‘Talking Tactically’

with Lachlan Tighe..... 

(a weekly edition, commenced 12/9/2001, of thoughts, observations and commentaries on developments for bowls coaching and competition)

‘… Process: the formula to simply being in a different league’

(edition 93  - 2004 of thoughts & observations on lawn bowls)

I watched the final five contestants in the televised singing competition ‘The American Idol’ yesterday and one judge said of two contestants that they were in a different league (to the other three finalists in this national competition). Fantasia and La Toya were simply head and shoulders superior to the others and it showed.

The day beforehand I worked with Bob Middleton and five different sport science experts in servicing the Institute of Sport bowls program for the ten national bowls squad where the emphasis was on the Process as the conduit to ultimate success where talent simply enables you to be in contention for the final, not necessarily being in a different league. Our experts covered the fields of a motor skill acquisition, sports psychology, hypnotherapy, biomechanics, nutrition, exercise fitness and flexibility and all emphasized the value of process over results.

Those five singing ‘Idol’ contestants and the ten elite bowlers, even there we had three absentees, are of like mind, like level of talent in their field.  But, the bowlers, like three of those singers, need to realize that to achieve the next level of success to some extent comes about because of the focus on Process.

The skills elite bowlers need to have (to be athletes) embrace physical, tactical, technical and metal skills par excellence.

When I viewed the singing competition, itself a competitive performance as in sport, I was conscious of the parallel skills to sport (bowls) in that physically the performer has to be ready for this day’s format, tactically they each had to choose songs that fitted the category and their (vocal) skills, mentally they had to cope with a revised format to previous weeks of competition.  As a viewer I knew these three contestants did not plan as well to use those skills to their optimum and the performance they gave illustrated that to me as an uninformed viewer.

Hence when on Saturday at the bowls session, the sports scientists tried to highlight the value and necessity of these added skills via concepts such as pre-delivery routines, habit, food and fluid, rehearsal, attention spans of concentration and pre game preparation in training, the bowlers were unable or unwilling to shed light on their knowledge, interest and application of the Processes.  Game results seem to be all they are interested in knowing.

One player actually said it did’nt make that much difference.  Heck one day later I hear a judge on an international competition say that difference is so apparent even at this elite level that it is of another (dimension) league.

I also have to bring in Australian League Football (AFL) to this article (as some readers are from overseas).  AFL club Hawthorn has a lot of media coverage recently as they are struggling in the national competition.  Yesterday a scribe gave two specific examples of their demise and alluded to the absence of leadership in competition as the cause of the poor results.

I am not so sure that is the one factor.  For my viewing it is the fact that the other team mates are not trained to know how and when to take on leadership and how it can be displayed in numerous ways and not just one way and these are skills that have to be trained and set up by coaches to be automatic and habit forming Processes.

Coincidentally last year I wrote an article on the topic that training needs to be automatic and it was based on a Hawthorn player understanding that ….guess what, he has since left the club, maybe that speaks volumes on the other players not comprehending this notion of process and habit forming, maybe Hawthorn has footballers equivalent to the three contestants in ‘American Idol’ rather than the two who are different and in another league (of excellence).

On Saturday at the bowls squad I reiterated my view that the ‘invisible team’, we coaches and other support staff, have to understand and reinforce the notion of Process too or else the visible team, the players, won’t get the message, or won’t see the need to get it.  Is that the problem that Hawthorn has to address, the ‘invisible’ team contribution to the Process.

One of the bowls squad is coached by me and I can assure you she WILL get the message (again) about Process.

All the Institute bowls squad are potentially capable of representing Australia at the Games 2006 in Melbourne, even the three absentees, if the current approach to elite bowls remains unchanged;  however, will these bowls squad members be like the three ‘American Idol’ finalists simply there and self satisfied, or will they look to the two singers and say to themselves I want to be in a different league, that is a medallist with the willingness to develop the notion of Process in all of the four skills so that I will achieve the ultimate in 2006.

Process requires planning and preparation so as to best perform successfully when it counts.  And the (still) missing link which we noticed again in the Institute bowls session on Saturday is the absence of a personal coach for these elite level bowlers.  

This is a part of that Process, the need to expand the players thinking through the agency of a skilled coach so as to reach their dream.

Lachlan Tighe