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I've been a very active person my entire life, and have participated in organized athletics for as long as I can remember. Physical activity has always been a big part of my life, something my family is very aware of. So when my brother came to me his summer before high school asking for some advice about starting high school, I recommended he try out for a sport. Playing sports was how I met most of my best friends in high school, something very important for him to do as he transitioned into a new school. As height runs in our family, I suggested that he give basketball a chance. He had played soccer for several years before, and I knew that there were many similar movements involved. So we went to the neighborhood court, and we got started with teaching him the necessary skills.

The first skill I started him with was defense, and the proper form involved. The lateral shuffling necessary to guard a player is incredibly similar to the shuffling and reactions necessary to play defense in soccer. The Identical Elements theory indicates that there should be a high level of transfer of learning as a result of this. I decided to utilize part practice to minimize the complexity of learning the ins and outs of playing defense. Beginning with a defensive stance, the positive transfer of learning from soccer was immediately visible. He was able to move fluidly and confidently, even though this was his first time performing this movement in a basketball context.

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After we had worked on the defensive fundamentals, it was time to practice the fun part- offense. Specifically, we began with shooting the basketball. However, this is a skill high in both organization and complexity. Naylor and Briggs defined organization as the relationship among the component part of the skill, and complexity as the number of parts or components in a skill/the information processing demands of the task. As a result, I decided to have him first start with part practice in order to manage the complexity of the task first. I broke the shot down into gripping the ball, stance, keeping the elbows high and in while cocking the shot, and the follow through.  I first demonstrated the various parts of the of the shot, utilizing modeling to facilitate my brother’s observational learning. Then I had him practice each step himself individually, before combining the movement using whole practice to get a feeling for the timing and flow of the component parts being sequentially performed. However, he was still struggling with the follow through component of the shot. In order to help him with this, I used attentional cuing to draw his attention to the way his wrist should flick downwards as he releases the shot. When I was little, my coach always told me to “put your hand in the cookie jar” as a way to describe the wrist flick. I passed this advice along to my brother, utilizing imagery to help him focus on that movement task.

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Now that my brother had an understanding of both shooting and defense, it was time to begin to work on his dribbling. He and I had grown up watching badger basketball for many years, and he couldn’t wait to learn to do a crossover like Traevon Jackson or Bronson Koenig. While I can’t do a crossover anywhere near what those guys can, I do at least understand the concept. A crossover dribble is a move that utilizes the psychological refractory period to the dribbler’s advantage. It involves taking a step in one direction, before switching your dribble to your other hand and going the opposite direction of the first step. The defender’s psychological refractory period causes them to take the time to process and respond to the first step before they can react to the second step, allowing the offensive player to get past the defender. In order to begin teaching him this skill, I had him start by very slowly dribbling the basketball from side to side. Fitt’s law of speed-accuracy trade off indicated to me that I should have him start with a slow dribble, focusing more on the accuracy of having the ball come up perfectly to his other hand rather than immediately going for a rapid crossover back and forth. After he had practiced this skill for a while, he was feeling pretty confident in his grasp of the fundamental skills he would need for tryouts.

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Now that he felt he had an understanding of the fundamentals, we started talking through some of the mental aspect of basketball. One of the biggest limiters so the skill of a novice basketball player is the need to almost always be multitasking. For example, while dribbling the basketball, you also need to have your head up looking for teammates to pass to. This results in capacity interference, as the combination of the various tasks being performed can exceed the limit of central capacity. This results in both skills being performed at a lower quality. One way to overcome this is to practice one of the skills until it reaches the autonomous stage, meaning it requires little conscious effort. I told him that the best way to overcome these limitations is to work on his dribbling until it can be performed automatically, allowing him to focus more on planning his next move. In order to plan his next move, be it passing or shooting, he will need to use visual search to locate the relevant environmental cues, which in that case would be teammates and defenders. Use of the movement filter allows him to focus his visual attention on the players, which are all constantly moving. In order for him to be able to focus on planning while he is also dribbling, he need to utilize proprioception to dribble with his hands/arms while looking around the court. His joint receptors allow him to detect the changes in the angle, velocity, and direction of the movements of his joints, which in this case would be his shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers. These receptors allow him to accurately dribble the ball without requiring active visual feedback.

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After we had worked on his sport-specific skills, he asked for some tips on getting stronger in order to be in better shape for tryouts. So off to the gym we went, where we got dressed and ready to work out. I had him start with squats, as they are a fundamental movement in a game which involves so much running and jumping. I had him start by performing a bodyweight squat so I could critique and fix any major form problems for him before moving on to weighted squats. When he initially squatted down, I observed that his heels were coming up off the ground and his knees were coming forward over his toes. I had him perform the squat again, but this time I told him to focus on bending at the hips first, and to imagine that there was a string tied around his hips pulling them backwards. This usage of attentional cueing using imagery was effective in correcting his squat form abnormality, and he caught on rather quickly. I have a feeling that this was at least partially due to positive transfer of learning from his previous experience with soccer and our basketball practice, as the hip movement of squatting is very similar to the bending of the hips required to squat into a defensive position in basketball/soccer.

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