Technique is often confused with skill, yet it is clearly different. Technique is simply the way that the skill is carried out. Technique therefore can be improved. This is the idea behind practice and preparation. In netball, in order to throw the ball in different situations, different hand movements are needed. The way in which the feet are placed on a beam in gymnastics protect the body from injury yet allow free movement and In tennis, when topspin on a shot is an objective, the technique is the way the racket ‘brushes up’ the back of the ball.
Through meaningful practice we are able to improve skill through development of technique. To ensure that performers get the most out of practices, they should be based upon certain components. Skills can be classified on a sliding scale depending on their requirements.
In team sports, in this case netball, skills tend to be;
- Open – skills that have a range of factors affecting them.
- Externally paced – the environment around the performer has more control than the performer themselves.
- Serial – skills that are made up of a series of discrete events.
- Coactive – skills performed at the same times as others but without direct confrontation. For example in the 100m race, competitors compete alongside each other but cannot physically influence each other.
- Interactive skills – are those where other performers are directly involved. For example in netball when the skill of defending meets with the avoidance skills of the opponent.
For individual sports the types of practices used are different again. In gymnastics for example, the skills involved are: -
- Closed – there are no external factors effecting the skill.
- Self-paced – the timing in which the skill is performed is the choice of the performer.
- Discrete – the skills have a clear beginning and end.
- Individual – the actions of others are not relevant to the skill being performed. I.e. a gymnast will perform their routine and then leave the floor as a new competitor performs their routine.
Most skills cannot be neatly labelled or classified and so they are put on a continuum. Knapp recognised two basic classifications of skills. She discovered skills could fit on this continuum between open and closed. As described before, open skills such as football and netball are those directly influenced by the environment in which they are performed. Therefore, skills are predominantly perceptual and on this open-closed continuum they fall at 10. (See below).
Closed skills (those that have no outside physical influence acting upon them and are in a predictable environment) fall at 0 on the scale and then depending on the degree to which outside factors influence the performance of a skill will determine where on the continuum they lie. 10 shows that the skill performed is greatly affected by the surrounding environment.
A major factor influencing the development of skill is practice of which there are two main types.
Therefore if a practice is to be of some use, with the above in mind then it is clear, for team practices, they are going to have to take the form of a variable practice. Variable practice allows both the development of the skill and the ability to adapt that skill to the different environments. This is vital for open and interactive skills. An example of is, in hockey when learning how to dribble, it is firstly taught stationary, moving the ball from side to side and then moving into walking with the ball, jogging and so forth.
For individual skills on the other hand, a fixed practice is appropriate, as the requirements stated above cannot be achieved with a variable practice. Fixed practice is the repetition of the same activity, which allows the skill to become almost automatic to the performer. Although development is not obvious, once achieved it can, in theory, be placed into a variable practice as part of a routine or sequence to become a serial skill. A well known fixed practice is a basketball free throw as it will be the same every time it is performed. 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.
Organisation of a practice can greatly depend upon who is involved, their experience, the skill level and the performers fitness. Practice can be organised in two ways. Massed and distributed.
A massed practice is when a skill is learnt without taking a break. These sessions are excellent for improving and maintaining high levels of fitness and gaining experience. They are most suited to fixed practices.
Distributed practices are interspersed with breaks either for rest or for another skill. These sessions are better for athletes with a lower fitness level who will build it up gradually. Variable practices are best suited to this style.
To explain how practices need to be structured I will use the example of tennis. Racket sports are considered quite specific. They tend to include serial skills. For example in a rally, each individual shot is a skill but together, each players shots makes up a rally, which in itself is a skill. Therefore a mixture of practices, both variable and fixed, are required for racket sports. If I was to structure three practices it would look something like below.
Firstly the performer would carry out a self-paced skill by controlling the timing of the shot and importantly the feed. The second practice would now include a target on the opposite side of the net. It is still a fixed practice however, because the feeder is still present feeding the balls directly to the performer. Lastly the shot has to be externally paced, the feeder is now no longer under the control of the performer. The ball should now be coming to the performer at varied speeds and heights. These practices will also help to build up levels of fitness, as the feeder will challenge the performer to their maximum.
Ability, in theory, is innate; this is because it does have a restricting effect on the skill level of many performers. The abilities mentioned, i.e. flexibility and speed may be enhanced by the use of weight and power training. This is also an excellent practice in which to improve levels of fitness, as strength and endurance are intensified, leading an athlete to cope with more sustained and complex practices.