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To the left is a practice template similar to those used by many college football programs.

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After 2017’s spring practices were over, I could sense it was time to move on to different things in my life. I no longer enjoyed college football and I had always wanted to be a Badger. The following summer, I called my position coach and told him I would not be returning to the team, and in late September I applied to transfer to the UW-Madison while finishing my sophomore year at UW-Whitewater. In the meantime, I returned to my high school’s football camp as I had the summers before to run plays against them to give them a look on “orange” (our scout team name) before I went back to college. I mainly go to these practices to coach, but I believe (and studies show) that the best way to learn is by actual practice, thus I still line up against players to compete with them now so they can be successful later.

Not having practiced run plays or pass blocking for so long, I wasn’t sure how I would fare against these highschoolers. Knowing that the younger players would need more blocked practice to practice the basics of their positions, it was not my priority to match up against them. However, there are always some big juniors and seniors on the defensive line and playing linebacker, so I wasn’t entirely confident in being able to beat them because of my modest size. I was surprised at my success in my first running play; I was able to press the line of scrimmage and make a cutback to teach the middle linebacker the risks of overpursuing ball-carrier. The next play, the quarterback was able to complete his pass to his receiver because I was able to block the defensive end outside the pocket, teaching him the importance of keeping his center of balance low. How could I still perform these skills after having not even though about football for the past four months?

It was because of the overlearning of these skills and movements in the practices many months before that I was still able to have success so long after quitting football. As discussed in Kinesiology 361, a variable number of extra trials completed after to a certain performance criterion has been achieved increases its permanence if it is not to be used for a long time. That is, perhaps because of the variable practice amounts completed in addition to the practice completed to successfully execute an inside run play, I was able to successfully perform it again at these football practices the following fall. In my case, I can speculate whether more or less overlearning could have led me to better retention in performance of my football skills against the highschoolers, as increased overlearning led to diminished returns in the study discussed in lecture (Shea and Kohl, 1990). Luckily, my performance on a football field no longer has much of an impact on my life.

Here's a video of me running against my high school football team as an alumni!

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In the fall of my sole college football season, I attended a dance performance for my World of the Arts course. I watched Giordano Dance Chicago perform their jazz dance routine, meeting the director of the show along with a dance instructor from UW-Whitewater. They were both football fanatics, as one of the members of the show was the nephew of former Ohio State and NFL running back Archie Griffin, and the dance instructor had taught several UW-Whitewater players in her classes. Barb, as I called her from there on, insisted I consider taking her Ballet I course in the spring, and after meeting the dancers backstage after the show, I grew fond of the idea. Upon enrolling for spring classes, I had a gap in my schedule from 11:00-12:15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and thus I became a dancer.

That first class, Barb spoke of the benefits of dance: flexibility, balance, coordination, and explosiveness, as well as improved well-being. She explained that there is much similar between football players and dancers, and that dancers are “choreographed athletes”. Just as I had to learn a new set of skills to play running back, I now had to learn how to dance in hopes to apply it to the football field. Similar to the Fitts and Posner Stages of Learning I experienced as a college running back, I found myself getting stuck somewhere between the Cognitive and Associative Stages. I was speaking the language of dance – literally – as I practiced through each tendu, glisse, and grand battement.

However, I couldn’t seem to get enough repetitions in each class session, and there wasn’t any place on campus other than the dance classrooms that I could practice my routines. It was with mental practice that I was able to improve my dancing skills. Whether I was waiting for my next chance on the floor, or sitting in my dorm, I was performing active, cognitive rehearsal of my routine. Replaying the action in my mind, I practiced internal and external imagery to try to nail my first timbre pas de bourrée to the positioning of my last first position. Using the neuromuscular explanation discussed in class, my muscles were primed by imagining myself doing the skill, activating neuromotor pathways during mental practice. Although more floor time would’ve been ideal, I believe the mixing of physical and mental practice was enough to augment my learning.

After learning these new skills, it was my hope to translate it onto the football field. According to Thorndyke’s identical elements theory, my improved movement on the football field was due to the high number of similar component parts in tasks used in football and ballet. For example, after performing sout de chats  for several weeks, I found my running stride lengthen, thus increasing my top speed. The observable movement patterns in each skill included the plantar flexion, knee extension, and hip extension of my back leg, as well as the hip flexion performed on my front leg. Combined with other moves such as glissades, my coaches noted my new fluidity on the football field.

Below is a video of a sout de chat (it's incorrectly labeled as a grand jete). After watching it, visualize me doing the same - just like I had to between practices!

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Part III: Variable Practice Makes Perfect

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Part III: Variable Practice Makes Perfect

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As an athlete, there was, of course, more than just one skill required of me in my sport. Although we spent much time on the mechanics and timing of our base run play, we had multiple segments and repetitions within practice for all the tasks required to be a successful running back for our team. Timed periods were scheduled for passing routes, pass blocking, run blocking, run game walk-through, blitz pick-up, run-game full team, and full team scrimmages, among many other periods. There was a usual routine for each day of the week due to practice requirements and restrictions from the NCAA, but we never knew exactly what we were going to practice next.

Supported by research (as well as attention spans of me and my peers) I am thankful for my coaches never scheduling an entire practice to practice the same skill at the same speed for the entire time. As discussed in class, to practice the same running play for an hour and a half would not be near as beneficial as the variable practice used within periods dedicated to one task, as well as the overall practice structure. That is, within a run-game period, we practiced many variations of the same Generalized Motor Program of different running plays, and well as differing context characteristics in the environment. Not only did we practice inside runs, off-tackle runs, traps, sweeps, and fakes, we also varied the speeds at which we performed the skill as well as the alignment and formation of the defense. Although within a run-game period we saw a greater number of mistakes (ie – performance errors) from moving from play to the next, I was successful in performing the correct skill when called upon in competition and team scrimmage.

That is not to say, however, that we never ran the same play more than once in a row. It would be overwhelming for a novice running back to try to perform different skills early in the season. However, once most of the group moved to the Associative Stage of learning we were able to move on to the variable style of practice periods. Although later in the season we still sometimes practiced the same play in a blocked fashion to allow extra coaching and attention to detail, it was never for more than perhaps six plays in a row before we went on to a different play. It is safe to suggest that this high contextual interference between similar skills (inside run and off-tackle run) and different skills (route running and pass blocking) could have aided us in winning the 2016 WIAC Conference Championship.

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Below shows what happens when the defender demonstrates he isn't a novice either!

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It was within this same fall season that I realized I could finally “read” the defense and react accordingly. In each of our group film sessions, our position coach reviewed each step in our progression of running the football: our timing step, attacking the inside leg of the outside blocker, pressing the line of scrimmage, and reading the backside inside linebacker’s eyes. Almost all new running backs were told to only focus on the first two steps in this sequence before even thinking about the last two. Insisting that only the best running backs could “read the backside inside linebacker’s eyes”, and each of us assuming we understood the skill better than we really did (along with being “the best”), none of us young running backs could perform this step correctly without first messing up the initial requirements of the skill.

After failing to make this “read” for so long, I finally understood how to get to the point at which I was to cut, as well as react to what the linebacker was doing. I spent every fall practice on the practice squad running plays against the varsity defense, but one late November practice I was finally able to not only make the correct cut but also perform a “fake” with my head to make the defender overpursue me and allow me to cut behind him for a large gain. This demonstrates a concept discussed in Kinesiology 361: experts can notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by novices. That is, I had developed my visual search. Although it took me much practice to get to this point (I was by far NOT an expert running back), by being coached on what to look for and attend to and practicing with the key environmental cues, I was able to achieve this level of performance of the skill. Countless hours of film and practice was paying off.

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That first spring of college football practices included some of the most challenging but rewarding days of my life. Playing running back at my high school required me to work out of a three point stance, positioning my body in a crouched position with my right hand on the ground in front of me; at UW-Whitewater, I was to maintain a “two-point” stance, starting in more of an upright position than I was used to. Largely, I was to learn a new position entirely, composed of virtually brand-new skills I had never performed. Perhaps the most basic, and yet so hard to master, was the footwork for our inside run play.

Standing shoulder-width apart in our two-point position, the running backs were coached to first take a timing step with their right foot. This step was quite simple in nature: a lift of the right foot with a 30 degree turning out before being placed back down two inches diagonal of the starting position. After that, we were to drive off that right foot to take our next step in the direction the right foot was pointed to received a hand off and run into the “hole” opened up by the offensive line. Seems simple enough, right?

In order to get the timing, speed, and body coordination of the play down, running backs were given increasing feedback and coaching as time went on. Based upon Fitts and Posner’s Three-Stage Model of Learning, I was stuck in the cognitive stage for a LONG time. The first stage in this model, the performances of a skill at this point are heavily based on cognitive or verbal processes. Constantly we were told to “chill out” and take a “cool” step. Whatever “cool” meant, I wasn’t entirely sure, but I continued to practice the skill in and out of my practice reps. While other players took their turns in the drills, I watched their feet and tried to copy with my own. I was trying desperately to pick up their good strategies and get rid of my own inappropriate ones. At times my coached commended me, both in practice and in watching in film; almost just as often I would be told I was wrong and instructed how to do better. I still didn’t really know what was right or wrong, but I trusted I would get it eventually.

After a few weeks, I found myself in the Associative Stage. No longer were the first few steps of my path so difficult to perform. I was more consistent, could understand what I did wrong, and no longer needed to speak my way through the skill. In earlier practice sessions, the different actions of the offensive linemen ahead of me would mess up the first few steps of my path. Because I needed to adjust accordingly to the different holes my line would make, I had difficulty running into their backsides or missing the hole entirely. Now, I was able to pick up their cues to make the appropriate cuts behind them.

In the subsequent fall season, I transitioned in the Autonomous Stage.
The skill in particular became largely automatic for me, and now I was
able to focus on more complex aspects than before. Even at times when
I messed up the first step of my path or initial timing of the hand off, I
was able to correct for the error and turn the play into a positive gain.
Finally, I was able to distinguish what motions and actions of the offense
and defense were necessary or opposed to my success.

Shown to the right is the "simplicity" of the timing step!