“A organised co-ordinated activity in relation to an object or situation which involves a whole chain of sensory, central and motor mechanisms.”
(Welford)
There are a number of key qualities to perform skilfully, which are, consistency this is needed so the performer can complete a skill regularly, control of the skill as the sportsperson must know the end result of the skill they are performing.
There are different types of skills such as cognitive skills, perceptual skills, motor skills and perceptual motor skills.
Cognitive skills involve the use of a persons mental power, e.g. problem solving, verbal skill etc. A Perceptive skill is interpreting and making sense of information coming in via the senses. Motor skills are smoothly executing physical movements and responses. Perceptual motor skills are an involvement of all cognitive, perceptual and motor skills for example, see, interpret, think and then move.
To be able to learn and perform any type of skill, especially in a sport, you must have the abilities needed to perform that skill. Abilities are said to be inherited, meaning that you are born with them, and if developed at an early age could mean that they could be an expert at that skill when older. Your ability is something that you are born with, so to improve it you need to train. Here are two definitions of ability:
“Motor abilities are relatively enduring traits which are generally stable qualities or factors that help a person carry out a particular act” (E. Fleishman)
“Motor abilities are innate inherited traits that determine an individual’s co-ordination, balance, ability and speed of reactions” (R. Arnot and C. Gaines)
Abilities are often seen as the building blocks in sport, without these basic building blocks or movement vocabulary, you will never be able to develop a skill fully. The specific examples of abilities in sport would be hand/eye co-ordination, flexibility speed etc. Without these abilities it would be impossible to learn skills such as a badminton smash without hand/eye co-ordination. There are different kinds of abilities; one of them is psychomotor ability. This is the ability to process information about how and when we move. For example, reaction time, a football player must react quickly to an oncoming player who changes direction. Another type of ability is gross motor ability. This is the ability for someone to be able to move using muscle movements; an example is being able to run. Another type of ability is perceptual; this is the ability to interpret information using sensory inputs an example is awareness of a rugby player of the positions and actions of opponents and his own team-mates.
Technique is linked with skill and ability. For us to perform a skill in sport, we must learn the correct technique. But to learn the correct technique we must have the necessary abilities. A gymnast needs the natural ability, the main one is flexibility. But before they could perform a skill, for example a back flip, they need to learn the correct technique; this is known as the perfect model. This is the way an individual task should look when performed at its very best.
Skill, ability and technique can all be improved if sports people use the correct practices to do so. A major factor influencing the development of a skill is practice of which there are two main types:
Variable - practicing a skill in a variety of different environments and experiences the full range of situations in which the technique or tactic might be used in competition. This is vital for open and interactive skills.
Fixed - a specific movement is practiced repeatedly, often referred to as a drill. This type of practice is ideal for skills that are always performed in the same way, that do not require adapting to the environment. Closed, interactive and coactive skills tend to require fixed practice to allow the motor sequence to be perfected, since they will remain the same in practice, as they will in competition.
The organisation of a practice session will depend greatly on those involved and the activity being practiced. Practice may be organised in two ways:
Massed - the skill is practiced until learnt without taking a break. These sessions are good for athletes with high level of fitness and experience and are most suited to fixed practice.
Distributed - practice is interspersed with breaks which can either be rest or another skill. These sessions are good for athletes with lower levels of fitness and experience and are most suited to variable practice.
A structured practice to enhance skill could be a simple training exercise in football, such as dribbling a football around objects to improve dribbling skills.
Abilities are largely inherited; however some abilities such as strength, flexibility, speed can slightly be enhanced by fixed practices e.g. simple weight training can enhance strength. A strict organisation of fixed practice can slightly improve abilities such as speed, strength. Technique can be enhanced through teaching methods called pure-part, whole-part-whole and progressive part methods. These methods are suited to teaching technique. E.g. a badminton forehand smash- could be taught by breaking it down into the different sub-routines required for this technique using a pure – part method. This helps the learner understand the different stages of the skill.
Skill can be taught but you have to build on abilities learnt from an early age. There are practises available to enhance the separate components of technique and ability. These include structured games, specific technique practises (i.e. passing), specific ability practises (i.e. catching a ball to improve hand eye co-ordination.) and pre-set pressure practises to improve the skill under pressure. Although some people may say that you can only improve ability by minor amounts I believe that ability can be castly improved. Abilities such as speed, flexibility and hand/eye co-ordination can all be enhanced. Speed can be enhanced by working on muscular strength in your legs etc. I also believe that technique does not have to be a certain way to produce the best end result for example the cricketer Muttiah Murallitharan, who is one of the greatest spin bowlers in the world has an irregular technique yet the skill he produces with his technique is world-class. The idea that skill = ability + technique is I feel the perfect way to describe how to be able to achieve a particular skill.