frame even the epic SuperBowl defeat as a teachable moment

Graham Henry: Learned to win the RWC, on guardian
- Culture comes first
- Check your ego. Anecdote of Tana Umage asking Henry - "what/who are the team talks for? Are they for you or for us?"
- Empower your players
- Be smart
- Confront your weaknesses
- Expect the unexpected

Embracing the adaptive capacity of our young learners, on footblogball
- David Epstein = "In our pursuit of better players we are making better 10 year olds but not better senior players. The developmental pathway that makes the best 10 year old isn't the same on that makes the best 20 year old".

The Sports Gene Ch1, by David Epstein
- Most people "simple reaction time" is 200 miliseconds (time for retina to receive info and then put muscles in motion). Elite athletes are the SAME.
- Janet Starkes created modern sports 'occlusion' test in 1975. The test was to show photos from volleyball match with ball just in or just out of the shot. Players look at the photo for a fraction of a second (too quick to see ball). Elite players FAR better to determine if ball in the photo. 
- Elite athletes seemed to have 'miraculously' photographic memory when it came to their sport
- Elite athletes CHUNK information - unconscious grouping of information into smaller and more meaningful chunks based on patterns they have seen before
- "perceiving order allows elite athletes to extract critical information from the arrangement of players or from subtle changes in an opponent's body movements in order to make unconscious predictions about what will happen next"
- Brain automation is hyperspecific to the practised skill
- "it is software, not hardware" eg learned, not genetic

Developing World Class Potential, by Mark Upton on medium.
- Notes from Maria Ruiz de Ona talk...
- Environment needs to be positive by very clear about purpose of talent development
- Genuine change will lead to confusion/doubt for a while
- Coach needs to learn to observe
- To produce confident players we must create challenging environment
- "We need doubt - it makes us think"

The Power of Not Punting, on campusrush
- Kevin Kelley's Bruins don't punt the ball. They "always play as if they are 10 points down with 90 seconds left".
- Comes down to careful use of odds and statistics
- "nearly every great football innovation has come out of an attempt to close a talent gap"

Serial Winners Top 10, on Leeds Beckett
1. Get the right people on the bus
2. Be athlete-centred
3. Partnership not dictatorship
4. Emotional intelligence is as important as sporting intelligence
5. Thick skin is a must-have
6. Work-life balance matters
7. Serial winners suffer from serial insecurity
8. Create simple image of future and plan towards it
9. Develop belief in others
10. Take risks

All Blacks - Learners, on medium.com
- Strive to develop independent learners where players drive their own development
- Not just players who should be viewed as learners but coaches and support staff too
- Key traits are trust, critical thinking, open mind, diversity of experience, humility, courage and letting go of the past
- "the more we talk about learning stuff, and the less we talk about winning stuff, the better we get at developing excellence and the more likely we are to win" Al Smith
- "Nice amenities do not cultivate talent...hardship does" Brett Bartholomew
- "Build a program and a culture that is built on positive expectation and accountability" Chidi Enyie

Creating the Culture, by Brett Bartholomew on McMillanSpeed
- world within us influences world around us = how culture created
- coaches need to be able to "talk in colour"
- START WITH WHY
- When we understand athlete's unique internal environment we can better construct everything around it to bring best out of them

Rugby Skills and Coaching Environment, on KickCoaching
- Not just mechanics = pre-performance routine, distraction, focus of attention, visualisation scripts and emotional intelligence
- Skills sessions should include = perception, context, cues, challenge, variability
- Kicking = 1. Whole Body Movement
                   2. Contact Quality
                   3. Impact line (path of knee, foot and ball)
                   4. Transfer of weight (momentum through impact)

Why we are bad at predicting our own behaviour, on Science of Running
- Coaches job at elite level is to hold the reigns : know the athlete well enough to make best decisions for them as they may not themselves

Carol Dweck on Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset, on examinedexistence
- Fixed Mindset = affirmation of intelligence is success and therefore avoid failure
- Growth Mindset = seeks challenge, failure is a springboard for growth and development
Factor                                     Fixed Mindset                                     Growth Mindset
Intelligence                             Static                                                          Can be developed
Challenges                              Avoid                                                          Embrace
Obstacles                                Give up easily                                            Persist
Effort                                        Fruitless                                                     Path to mastery
Criticism                                  Ignore                                                         Learn
Success of Others                  Threatened                                                Lessons and inspiration
                                                  Plateau early                                             ever-higher level of achievement
                                                  Deterministic view of world                   Sense of free will

Can Creativity Be Taught? on creativityatwork.com
- George Land Test concluded non-creative behaviour is learned
- Creativity skills can be learned by learning and applying creative thinking processes
- Amabile (1998) 3 Components of Creativity: Expertise, Creative Thinking, Motivation.
- learn to be creative by experimenting, exploring and questioning assumptions, by using imagination and synthesising information.
- We don't learn to be creative, we must become creative people
- Fastest way to become creative is to hang around with creative people
- Give permission to be WRONG. Learn from mistakes.

John Fox's NAVY SEAL Stepfather, on ESPN
- "It's amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit"