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Practice variability and contextual interference

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Practice variability and contextual interference

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When I first started playing badminton, I had no idea the wide variety of ways that you could hit the birdie. I started out with the idea that I just had to make sure the birdie made it over the net. However, it's important to learn various hits in order to be more offensive in a match, and also make good defensive decisions. During badminton practices, we'd often do drills that used a combination of hits in a serial order. My coach would hit a birdie high, and to the back, and I was supposed to return it with a clear, a return that's also high and to the back of the court. Then I'd run to the net and return a drop, I'd barely hitting the birdie, letting it fall over the net and onto the court. My coach would pop the birdie back up and I'd return with a smash, a hit that's comparable to a volleyball player's spike. Then I'd take a step off the court and do the sequence all over again after a couple of my teammates had their turns. We'd do drills like this and other varieties of it incorporating different hits into the practice. This type of practice increases the level of contextual interference. Mixing up the types of hits required me to adjust my grip on the racket and move around the court. These aspects helped me to learn the hits better and make them more applicable when a match came around. The picture below is me applying the different styles of hitting I learned in practice to a match.

There are a couple theories why increasing contextual interference is beneficial to practice, but what I found most applicable in this scenario was the Action Plan Reconstruction Hypothesis. With each hit I had to do I had to abandon the previous action plan that I'd just done, and construct a new one for the following hit. Each time I would go to complete a hit, I would have to reconstruct the action plan. This was beneficial to me when it came time to play in a match. I felt more comfortable moving to different parts of the court and completing different types of hits. I still wasn't able to complete every single hit, but I made large improvements and felt much more comfortable with each type of hit.

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In high school my mom proposed that we spend our spring break in Colorado skiing. I thought that this sounded like a lot of fun, but I'd only been skiing a couple of times previously many years prior, so I was a little bit nervous as to whether I'd actually be able to ski the mountains in Colorado. My mom assured me that we'd start out on some of the smaller slopes, so I could get my bearings. The time for the trip came around, and I was a mixture of excited and nervous. Our first day of skiing came around. I got measured for some skis and boots that we'd be using during our week in Colorado. When we arrived at Breckenridge, I slid my ski boots onto my feet and snapped my feet into the skis. I felt a little bit clumsy with all this equipment on the bottoms of my feet. We made our way over to the chairlift and rode up the mountain for our first run. When we reached the top, I slid off the chairlift and stopped with much more ease than I anticipated. As I continued to make my way down the run, I realized that skiing was coming a lot more naturally to me than I would've thought. Turning through the snow felt oddly similar to cutting across the ice on my skates. I found myself shifting my weight in the same way as I would if I were skating, and going onto the edges of the skis. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I turned my body to the side and envisioned myself stopping on the ice, and I came to a halt in the snow. I was surprised by how much my experience with ice skating seemed to help me with skiing.

There appeared to be positive transfer in my experience of knowing how to ice skate and then trying to ski. This might be due to skating and skiing have similar component parts. I would shift my weight and legs in a similar manner when I was skiing as to when I would skate. To turn on both the ice and on the snow, I had to find the edge of my skates/skis. Also, the manner in which I stopped while skiing required similar movements to when I would stop on the ice. The similarities continued as I made my way from the bottom of the run over to the chairlift. In order to get myself there, I found myself pushing my legs out as if I were skating. I wasn't as comfortable with skiing as I was with skating, because there were still some differences, but they do have some of the same component parts, which made my transition from one to the other much easier.

The photo below shows a person skiing and making a turn. The way that their body weight is shifted to one side is similar to the way a skater might shift their weight to make a turn. The skier is also on the edges of their skis, which is similar to the way a skater finds the edges of the skates to make a turn.

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When I was a freshman in high school I decided to join my school's badminton team on a whim. I had no idea how much fun I'd have, and I looked forward to the season starting every spring. Right off the bat, I learned how important the serve is to clinching points in a match. A serve can make or break the set. In doubles, specifically, the most common serve is one that floats close to the top of the net and just barely lands in bounds. This causes the opponent to either think the serve is out or return the serve by popping the birdie in the air, making it easier to knock down and get a point. A short serve is the most common, but to keep the opponents on their toes, it's also important to include a long serve that lands just on the edge of the back line every now and then. My coaches always stressed the importance of the serve, so I focused a lot of attention on perfecting it. Throughout the process of learning how to do a short serve and a long serve, I developed a schema for my serves.

Schema theory describes how as people practice, they develop rules about their own motor behavior. So, in terms of serving in badminton, I learned how much force was necessary to put into the swing in order to get the birdie where I wanted it to go. A schema is developed with practice variability. I would often practice serves in a random order to make it more realistic. Sometimes I'd hit a long serve and other times a short one. Over time, I began to realize that in order to get my serve to just barely clear the net and land in, I had to hit the birdie with minimal force. It was a very simple movement of the wrist and racket.

As I continued to practice my serves, I learned how much to flick my wrist in order to make the serve go long and over the opponents' heads. It all came with practicing it over and over in a variety of settings. Sometimes the birdie would land in a place that would make it too easy for the opponents to return it, so I took that into consideration and tried not to hit it with that amount of force the next time.

The more I worked on my serve, the more I, and my coaches, noticed the improvements. Throughout my years on the badminton team, I became known for my serve. This all culminated when I was playing in a doubles match my senior year of high school, and I served a 21-0 set. It can be quite simple to mess up just one serve in a game, so as the set went on and I kept serving, I was nervous that I would mess up the serve. However, I just cleared my head of all the distractions and tried not to think about the serve I'd completed hundreds of times prior. When the final serve landed just inside the line, I smiled to myself. I had just served a perfect set. All my practice had translated to a game situation, and I was able to judge the amount of racket and wrist strength needed to make the necessary serves.

Below is a video of me serving in a match. The birdie just barely cleared the net and my opponent was forced to clear the birdie, allowing for my partner to smash the birdie for a point. The second clip is an example of the long serve. It forced the opponent to hit it high back, which gives the opportunity for my partner and I to win the point.

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Growing up in Minnesota means that I've been able to skate almost as long as I've been able to walk. This translated into me playing hockey as soon as I was old enough, and continuing for 11 years (the picture below is me in high school playing hockey). Skating is almost as natural to me as walking, even now that I don't get the chance to play hockey or skate as frequently. The nearly automatic nature of skating indicates that it's a procedural skill. I don't have to use much of my conscious attention in order to skate.

Skating may come naturally to me, but since I've been doing it for so long without much thought, it can be difficult for me to explain how to skate to others. Most recently, I went skating with a couple friends, two of whom were from Australia and had never been ice skating before. The minute I stepped onto the ice, my feet knew exactly what to do, and I was skating laps around my friends. They asked me if I could teach them how to skate, and I figured that I probably could since I've been skating for so long. However I found it really difficult to explain to them. "You move your right foot out and glide on your left, then plant the right foot and move the left foot..." I tried my best to explain it, but it didn't make much sense. Memories that are stored in procedural memory aren't recalled as easily as those that are declarative.

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Knowing where to look in a badminton match can dramatically affect your ability to return serves and other hits to give yourself the advantage. Visual search refers to the process of directing visual attention in order to locate relevant environmental cues. Novices and experts at certain skills tend to have different methods when it comes to visual search. When I first began playing badminton, most of my attention would focus on the birdie going back and forth over the net. It wasn't necessarily an ineffective strategy, but rallies would last longer than necessary because I wouldn't note the positioning of my opponents and make a more offensive move.

As I found myself becoming more comfortable with the game, I would note other information rather than only the position of the birdie. When my opponent would be getting ready to serve,  I scanned where she was standing, where her partner was standing, and how she was holding her racket. If the server was standing a little bit further back, I would anticipate a longer serve. If the server's partner was standing further back, I would return the serve short, and if she was standing closer to the net, I would return it closer to the back of the court.

The visual search extends beyond serves to returning other hits and making sure that I had the right positioning. It's important to note where my opponents are so I can return the hit in a way that makes it more difficult for them to return back. However, I also must be aware of where I am, where my partner is, and where the most open spots are on the court. Taking all of these visual cues into consideration wasn't a part of my practice as a novice, but as I became more skilled, I knew the important information to look for when preparing to return the birdie.

The video below is an example of visual search in action. When preparing to return the serve I anticipated that my opponent would serve it short. I also noticed that her partner was standing pretty far to the back. So, when it came time to return the serve, I hit it so it landed just on the other side of the net. My opponent then had to pop the birdie up high, making it easy for my partner to smash the birdie for a point.