Tasks Lead Approach to Learning - Get Better Results With Your Students | John Shedden and Richard Barbour

Hey ski instructors and coaches out in the world, this episode of the Big Picture Skiing Podcast is for you. Because part of the reason we do our job is the big kick, the rush, the great feeling we get inside when we get results with our students. So I think if you can identify concepts and ways to work that are really successful, then you are doing the best job you can possibly do. So to help us all with that, I've got two great guests on the show today, John Sheddon and Richard Barber. John served as the national coach as well as director of coaching for the English Ski Council. He also was instrumental in developing programs and methodologies for this association. But what really drew me to want to speak with John was his research into perception and how beginners up to experts perceive the environment through sight, sound, touch, all those things and what role that plays in that person becoming a better skier. So we really delve into this topic and I ask him some questions around that in this episode. Richard is also a ski coach and instructor, but a civil engineer as well, and has spent a lot of time with John and created a podcast around some of the discussions that they've had together. And so I wanted to get both of them together on the Big Picture Skiing podcast to gain some more insight, to help expand what they know, which is some fantastic knowledge really centered around sort of constraints-led approach teaching and the ecological dynamics approach to instruction and learning movement. And so, the whole goal is here to help you learn this information, to get this information out there, because I think you're going to find it really helps your coaching as well as your own personal development in skiing. So, there's a little insight into what we're going to talk about on this show. If you're a coach, you're an instructor, and you want to get better at doing that, then I highly recommend you listen to the rest of this episode. Okay, enjoy.

Now, I was listening to the podcast, Richard, you did with John, and I really enjoyed the whole series. And the bit that really grabbed me was your experiments with trying to find out how people learned to ski. And so you, you were testing what sort of sensory inputs were used to develop skills in skiing. The crazy one I thought was where you anesthetized people's lower legs and feet with some kind of— at first I thought you did an injection, but I heard, listened again, it was some gel. What can you talk about that experiment? And yeah, straight, like, what did you learn from that? Because I thought that was fascinating.

The reason I did it was because when I went to university, they asked me, why do you want to come here? I was a mature student. I was assistant national coach at the time, but The background of everybody in, in our sport at that time was ski instruction. We were all ski instructors one way or another. I was convinced that this was not the answer to everything, that there were other answers, and I discovered this in other sports, from other sports, and other experts. So I went to university, and when they said, why do you want to come here? I said, because clearly when I'm teaching I'm selling a product. I'm teaching on behalf of a ski school which promotes a particular approach and is selling a product. And my pupils are clearly doing something which is extra to simply watching me. So what is going on? And of course, that's called learning. And so I said, what I'd really like to know is what they're doing when I'm teaching them or instructing them. And the various interview panelists looked at each other. The man in the center chuckled and then leaned forward and said, we don't normally tell applicants at this stage that they've got a place, but you have. And while you're here, if you find out what they're doing, then tell us because nobody else knows. And I took that as a challenge. Awesome. And was really interested then in what my skiers were doing and spent a lot more time watching them and talking to them and listening to them. The model that I used to start with was a sensory motor model proposed by a lecturer from Leeds University, and his model was essentially sensory input perceptual processing of that sensory input, and then motor output or behavior, which in skiing terms we call ski techniques. And I felt that this was not quite adequate for skiing, because most ski instructors, in fact, probably all ski instructors, have developed their skill and are very skillful skiers without necessarily experiencing great anxiety when they ski. I fell and fractured my skull while I was skiing with a race against friends in Switzerland. Fractured my skull, became blind, and lost my academic career. I wanted to be a nuclear physicist. I then became a ski instructor in Scotland. Who couldn't ski very well and was told, 'It doesn't matter, you only have to teach beginners and you'll learn to ski during the rest of the time that you're here.' And I said, 'Well, of course I can ski.' I could ski parallel and make linked turns and stuff, but I was terrified because the memory of falling over while I'd been skiing influenced me very strongly. So I was greatly inhibited in how fast I would allow myself to go, where I would ski, and so on. And so I wanted to investigate what sensory inputs skiers use at different levels of their ability and how that might affect their emotional states, for example. And discovered that by anesthetizing skiers' legs, it didn't make any difference to the beginners, but it made a lot of difference to the advanced skiers. And also the sounds around on the slope didn't influence beginner skiers very much. But, and it didn't influence because of course I used the earplugs and blindfolds as well, not all at the same time. Again, to cut a long story short, discovered that beginners process their information differently than, yes, experienced skiers. And the experienced skiers used a lot more information but were very selective with their attention, whereas beginners didn't know what to attend to and where to attend to it and were confused, and often confused by trying to do two things, which only in retrospect, not now but years later, did I realize that what they were trying to do is both solve a task that they perceived— skiing down the slope safely— and follow the instructions of the instructor, who would be pleased or not pleased with them depending on how they held their arms or did some other relatively innocuous activity, which was important to the instructor but not at all important to the beginner.

So can I jump in there? Because I think if instructors, coaches are listening right now, especially maybe more fresh or they haven't got a ton of experience, what would you say your wisdom takeaway point for them would be with that point about beginners just trying to—

yeah, I would say the instructor should choose, uh, an environment which the instructor judges to be safe for the people that— and the activities he's going to ask them to do. And then within the confines of that, set them tasks to solve and don't tell them how to do it, and watch them while they're attempting to solve the tasks, and then give them guidance.

So give me one example, say for the beginner. Say we've got— I've got my group, I'm on the perfectly groomed, nice, easy, gentle slope. Give me an example of one task that you would like them to solve.

Well, the instructor will quite often use a marker of some sort. It might be a ski stick or a glove, or he might have ready-made markers with him, cones or sticks or something, branches from a local tree, and place it, place it on the slope and say, don't go higher than this point. Whereas I would say use that same marker in the middle of the run-out area and say, okay, you two, you groups split into two, step up sideways, watch each other, and your task is to go up the hill a bit, judge where you start from, and slide down. And you've got 3 goes to hit this branch or target with the length of your skis. Get it within, finish within the length of your skis. And of course, if they, if one of them is, or more, is going too high, you can suggest to them, maybe that's enough. But generally, let them make the judgments and learn to make the judgments that the instructor made when he set out the terrain in the first place. And so instead of telling them how to solve the task, explain to them what the task is, and then they can learn to make their own judgments right from the very beginning. They don't need to know how to demonstrate a push us in order to get into the interski demonstration team. They only need to be able to stay roughly upright until— but giving them 3 goes to do it means that on the 3rd go, whether they've overshot or undershot, they should be able to get their feet somewhere near the target.

Now, I want to say, I think that's a really important point because I notice even myself, I think back to early days, I've got all this information, they have their first go, I want to show that I know everything and so I jump in and I tell them how to do it. But that's a really important point you made there, that you need to let them go unless there's a safety issue, of course.

Yes, of course.

Yes. But let them go and practice and have a few goes because you just need that, don't you? We do sort of, oh, there's something wrong, quick fix it. Oh, there's something wrong, quick fix it.

And there's no need for the instructor to impress the pupils. They're already impressed. They assume that you are one of the best skiers in the world. And so they— there is no need to impress beginners at all.

I've noticed, Richard, you're really interested in this of late. So one of your recent podcasts I listened to, you were in an indoor slope and there are coaches all kind of working together, and, and the theme was sort of setting these tasks. Am I correct?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Can you talk to us about what you know, you've sort of learned a lot from John, and then you've gone off on your own as well and really looked into this sort of ecological approach to learning and task-based learning. Do you want to add anything to what we've just talked about so far?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I've, I've, of late, I've really got into studying more the constraints-led approach and ecological dynamics and trying to understand it, but also at the same time having lots of chats with John about, hang on a minute, John, I just— this sounds so much like the work that you did, um, but in different terminology. Uh, so in those podcasts, we'd, um— this, it was a genuine coach education session, uh, for Snowsport England at the, the national conference. And we were in, in at an indoor center and had some lights down at the bottom of the hill setting a corridor width for them as an external constraint. And within that constraint, they had to do continuously linked arcs. And then we would use a focus of attention within that individually with the skiers to help them develop their performance. So some skiers were listening to the sound of their skis, others were sensing the, the shape of their turns or the symmetry of their movements in order to work within a constraint. So the, the philosophy behind this is to is to use your knowledge of biomechanics and teaching and other aspects to shape activities that create the outcomes that you're helping to, hoping to develop within your skiers or your athletes. And rather than push information onto them about the technique of it, is to extract that through their ongoing practice and shape that practice, as John mentioned.

And then, I mean, I guess the important kind of question for someone who's maybe thinking, okay, this sounds great, have you seen results yourself? And maybe even do you want to speak for yourself, you know, what, when you were doing it, how you felt through that process?

Yeah, I mean, from my point of view, uh, we have a little phrase, the task determines a behavior, or the perception of the task determines a behavior. And that's one of the things about the constraints-led approach is that you're setting up tasks that constrain the potential outcomes in some way. And I, I've definitely felt that. I've experienced the very movement-based, technique-based approaches in some of the ski instructor systems. I remember one assessment that I was doing where I had to do a particular movement pattern in plow steering of flexion and extension, which was actually contrary to the developments you might make in high-performance skiing, where you would be looking to extend a leg rather than flex a leg. But nevertheless, in order to pass this assessment, I had to do that movement pattern. But in reality, when you're working with skiers that are getting better and better and better, they need to be extending their legs and then flexing their legs to cross under and so on. So, um, the movement pattern-based thing didn't necessarily create useful outcomes in the snow. And at the end of the day, what are we after? Whether it's a recreational skier or someone going on to be the next Dave Riding, it's outcomes that you're looking to achieve, and the task-based approach is very useful for that.

Yeah.

Hey, can I share a story? So I've been at Hintertux for 7 days now. Really enjoyed it. First time here, and I'm with some other skiers, and it's a project where I'm helping a quite advanced skier maybe move up and figure out some new skills. And the thing that's really struck me, because the conditions have changed each day just a little bit, maybe softer, maybe harder— there was new snow today— is before we take off on a run I'm really with my eyes paying far more attention to the different textures I'm seeing, rollers, um, all these other things. And I mention it to people, I'm like, oh, this is probably not a good spot. I think, you know, we might— we'll end up slipping out here, we need to go somewhere else. And they're like, no, it's fine, we'll just give it a go. John, can you speak to anything you found out about like visual inputs? Because it really feels like— I really feel I've got this knowledge that I've gained from lots of time in different environments. Yeah, can you speak to that, that part? Because we talked a bit about feeling, but yeah, what about the vision?

Vision, of course, is very, very important. That beginners and more advanced and expert skiers again use their vision quite differently. Beginners are scanning the terrain to find something they can fix their eyes on, because what they're standing on is completely alien to them. We all grow up and approach skiing on flat ground. We might have to go up steps, but we don't usually spend a lot of time standing on tilted ground. So we grow up on flat ground, which is sticky to our feet and which has vertical walls and square signposts everywhere. Beginners find themselves on a slope which is featureless, tilted, and slippy. So, it has a massive effect on their total perceptual process. So, in order to make any sense of what they can see, they have to start adjusting their perceptual processes. And my model, which he said modestly, introduced in my book Skillful Skiing, is called my PET model. That is, that a skillful performance involves, while the person is doing it, the processing of sensory information influenced by all sorts of background matters which affect their perceptions, which affect their emotions, and their emotional state at that time, which can change very, very rapidly. And that influences the motor output or the techniques they perform. And an example of this is many years ago, a young lady who went on to go to the Olympic Games and then went on to become the chief executive of the International Ski Federation. When I was interviewing her, if you like, as a 12-year-old for her place in the England junior squad. She was on the ski slope and we were sending them down through some slalom poles and her local coach said to me, she sometimes hooks a tip, catches a tip on the slalom pole, and I can't see why because her skiing is otherwise excellent. So we watched her and yes, she hooked a tip. And so he said, so what do you think? And I said, well, what model do you use to analyze her skill? And he said, well, I don't, I'm not sure what you mean, but I look at the way she's skiing and see what she does with her legs and her balance and so on. I said, okay, fine. I use a different model, which is my PET model, which begins with sensory input. So just hang on a sec. And I called her mother over and I said to her mother, has, has, I won't mention her name. I said, has so-and-so, has she ever had her eyes tested? And she said, no. And I said, okay, well, before you bring her for the next session, could you take her to an optician? When she came to the next session, she was wearing glasses and she never hooked a tip until she went to the Olympic Games in 1988.

So, wow.

It was, it was a flaw in, in her visual input which was impacting on her perceptions. Yeah.

So do you think— I'm just— makes me think, I always like bringing these things back to a practical takeaway for the listener. I think it's the same story about letting them have more of a go. And I think maybe Richard can speak more to this, but then it's like on this go, can you pay attention to, you know, what you're seeing? Can you tell, like, at the bottom, I want you to be, you know, telling me if you spotted this and this, and, and then you have a discussion. Like, yeah, Richard, maybe because I remember you sort of discussing this reflection and focus of attention.

There's a couple of main focuses of attention. There are external foci of attention what you can see in the distance, something outside of you, and an internal focus of attention. So one of the processes of setting a task is often to get the skier looking ahead, scanning around, looking at a particular thing, paying attention to something outside of them, and solving that task. So that might be a constrained corridor, it might be a stubby course, it might be something else that just gets them looking outside. It might be rollers, could be bumps, all sorts of things. So they got an external focus of attention. They're intending to ski down in a particular way, solving that task. And then within that, um, task, you can then draw attention and help the skier select attention on a particular aspect of the performance. So they're then paying attention to an internal focus of attention, some sensory information. So that might be typically a sensation of feeling something or hearing something. So within the podcast, when we were in that snow dome, one of the skiers was listening to the sound of their skis, and that's a classic one, to listen to the scraping sounds. And do they sound the same on both sides, a left turn and a right turn? And if not, how can you shape that performance by drawing their focus of attention internally to those, those sounds. So, um, that's how we use it, and I'm sure we'll go on to discuss a feedback loop mechanism for exploiting that. But the real benefit of this is the skier is getting feedback all the time, and a lot of ski instructors and coaches will talk about feedback as the interaction between the instructor and the skier at the end of the performance. And actually, the skier is getting feedback, which is essentially information throughout the performance. And part of the role of a coach is to help the skier pay attention to that while solving a task. And actually, by the time they've got to the bottom, if they've done 50 turns, they've had more than 50 opportunities to pay attention to that information and get lots of information back.

Yeah, that makes me think back to what you discovered, John, in essentially in, in this foreign alien world for a beginner. Slipperiness, uh, tilted, uh, there's sounds, there's new feelings, there's all sorts of things going on. There is so much input, right? Like being in the middle of probably Shanghai on the busiest day, right? And for the first time, just overwhelming. Yes, people who live there are fine, but, um, so coaches really can help people kind of like block out this, block out this, block it, or, you know, try to just focus on this feedback that Rich is talking about. What do you feel? What do you see when you're trying to achieve this corridor? And we can discuss it at the bottom. And, and, you know, that's your way of checking whether the person is picking up on what we probably as more experienced skiers see and feel, and we could guide the task differently based on that.

We have a saying in England, don't think of pink elephants. So for the next 5 minutes, I don't want you to think of pink elephants at all. What this means is, it's more useful, as you just said, for the instructor or coach to tell the skiers what to focus on or give them a choice of a couple of things that they could be focusing on rather than tell them what not to focus on. Because the chances are halfway down the slope that would misdirect their attention. So if you, if you, if you work on the principle that once is a fluke, twice is good luck, three times is the beginning of a pattern which could be skill emerging, then let everybody have three goes at everything you ask them to do. Don't expect them to, uh, do whatever you're asking them to do well the first time. Give them 3 goes.

I think that's so good. Like, if I was doing— if I was running an association for instructors, that would be like a thing. Whenever some— 3 goes before you really do anything. I think that's, uh, really good. I wanted to ask about indoor slopes. So before you do Yeah, go ahead.

You asked about visual attention and you mentioned the rollers and the different textures. I haven't skied since COVID but just before COVID I was on holiday in Austria with a group of friends who were all intermediate skiers. And I said, okay, we're going to ski for a little bit on this slope. You can then go off and ski where you like. I'm going to go and have a cup of coffee. But they'd asked me to to help them. So I said, we'll go up the lift, and for the first run, and it's a short lift here, not— I said, for the first run, what I want you to do is just go down side-slipping or very slowly, doing short skids and so on, and inspect the terrain. Look at it, feel how slippy it is, how hard it is, what the— what And what I do is direct their attention to the colour of the snow. Is it white or is it grey? White snow and grey snow behave differently, and I want you to look ahead, travel slowly, and just investigate what the snow sounds like, feels like, according to its colour as you approach it. And then the next time they go round, they have a better understanding, if you like, a better approach, better prediction almost.

Exactly.

Yes, that's the word. Yes, they are much more able to predict probable outcomes. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And their own behaviors, predict their own behaviors in relation to those outcomes. Very good.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I've just taken a really keen interest in this, and that's why I was just really drawn to the conversation that the two of you've had And if people are listening and you want more, a lot of my questions are coming from, from this conversation. And Richard has a podcast called Locked in Shed. John Shedden. I imagine it's partly to do with your last name. And anyway, great podcast. I'll put it in the description to listen to because there's lots in there. But one thing I want to ask about that's unique and I wish we had it in Australia. Are dry slopes. The UK have dry slopes, and they also produce some really great skiers. And everyone, you know, keen technical skiers will know of Dave Riding. I wanted to know, part of that, I imagine a dry slope feels quite different. So how— what things carry over, do you think, really well in a dry slope? Because it's kind of a simplified environment that the texture is going pretty much be the same, as opposed to Hintertux, where I was on grippy snow and then really slippery ice and then sugar. And can you speak to the dry slope?

Yes, the dry slope is, uh, it's still very— there are still very varied surfaces, and even the texture can change from time to time as you go down the slope, because different parts of the slope get replaced at different times. So you have some new bits of mat and old bits of mat and and so on. But they're easy to detect visually, so once you've been up and down a couple of times, it's easy to anticipate what the textures are ahead of you. But yes, you're correct, it does feel different and it's not as slippy. Although I was at Southampton on one occasion and I was working with a group of kids and they all started cheering, and I said, why are you cheering? And they said, look, look, And I looked behind me and they said, it's going to rain in a minute. And they were really looking forward to the pouring rain, which would make the plastic surface much more slippy for them. So they were enjoying that. So, but it's very limited in its range. On the other hand, it requires technical precision. If you're clumsy or the quality of the technical elements of your movements are not very good, then, um, you don't get the outcome that's expected.

I've got a good game then, because I've never done— I've never skied a dry slope. So I'll ask Richard first. Richard, what would you get me to pay— like, what task, and what would you get me to pay attention to, given I've done a lot of snow skiing but I want to go hit the dry slope?

I'd get you doing continuously linked arcs, and we'd explore different corridors. Um, get you familiar with it first and do some of the activities that John mentioned about looking at the slope and feeling your way and, and feeling the properties of it. Uh, but yeah, I'd get you doing continuously linked arcs, taking in the terrain that was there, and then, uh, possibly changing the task to, uh, it to change the movement intensities, um, and, and get more sensory information back from the slope and, and that sort of thing.

Yeah, do you— I mean, do you think it would take many goes? Am I, am I going to feel like quite a big difference, or there's sort of like— can you steer easily?

I feel like for a skier of your— for a skier of your ability, it would take 10 minutes for you to adjust to the surface, um, provided the slope has been designed well. And I say that because It's not snow, and therefore it only behaves like snow between certain limits. If it's too steep or too shallow, then, um, depending on what speed you're traveling at or what you're trying to do, it won't behave like snow. So the designer of the slope has to put gradients in it, if it's big enough, which will account for how fast the skiers are likely to be traveling at that point which could be very different for different people of different sizes and so on. But you have had dry slopes, outdoor dry slopes in Australia over a couple of years. There used to be one in Adelaide. And in fact, one of the most expert persons in the world around indoor snow slopes is an Australian, um, and he, I believe, is currently working in the new snow dome that's going to be opening soon just outside Sydney.

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Yeah, I'm excited for that because it's a long way usually to travel for snow. And I think, I think it's great, like, these, these environments, sort of like a dry slope, like an indoor slope, which Richard has access to you know, gives you the opportunity to kind of practice in these more sort of simplified environments, which when learning a new task is one of the first things you say has to be there, right? Is that right, John?

Yes, we use again a model of progression which says you do single tasks in a very simple environment, and then you make the tasks more complex in the same environment, So variety of activity, and then you extend the variety of environment, which requires some adjustments of the variety of techniques, tasks, until eventually the performer can perform in a wide variety of environments by changing the way they do maneuvers according to the environment. So we use a very simple progression of simple tasks to variable tasks to adaptable behavior. It's based on the change of the learning environment from being what we call a closed environment, something very simple and consistent and relatively the same every time you attempt it, which a small artificial slope would be, progressing through to a changing environment which is becoming more open.

I think that's an interesting one, this idea of skill, because for me, I would like to know when I use that word, it has a, like, the proper meaning. So maybe Richard, you've spoken a lot with John about this. Do you want to explain, like, skill acquisition from what you understand and this word skill?

Yeah, well, I mean, skill, you used the word predictable earlier on. And in shorthand, you can think of skill as predictability split up in two words, predict ability.

Ability.

Okay. Yeah.

So we used within the National Coaching Scheme, a very slight variation on a definition created by Barbara Knapp. In the 1960s, I think it was, wasn't it, John?

'64.

Skill is the learned ability to bring about predetermined results effectively and efficiently. So there's something to do with outcome and there's something to do with the effectiveness and the efficiency and the predictability of creating that outcome.

Can I, it just made me think of this situation exactly today. So we've had we had this 5 to 10 centimeters beautiful snow. It was really cold, it's a little bit grippy, not too fast. And they'd recently put up a FIS mogul course, so they had 4 lines, jump, and then a jump, and then, and then more zipline moguls. And no one was skiing it. There was one, one group actually that skied the left, but there was like 3 lines of moguls with powder in it. And I love moguls. And so I said to a friend, I was like, let's go over and ski that. Um, but I remember standing at the top, and because there was wind and I could see, you know, what was going on, uh, you know, more powder on the right-hand side than the left, I'd sort of predicted how it was going to be. And, uh, I see what you mean about skill. I, I was like, I think I can do this. I've been in similar situations and it's gone well. I think I know what I need to focus on, where, where to put my attention. And yeah, and then I went down, I had like a great run. But you're so right, because other times you'd come, you come to a place like another situation that day, big rollover, new snow on top of off-piste refrozen stuff. And then I said, I don't know if this is going to go very well. And yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't nearly as good. It took a lot more turns to kind of feel it out. But I love what you said there, this predictability part, because that resonates with me. I look at something and I go, yep, the skill, I've got the skill because I've done it before. I already think that I'm gonna be able to do it.

And I like, I have this thing called giggle moments. So for instance, if you've predicted how you're gonna be able to ski down this slope and it doesn't go quite to plan, is rather than get head up about it, it's just to giggle about it and pop that in the memory bank for next time around. And another— on another occasion, I was out in Norway with a group of the instructors from MySlope, and we were doing a fun preseason week, doing some coaching and whatnot. And we were on a slope a bit like the one behind me on the screen, off to the side. And I've still got the video footage of one of my skiers saying, I don't like this, I'm going to fall over. And she was set off. I said, just enjoy yourself. She set off and she went boom, boom, boom, splat. And I just shouted out, that was really skillful, you know. You predicted that. But next time, if you want to be more skillful, can you tell me which turn you're going to fall over on?

Yeah, but it's so true. I think that part, like, that's this— what I really wanted to share with people is so much of learning is putting people in environments and situations where they can learn on their own, not by, you know, at the end of the day I learned Tom told me that my outside arm should be lower. You know, I— it's— if, if— yeah, do you know what I'm saying there? I just think that's a really important thing, and I'm trying to change my coaching to really be focused on, on a task, um, then really figuring out a problem. Um, yeah, it's just way more fun too. We all love problem solving.

Yes. And the example you've just given there is one that we use quite often in the constraints-led approach that Richard was talking about. You might ask a skier to go down and they— you say to them, well, what do you notice? They say, well, there's something not quite right with what I'm doing. Okay. We might, let's say for the sake of argument, be working on symmetry. Because most people have one side dominant than the other. But to be a really competent skier, you need to be as symmetrical as possible with both the control and management of your, of your movements. And so quite often you can say to a skier, this time as you're skiing down, I want you to notice how high your hands are and whether one is higher than the other. And they might be down here by your knees, they might be here by your hips, they might be up here by your shoulders. Where are they? Just on the way down, just ask yourself, where are my hands? How high are they? And is one higher than the other? You don't have to answer all those questions at once because you're on the way down. You can do it in sequence. And you can see them move their arms, move their hands, and by the time they're halfway down the slope, they've adjusted them so they're both symmetrical and they are now— don't need Tom to tell them that the left hand is higher than the right because they found that out for themselves.

Using the constraints-led approach, Tom, for instance, I, I think you ski with variable length poles, so you could change the length of your poles. With activities like this, you could do something that creates sensory input within the skier. So you, for instance, if they're skiing around all the time with their right hand higher than their left hand, is actually make them carry something heavier in their right hand, or perhaps make them ski with a longer pole in their right hand so it is heavier, and they suddenly notice that actually when they're pole planting, they've got to raise their hand a heck of a long way, and they become aware of that asymmetry. Or sometimes we flip it the other way. So rather than draw attention to the error, if you like, as it's, it's called within the Constraints-Led Approach, rather than magnifying the error, you magnify the other side, which is doing good in our perception and create an error there. And then they go, oh, I don't like that. And then they've got information within their bodies to change that behavior. So typically, if someone's holding one hand higher than the other, there's some asymmetry somewhere within the body. It might be a muscular tension, for instance, or something else physiological, but quite often it's a muscular tension. And you could ask the skier to ski with the most tense arms they possibly could and then get them to switch that off to give them some calibration.

Yeah, I remember doing this season in, in Thredbo, uh, some just carved linked carve turns, and I was holding my poles, the old classic, you know, Trey kind of exercise out in front. But I, I told myself, because I've seen on video that my left arm does like to be higher often than the right. There was a difference. I just said, I'm going to pay attention to that this entire run. And I probably had about 15 turns in these sections. And it's incredible because I was there in the turn, I'm like, there, there's that arm. And the other side, dead level. And there it was again. And then I had moments to change it, and it was so cool to really recognize that rather than like try and keep my left arm down I really needed to be sort of— I needed to be able to sense it a few times and just notice it and really realize, wow, it's, you know, not just in if I push the limits, it's even if I do it fairly in my comfort zone. But then I started to like feel the different muscular tension I had to do and the sensation and changing, arranging my body to make it, uh, level. But it was, it was just, again, it was such a cool problem to solve. And, and I think if you have this kind of approach to your teaching, or even if you're just— you're your own skier, you go out and you think, to enjoy this day, I'm going to give myself a few problems to, to fix, then it doesn't matter if it's a raining day or if there's hardly any snow or you're in an indoor dome or wherever. The whole day becomes like far more interesting. I mean, what do you guys think of that?

I envy you in some ways because you obviously get an enormous amount of joy from the skiing that you do. And when I— I haven't, I haven't skied in front of the people I've been working with for 40 years or more. When I was coaching the national team, on one occasion we were in Bulgaria, and at the end of the day session I had this free run on my own, and a member of the squad said to to a colleague of mine as they were going up the lift, who's that? And Colin, his name was, said, oh, that's John. And he said, John who? He said, John Shannon, you know. He said, blimey, I didn't even know he could ski, you know. So my skiers didn't need to see me ski. I was not a model that they should copy. And on another occasion in northern Italy, I was going up the lift with a man called Malcolm Erskine, who operates an academy in the Alps now, but at the time he was in the national squad. And we're going up the lift and he said, John, do you mind if I ask you a question? And I said, no, of course not. He said, well, I saw you skiing before and why do you ski with this funny crook in your left elbow? I said, I don't know, I had no idea I was doing it. And so By asking me the question, it drew my attention to it, and the next time I had an opportunity to free ski, then I noticed that I did have a crook in my left elbow, and I embraced that. I just said, oh yeah, there's the crook in my left elbow. And but gradually it changed. Every time I noticed I was crooking my left elbow, I straightened the arm more and lowered the hands. And after maybe maybe a few hours of free skiing, I changed the style. But then, because I didn't ski very often in, in, in that sense, um, years later it started to creep back in again. So it's— I suspect that in me was, um, an influence to a coach. If I'd have been— if I'd have been being coached at the time, the coach might have questioned me about my background and discovered that I'd had high anxiety when I was an earlier skier. And that because in ski races, hooked, crooked elbows is often an indication of inappropriate anxiety when they're partway down the course. And sometimes you need to remove the source of the anxiety. Sometimes you just need to remove its symptom. So by straightening the arm, you can lower your anxiety level.

Um, you kind of break that loop, that connection of— yes, you know, that— yeah, the reaction there.

That's really—

I wanted to ask you too, John, if I could go back in time, the one person I would love to spend time questioning, uh, finding out, you know, their deepest thoughts about ski— skiing technique is Georges Hubert. And yeah, have you— did you ever get to meet and hang out with this? You did?

No, sadly no.

Did he influence you at all?

Oh yes, very much so. In the '60s, he, he wrote, um, uh, well, he wrote several books, but the, the, the first book that influenced me or struck me was How to Ski the New French Way. And he wrote that as a coach, formerly the coach of Jean Voynet, who won the first gold medal on metal skis in 1960, and then coach subsequently of others in the team, Patrick Roussel and others. But by the time he wrote that book, he was a professor at Grenoble University and was coach to ski racers at Grenoble University. Some of whom were in the French national team. And he wrote How to Ski the New French Way as a subtle dig at the old French way. The old French way being the French ski school method, the École de Ski Française way of teaching skiing. What he was saying was coaching skiers is very much an individual thing. If you're a coach and you're coaching a skier or skiers, You coach them each individually according to their needs and their development stage and their aspirations. Whereas what ski instructors do is sell a product which is being promoted within the tourist industry. And so the French ski school and French ski instructors all have to teach the same thing because the tourist industry requires that they can move from place to place. It's the same in Austria. It was the same in America. It may still be, I don't know. Certainly the same in lots of different places. And so the distinction between helping an individual and helping and teaching the national method, if you like, was pinpointed very strongly by Joubert. And he married a Bulgarian lady who had a relative who worked at Southampton Ski Slope, because when we, when we used to take our national junior squad to Bulgaria, it was a communist country and they weren't allowed out. But when the wall came down and communism fell, then lots of Bulgarians who'd been in the ski team and whom we raced against came to Britain and said, can we, can we work on the dry ski slopes? And one of them worked at Southampton and Joubert came over to, to visit this guy, and unfortunately it was the day after I'd, uh, I'd left, um, because if I'd have known he was coming, I would have certainly stayed. But yes, a very inspirational character with a very good eye and, uh, a big—

I think a good way of explaining what, what struck me reading— the one I really like is Skiing and Art: A Technique. How it's, it's written almost as how we're describing it. Like, this is what you're going to feel, this is the, the first task I want you to do, this is the next one, and if you have a problem here, then maybe you're going too fast. But, or, you're going to need to do 100, 200 repetitions of this before you should expect to really get any kind of accomplishment. So don't worry, keep going. And it was rather than, you know, you should have a break at the waist and the hands should be here and da da da da da It was just really describing what he felt and, and what you should just go and just do on your own.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think what you're doing with your podcasts and the way you, uh, coach via the, the internet is the modern, the modern version of writing books and, and helping people. In, in, you know, 50 years ago when I wrote my books um, there was no internet, of course. And, and so what, what you say in a book is very limited, and there's no possibility for a conversation, whereas you clearly have conversations with your skiers, and both of you benefit from that process. And technology is wonderful in, in that respect.

Yeah, I would agree. I've embraced it rather than living in a country that doesn't have great snow, I've embraced the challenge of not being able to be with my student right there and, and have to think about how I would construct an environment or a task or whatever it is so they would feel like they're getting better.

Yeah.

So yeah, it is interesting because I've thought I'd love to one day write a book, but it's much easier in a way to create videos with visuals and, and all that sort of stuff. So I can imagine it took quite a bit of work to write your book.

Oh well, I was the director of coaching at the time, and the book— I, I wrote 6 books in all, but the, the main ones, Skillful Skiing, Developing Your Skill, and so on, were actually written as background textbooks for the coaching scheme. So it was part of my job. And the money that was— publishers paid the money to my employer, not to me, because they were publishing something which I was writing on behalf of our trainee coaches and trainee instructors and so on. It's quite difficult. Coaching in skiing is very different from coaching in swimming or other activities. I had a coach. I was a swimmer before I was a skier. So when I was a teenager, I was in a team and the coach was a coach of some Olympic team members, but I didn't know whether he could swim or not. There was never ever any need for him to show me skiing, swimming. Hence my view that there was never any need for me to show my skiers what my skiing was like.

Your own skiing. Yes, Richard, you were going to say— you were maybe going to mention that— did you talk about the feedback loop enough? Was there something else you were going to talk about in regards to that? Um, and if you could make it a great takeaway to help kind of wrap up this discussion, because I feel like you, you've got some really good knowledge, you've really gone deep on, on this sort of constraints-led approach. I want people to go away with like a real actionable kind of coaching, um, bit of advice.

Well, we, we use, um, a feedback tool called the intention-attention feedback loop. It's in one of the podcasts that I recorded with John in the Snowdome at the conference. And you, the skier sets off with an intention, and that might be to ski a particular corridor down the slope, so constrained by that corridor. they're going to make rhythmically linked arcs, and then they're going to pay attention to something within the performance. So let's say the sound of the skis. They pay attention to that, and they're intending to make more sound at the beginning of the arc than later in the arc, something along those lines. And through that coaching negotiation, you've come up with that activity so they can pay attention to that and really focusing on that bit of sensory information. And then at the end of the run, they get some terminal feedback with the coach. And that isn't, you're rubbish at skiing, take up another sport. It's not that kind of terminal. It's at the end. Okay, so at the end, the skier reports their feedback. This is what I was intending to do. This is what I was paying attention to. Okay, what did you notice about your focus of attention? I noticed this.

Okay, so for example, I noticed I could make a louder start on my left foot than my right.

Indeed, yeah.

And then hopefully the coach can see that information and is able to help calibrate the skier's perceptions. So just as we've had a conversation earlier on about arms and arm positioning and not noticing that one elbow is crooked and the other one wasn't, and it needed that attention to be brought to it. It's a similar process here. So the skier has been focusing in on a particular aspect of the performance that's observable by the coach, and then that helps calibrate perceptions. So we've all got our perceptions. A way that I describe this with many of my skiers is we all have our signature turns. I bet, Tom, when you set off down a hill that you are completely unthreatened by, that you'll do certain type of skiing. It's your signature. We all do it, uh, and we therefore become very, very accustomed to what that feels like. So a classic example here is when skiers say, I don't like the feel of that, and I say, well, it just possibly that it's different. I was working with a skier last night on our local slope who was doing some, making some really, really significant changes to their skiing. It was wonderful to watch. And when I showed her it on video, she's kind of looking at it going, oh right, is that me? And then it went slightly off the boil and she reverted to some earlier behaviors, and more dominant behaviors. And that felt better to her.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, actually, this process helps you feel new sensations. And I talk about it as being putting some new sensations in your armory that you can choose to use. Whereas if we just stay in the comfort zone, if it all feels right, then we're not necessarily developing. And this intention-attention feedback loop is a great way of doing it. And exploiting the in-performance feedback that the skier is getting in every single turn.

Yes, great. Okay. So intention, have your intention of what you're gonna do. Attention, what you're gonna focus on with that intention. And then at the bottom, reflecting on how that— because you can do it without a coach. it's great with a coach as well because then you can— they're giving you perspective from what they're seeing versus what you're feeling. And, but it doesn't also have to be— you can use video, I suppose.

You can, and you can use things like the Carv units. I know you're out playing with those and doing video of those right now. I've just paid for my upgrade and hoping to use those in Tucks in a couple of weeks' time. I've used those, for instance, along with video feedback on my own skiing because I have an asymmetry in the support against my left foot compared with the support against my right foot. And I use that, um, objective information to help me figure out what was going on, because people I work with couldn't figure out what was going on. But I could see on the video, and I could feel that there's an asymmetry there. And trying to figure out how to fix it, I had the metrics that helped me with that. And in that case, that was the the inclination figures as to whether the inclination was the same on both legs going around the corner, and it wasn't. And I was able to calibrate that with the video, and that became my focus of attention. I'm intending to incline my inside leg more on one side, on one side than the other, and really pay attention to that. And that's my sole focus. And it just becomes much richer, kind of, um, uh, seam to mine, to, yes, exploit that again on every single turn. And then you get that bit— in my case, you hear the scream out loud when I know it hasn't gone right. Yeah, you could hear that on the video too, and you know which turn it was on. Oh yeah, he's screaming on that one, and yeah, we know why.

Yeah, brilliant. Awesome. Well, yeah, go ahead, John.

I know you want to finish, but if I may, I'd just like to add an additional bit. It's, it's related to some of the questions. One of the values of this intention-attention approach and the constraints-led approach is that you can change the sequence in which the instructor or coach gives feedback to the performer by— normally the first response when someone skis down the slope is to say that was good, or it wasn't good, or it was rubbish, or it could have been better. If that's a value judgment, and what the brain needs, what the skier needs, is objective information of the sort that Richard was just talking about. And this was brought home to me very clearly. I was in the 1980s. I was working with a gentleman called Franz Klammer, who at the time was the world's best downhill ski racer. And we were in Bad Klankirchheim, his home village, and I was asking him to do something. And when he'd done it, I said, Franz, that was, that was good, that was really— you did that well. And he said, John, you don't need to tell me I'm good, I know I'm good, I've won 25 World Cups. I want you to tell me what you saw. What was going on? And that brought home to me the very clear distinction between making a value judgment and then giving him some useful information, information he needed to know about what I saw.

I told him, yes, like you were gliding on a flatter ski for longer, on like, that would be an objective bit of feedback as opposed to great, the great job. I love those terms. Yeah, you're so right. That has been so easy for us.

In actual fact, he was skiing slightly asymmetrically, and he was beginning one turn by moving his hip out to his left before he worked with his left foot. The other way, he was moving his right foot out before he moved the hip. And so I said to him, okay, if you want to know what I noticed, this is what I noticed. And he said, you're the first person who's had the courage to tell me that since I was 16 years old working with Hubert Pirchner, who was his coach when he was in the junior team. And he thanked me for the description of what I saw, which enabled him to have another go and then notice that that's what he was doing. And that sent a very powerful message to me, which I then introduced into our coaching scheme, that you should give what I saw is this before you value it. Uh, you might not even need to value it. They might just say, oh, thanks, good, and off they go.

Yeah, yeah, that's— that is, that is a great way to end it because I think it is just so easy to say good job. I even noticed sometimes I do with my 7-year-old son, like, yeah, instead of like, oh, you— because he loves soccer, football, you know, I noticed you, you 'You're kicking better with your left foot,' rather than, 'You had a great game, Archie.' And, you know, I noticed that, that, that change, uh, there is going to help him notice what I'm seeing change, or whatever it is, in, in his actions. So, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Um, I think there's far more we could get into, uh, on this topic, and, and I'd really encourage people again to go check out the Locked in Shed podcast because there's a lot, a lot in there. It's really well edited. And, uh, split up into sort of different topics, which is really helpful. So you can kind of pick away at it as you go for a walk with the dog or on your commute to work, that sort of thing. And, um, yeah, I feel very privileged to have spoken with you both. And John, your contribution, I think, to snow sports is, is fantastic. So thank you for spending some time, yeah, chatting with us today.

That's very kind of you, very kind of you.

No, very true. So yeah, and thank you, Richard. I look forward to you continuing more episodes because I've, I've, I love that you're right into this, uh, the ecological dynamics on a sort of view on, on skiing. I think it's really necessary to bring this into, into the ski world because I think it's very much on the lower end of, of what is being delivered to skiers when they go and take a lesson these days. So I hope this brings about more instructors, people listening here, taking that on and applying it. So, yeah.

Well, my challenge, one last challenge to those instructors, is this: if you feel the need to dispense some technical information to your skier, rather than do that, work out a task you could give them that solves the issue without telling them what it is.

100%. That's, that's what— that's— yep, we'll leave it right there. Good luck, everyone. I hope everyone enjoys that process.