The Talent Equation Podcast

Rob McGarr is a YouTuber who has been documenting the ups and downs of his journey of improvement in golf for several years. His honest video diary has seen him travel all over the UK and Europe in search of information that will help him reach his goals of playing consistent scratch golf. His channel is fantastic and I really enjoy it but I have also been struck by the interactions he has had with many coaches, and the different philosophies that they adopt and the approaches they take and how this has affected his performance, adversely or otherwise. I decided to reach out to him to have a conversation about his journey and to explore some thoughts about coaching and skill acquisition that might help him make sense of all of the information he has received. It's a long one...but I think that it is a goody...whether you are into golf or not. Enjoy!!

Some thoughts about a question that was posed to me recently as to how you can justify using a non linear / ecological approach to coaching.

Dr. Tom Parry is the founder and owner of Kestrel Performance Psychology. He has a Ph.D. in Human Performance from Indiana University with specializations in Skill Acquisition and Psychology.He wears many hats including Professor, Father, Coach and Consultant. These roles have blessed him with a detailed understanding of human behaviour from various perspectives and the nuanced nature of performance.Tom and I get into the weeds to explore how we can connect the wider coaching world with some of the counter intuitive aspects of non linear pedagogy. It was a great opportunity to reconnect with some of these ideas and explore the way Tom thinks about coaching and skill development. Listen to the end to find out about how to play 'Zombie Tag'. https://kestrelpsychology.wixsite.com/kestrelpsychology

JP Nurbun makes a welcome return to the podcast. JP is a fellow podcaster as host of 'The Coaching Culture' podcast. He is also an author, his first book 'Calling Up' was a real hit and I really enjoyed it. This time round he has gone one better having written 'The Culture System' which is fascinating. In this conversation we delve into some of the key elements of The Culture System and unpack them to get to grips with how they are applied and who applies them. It's a super powerful conversation that I took a lot away from. I hope you do tooJP's podcast - https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/k2pt3-6258f/Coaching-Culture-PodcastJP's book - https://www.myculturesystem.com/

Dan Lycett and Ross Williams are on the PE staff at St David's College in LLandudno in North Wales. They have been very public in sharing their approach to PE and school sport with the world and have been very active in creating learning spaces for other practitioners. In this conversation we delve into the alternative approach that they take to increase engagement in PE and school sport by turning the curriculum on it's head and working backwards from a child centred approach. The results speak for themselves as I hope you will agree from the discussion.Link to my conversation with Stephen Rollnick about Motivational Interviewing https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20445243

Will Roberts makes a welcome return to the podcast joined by a colleague at University of Gloucester, Kirsten Wing. You will remember Will from a previous podcast talking about the fantastic programme called 'Boing' which is looking to take an ecological approach to the development of movement for children.Kirsten has been studying the effect of Boing on coaching practice and on the way that children have responded to the approach with some fascinating findings - not least of which the link between the digital space and the physical space. I invited them on to talk me through it and explore some of the real world ramifications, it's a really interesting conversation that I really enjoyed...I hope you will too. Link to the research report here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360561628_Operationalising_Physical_Literacy_Boing_Practitioner_Education_Programme_Technical_Report

Greg Clements is a friend and a colleague. Greg has worked at Sport England for more than 12 years in various roles and he reached out to me because he has been coaching a football team which his son is involved in and they have reached a cross roads in deciding how to group the teams for next year. Having done a bit of research within the sports world he found very little to help shape thinking so he reached out to me for a conversation and he was good enough to let me record it. It's a really interesting area and one that affects a lot of coaches so I hope that you get something out of it.

Mia Palles-Clark is a British show jumping coach and coach developer. She is the England Home Pony Team Chef d'Equipe and the British Army team coach and was awarded British Show jumping coach of the year in 2017.I am joined by my co host Marianne Davies from UK Coaching and Dynamics Coaching https://dynamics-coaching.com/home/marianne-davies/ to explore the cross over between the equestrian world and the human world. In this conversation we explore how humans treat children and horses in the same way by robbing them of agency and choice about what happens to them in the sporting arena. We delve into some common practices and beliefs from the equestrian world and discover some startling parallels with the youth sport domain. This is a 'simulcast' with Marianne's new podcast project 'The River Tiger Podcast' be sure to check it out. https://open.spotify.com/show/3aS0XlrTdt5Pn4nLeSw1ig?fbclid=IwAR2YiYbtocoIrCOJr0qvEZ1PfdykZ-kM9ghDAV6VeFepYuPbIZtj4b1fjdI

It’s so challenging to have conversations with other coaches or parents about what your approach to creating participation opportunities could or should be. Should be be inclusive, should focus on outcomes, should you prioritise development. In this ‘think aloud’ audio blog I share a framework for thinking about this that might help to clarify thinking and make for more productive conversations.

Sharing some thoughts about a session I ran trying to explore how to improve passing in a group of players. Some mistakes I made and what you can learn from them.

Ian Brunnschweiler is a Head of Technical Development at Southampton football club, he is a friend of the show and a previous podcast guest. Dr Mark Jarvis, is making his debut, he is High Performance Manager at the club and his previous experiences were with the English Institute of Sport where he had the role of Director of Performance Solutions. They join me to share insights on the holistic way that Southampton go about coaching, player development rooted in the principles of Ecological Dynamics. They also share some insights from the new project that they have launched called the 'Learning Lab' which is committed to intentionally studying the impact of ecological approaches on their ability to support player development. It's a really fascination and open discussion about working in a talent development environment with loads of insights that are applicable in any developmental context.

Neil Plimmer is a golf coach and the co founder of 'JOLF', a golf coaching organisation dedicated to providing brilliant experiences for children. In the past year JOLF has been enjoyed by more than 12,000 children in schools, community settings and and at golf clubs around the country. The concept and what they offer continues to change as they learn and grow.Neil has been invited to speak across the world to about JOLF and share his knowledge and experiences. He is happiest with a group of 30 children in a school delivering sessions and coming up with different experiences that will engage children and create a love for golf, and sport in general.

I can hardly believe that I have reached the milestone of 200 episodes of the Talent equation Podcast. To celebrate I was joined by several previous guests, some members of the Conclave Community of Learning group and some members of 'The Ecological Explorers Club'. We reminisced about some favourite things about the podcast and then discussed some topical issues that we face into the future.

Jonathan Harding makes a welcome return to the show to share insights from his new book 'Soul: Beyond the Athlete'. Jonathan describes himself as "A sports writer who cares about the person and the player, the coach and the community. I speak German, am a father and try to look after the planet. Seagulls and San Francisco."Jonathan's first book 'Mensch' which explored the sophistication of the German Football Coach Education System...was a massive hit and is still one of my favourite books on coaching. His follow up book 'Soul' delves deep into the footballing sub cultures of some of the environments around the world that are bravely standing up against the tide of 'premature professionalism' and a 'perform at all costs' mentality that has not only affected professional football but also seeped into the grass roots. It's a great conversation. I hope you enjoy.

Phillip O'Callaghan is a tennis coach from Cork in Ireland. As he says in this podcast, people from Cork are very humble (even though Cork might well be the most represented city on my podcast!) so he describes himself on his bio on his website www.mrtenniscoach.com as being..."Really passionate about learning how to be a better coach and spend a lot of my free time learning about coaching. I'll be sharing lots of content here that will also help you improve or learn more about coaching". This doesn't really explain properly what Phillip does...he actually takes really dense academic articles or book chapters and creates simplified blog posts and twitter threads that the rest of us could understand...he is a great source of knowledge. Follow him on Twitter at @Mr_tennis_coach https://twitter.com/Mr_Tennis_Coach

Dr Amy. E Whitehead, PhD is Reader (Associate Professor) in Sport Psychology and Coaching at Liverpool John Moores University. Amy also delivers sport psychology support and coach development to a range of athletes and coaches, and also brings this work into her teaching in the classroom.Jenny Coe is Head of Performance and Wellbeing with West Ham United Women’s Team. She also works across a number of Olympic sports as a high performance coach developer and performance analyst. Her athletic career spanned 15 years of international basketball, and she also has a wealth of experience coaching internationally. On the back of that, she is a founding member of the company Impact the Game that aims to support athletes and coaches in all areas of performance. She is an advocate for mental health and women in sport, and she continues to support and influence change in these areas.'Myths of Sport Coaching' is an edited book that brings together international researchers and practitioners sharing theoretical and practi

Happy New Year - welcome to 2022!!Ian Renshaw and Peter Arnott make a welcome return to the podcast. If you haven't heard them before then I recommend checking out these other episodes where they have made appearances before (Links below). In this episode we discuss Ian and Peter's latest project 'Swing Like Tiger' which is a course that they have created for players and coaches to learn all about the little known secrets of how Tiger became so great. This isn't just a golf podcast - there are lessons galore. Listen to the end to get a discount code from Peter to access the course. Peter, Ian and Greame MacDowell https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/improving-impoverished-practice-environments-a/id1209549739?i=1000502085156Ian https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/exploring-representative-practice-design-a/id1209549739?i=1000499156547Peterhttps://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/when-i-am-coaching-on-the-range-i-can-feel-myself/id1209549739?i=1000499156452

Jia Yi Chow is the Associate Dean within the Office of Teacher Education at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Jia-Yi is most well known for being one of the originators of the concept of 'Non-Linear Pedagogy' which was articulated in a seminal book he co wrote with Keith Davids, Ian Renshaw and Chris Button in 2015 https://amzn.to/3GXgdPAIn this podcast we dive into the key concepts of non linear pedagogy and explore applications and some common misconceptions related to this theory. This was a great conversation to end the year on. Hope you enjoy.

Martyn Rothwell is a lecturer in sports coaching at Sheffield Hallam University. He is the national coach for the England Wheelchair Rugby League team and has worked in the fields of coaching and talent development since 2003. His latest research looks into the practices and behaviours of coaches in professional rugby league academies and explores how stated aspirations around the development of creative players actually manifest when the coaches are at work.

Olympic Champion, Amy Williams MBE joins me to explore the entire sporting journey from someone with potential to Olympic glory. Using her own experiences & those of some of Britain’s greatest athletes to help young athletes turn their ability into performance.We talk about mindset, confidence, teamwork, overcoming barriers & setbacks, dealing with injuries, longevity, training & preparation. We also take a deep dive into what it takes to drive a skeleton bob sled, the skill involved and the embodied cognition that is required. You can buy the book here https://amzn.to/3DSV2wJ (this is an affiliate link using this link helps the show as a small contribution is made)