Closed skills are defined as “not affected by the environment” and includes activities such as the high serve in badminton. This is because badminton is played indoors and so is not affected by weather and your opponent will almost definitely stand in the same place when receiving.
Open skills are very much paced by the unstable changing environment and require adaptation, such as when batting in cricket. The ball could be released by the bowler at any speed and in any direction and so you must adapt quickly to play your stroke. Badminton is generally regarded as more of a closed sport as it is played indoors and therefore is unaffected by the environment. These skills can be placed on a continuum:
Fine and gross are determined from the degree of bodily involvement and the precision of movement.
Gross skills involve large muscle movements and major bodily movement skill associated with strength, endurance and power, like walking and running.
Fine skills involve small muscle movements and small bodily movement skills associated with speed, accuracy and efficiency, such as throwing a dart.
In both badminton and cricket it is very hard to label skills as either fine of gross because most skills involve both fine and gross movements. For example, spin bowling. During your run- up you use large muscle movements (gross) while during the delivery of the ball you use very small and precise muscle movements (fine).
Another type of skill classification is the discrete, serial and continuous continuum. This is concerned with how well defined the beginning and end of the skill are.
Discrete skills are brief, well- defined actions which have a clear beginning and end. They are single, specific skills which make up the actions involved in a variety of sports, such as hitting and throwing.
Serial skills are a group of skills strung together to make a new and complex one, such as the sequence in a triple jump. Finally, continuous skills have no obvious beginning and end. The end of one cycle of movements is the beginning of another, like running or cycling.
Generally, in both cricket and badminton skills are serial. For example when bowling you put together a group of discrete skills to perform your action. One exception could be the skill of running between the wickets which involves a continuous skill or when throwing the ball to the wicket- keeper, which would be defined as a discrete skill.
The pacing continuum is the last classification to be discussed. Self- paced are those which are instigated by the performer and externally paced skills are not controlled by a performer but by an outside instigator. It is synonymous with the open and closed classification. For example, a cricket shot is seen to be a very open skill and is also shown to be externally paced, while serving in badminton is labeled as a closed skill and is self- paced.
Skills can further be classified as individual, interactive and co-active. The difference between these is the amount of input by an opponent.
Individual skills are those which are performed without the physical presence of opposition. Examples are figure skating or the high jump. The positives of interactive activities are that they are least likely to be affected by the opposition, however it is incorrect to say that they have no effect as psychological pressure can be exerted.
Coactive skills are defined as those performed at the same time as other competitors but where they are physically separated and cannot physically inhibit the performance of another, like in a 100m sprint. One positive of these type of activities are that a competitor can improve your performance. For example, in the 100m sprint you are more likely to produce a personal best if you are in competition with people who are a little faster than you, as you will push yourself harder.
Finally, interactive skills are those in which performance is controlled by your opposition. Often space is shared and bodily contact is allowed, for example rugby or American football. A positive of interactive activities is that you can raise your game when playing against better opposition. However, your level of performance can also drop if you are playing against weak opposition. Often how well you play is dependent on how well your opponent allows you to play.
It is extremely hard to define skills as either coactive, interactive or individual. This is because within one skill the classification can alter depending on the circumstances which they are carried out in, for example bowling. When practicing bowling against an empty set of stumps in nets, it is very much an individual skill. However, when a batsman enters this scenario it becomes a coactive skill, because the performance of the batsman will affect your performance, for example if you bowl a short ball and are hit for a boundary then you are unlikely to bowl short at that batsman again.
In a match situation bowling can be defined as an interactive skill, this is because you are interacting with your teammates when you set your field.
In conclusion, I believe that skill classification is extremely useful in allowing us to plan practices and training programmes.
I have also concluded that it is almost impossible to classify a sport and is in- fact more beneficial to take various skills within these sports and classify them using continuums.
I have also noticed that within one sport there can be certain skills which lie at opposite ends o the continuum, for example when you are batting in cricket, the situation is very much externally paced while when bowling you control the pace.
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Bibliography
Books
PE to 16 by ???
Sport and PE by Kevin Wesson, Nesta Wiggins, Grahem Thompson and Sue Hartigan
Websites
www. Brianmac.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/sport
