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Sports coaching case studies in technique correction using the Old Way New Way^® method of coaching sport.

Sports coaching

• Olympic javelin
• Olympic sprinting
• Olympic hammer
• Cricket
• Soccer
• Golf
• Anger management
• Football skills
• Kicking skills
• Running
• Physiotherapy

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Sports coaching: Rapid technique correction case studies

Rapid technique correction using Old Way New Way^®: Two case studies with Olympic athletes

Abstract of a paper published in The Sport Psychologist, 2002, 16, 79-99.
Yuri Hanin, Research Institute for Olympic Sports, Finland.
Tapio Korjus and Petteri Jouste, Finnish Sports Association, Finland;
Paul Baxter, personalbest.com.au, Brisbane.

"Exploratory studies examine the effectiveness of Old Way New Way^®, an innovative meta-cognitive learning strategy initially developed in education settings, in the rapid and permanent correction of established technique difficulties experienced by two Olympic athletes in javelin and sprinting. Individualized interventions included video-assisted error analysis, step-wise enhancement of kinesthetic awareness, re-activation of the error memory, discrimination and generalization of the correct movement pattern. Self-reports, coach's ratings and video recordings were used as measures of technique improvement. A single learning trial produced immediate and permanent technique improvement (80% or higher correct action) and full transfer of learning, without the need for the customary adaptation period. Findings are consistent with the performance enhancement effects of Old Way New Way^® demonstrated experimentally in non-sport settings."

Cricket coaching: Old Way New Way^® speeds up recovery from a performance slump

How Australian Test Cricket pace bowler Jason Gillespie (real name) overcame technical difficulties (as reported by Neil Cross in The Advertiser, Adelaide, on 13 November 1997 (reproduced here with permission), on 20 November and on 21 November by David Burtenshaw and on 26 August 1998 by Trevor Marshallsea in Dublin)

Australian Test paceman Jason Gillespie could make a surprise return to the first-class arena before Christmas.

Gillespie's recovery from stress fractures in his back has been faster than expected but there is universal agreement that he will not be rushed into a premature return to the field.

South Australian coach Andrew Sincock, who has overseen the rehabilitation process, said Gillespie appeared to have overcome the technical difficulties which were pinpointed as the cause of his stress fractures.

"I'm reticent to predict an actual time for his SA comeback but it could be before Christmas," Sincock said. "What we will do is wait until he is ready and then wait another week."

Gillespie had been bowling consistently off 6-7 paces at South Australian training in the past two weeks and in private sessions has even attempted his long run.

Sincock will supervise the paceman during an internal trial match next Wednesday and Thursday. Gillespie is expected to bowl exclusively off the shortened approach for three spells of three overs.

Like his coaches, he does not want to speculate on when he will be ready to again lead an attack.

"Our intention in this is that he will bowl faster with a better line and more swing control than before and in a way which will reduce the stress on his body," Sincock said.

Gillespie has been working hard on rectifying the problems with his action. Two months ago a group of experts, including Australian coach Geoff Marsh, Australian team physiotherapist Errol Alcott, fast bowling great Dennis Lillee and Sincock set down a program of strengthening and conditioning for Gillespie. It was felt he would take up to six month to return to bowling at first class level.

But Lillee said yesterday the improvement in his action was "quite phenomenal".

"He is looking very, very grooved in getting the action right over six or seven paces," he said. "There is no pain at when he bowls which is the first time in many years and proves what he is doing is correct."

"He will be off his long run in the next week or two. As long as he keeps those good lines I see no reason he should not be playing Shield cricket very soon."

South Australia will play three more Sheffield Shield games before Christmas. Gillespie obviously won't start in the match against Western Australia which begins at the Adelaide Oval tomorrow but there is a chance he will be passed fit for the clash with Victoria in Melbourne at the end of the month or the home clash with New South Wales which starts on December 19.

The Redbacks selectors might also be tempted to include Gillespie in the one-day line-up for the December 12 match with Western Australia in Perth.

Lillee said that it is important for Gillespie to be satisfied that he was ready and not just have a go. "I would hate it if he came back too soon," he said. "I have seen him and I think at this stage, at six or seven paces, he is very much on the right track."

But Lillee cautioned the real test for Gillespie would be his reaction to a long day in the field and being asked to bowl long spells in the heat. "As I have warned him, its a monitoring process all the way. It took me 18 months to get back in the right groove and even then I was not happy with the first action," Lillee said.

Gillespie has worked diligently with Sincock and educational psychologist Harry Lyndon in a bid to bring forward the date of his return to the bowling crease.

Lyndon, who works in the field of skill correction and accelerated learning, has been working on Gillespie's ability to recognise when he strays from the new action that is required.

"We are trying to modify the old action and create a new way of delivering the ball," Sincock said. "In due course, we will eradicate the old way."

Gillespie has been playing club cricket as a batsman in the lower grades so far this season with frustratingly limited success. It is clear he would like a return to bowling as a means of filling in long days in the field as much as anything else. (The Advertiser, 13 November 1997)

New Look Gillespie Off Leash. The Advertiser, 21 November 1997.

The main aim of Jason Gillespie's revised bowling action is to correct a minor fault - the incorrect landing of his front foot on arrival at the crease.

By pushing his left leg too far to the right in his delivery stride and twisting his torso, Gillespie compounded the strain on his lower back.

At the end of his new run-up he focuses on planting the left boot straighter down the wicket, staying upright at the point of delivery and then following through in the same direction.

Faull Finds Form. The Advertiser. 20 November 1997.

A call of the coin yesterday postponed Jason Gillespie's next step in his recovery process from back problems.

The big paceman was expected to bowl during the opening day of a South Australian State Squad trial on Adelaide No.2 but his side, led by Martin Faull, won the toss and chose to bat.

Gillespie instead worked out for about 30 minutes in the nets, ecouragingly off close to his full run and at near full pace. He was closely monitored by Redback's coach Andrew Sincock, who has been responsible for the technical changes to the paceman's action since he broke down on the Ashes tour, and educational psychologist Harry Lyndon, who has been working on Gillespie's recognition and self-correction of his old habits.

Sincock said he had been encouraged by the pace Gillespie was generating while Lyndon made it clear that there was no reason for the Australian quick not to play first-class cricket again before Christmas.

Update 1 Because of an injury he sustained to his heel, Jason's return to first class cricket has unfortunately been delayed.

Update 2, 26 August 1998 On tour in Ireland, Gillespie has recovered from his heel problems. His new bowling action has reduced the pressure on his lower back.

His progress has given Australian cricket good grounds for optimism that he will soon take his rightful place among world-class bowlers against England this Ashes summer.

According to Trevor Marshallsea's report, Gillespie said, "It's pretty hard to change your bowling action totally but it seems to be working well."

Gillespie has, "straightenened up at the point of delivery to stop his front foot crossing in front of his right and to better control his leading arm. "It's putting less strain on my back and I've noticed a difference."

Gillespie scored 3/49 from 12 overs in the first innings of Australia's 150 run win against Ireland.

Update 3, 6 September 1999 On tour in Sri Lanka, Gillespie achieved a personal best ....

Soccer coaching: Old Way New Way^® empowers an elite soccer player to take personal control of change

Unsolicited comments on Old Way New Way^® from a member of the South Australian National Women's Soccer League Team (National Champions 1999; Runner Up 1998, 1997).

For the first time, I felt like I was in charge, not the ball! I could control where the ball went or predict where it would go.

There was so much less guesswork involved. Instead of relying on various tricks that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, I knew that if I got my foot next to the ball, kept my head down and followed straight through that the ball would go straight ahead. I was in charge, not the coach.

For the first time, I don't feel like kicking is something that I can only do well when a coach who I understand is watching over my kicks and correcting poor technique.

Now I don't only understand good technique in theory; I understand how my body needs to move to put it into practice. (I never found it very easy to learn kicking technique from [coach's name], for whatever reasons. And I didn't know how to improve the technique on my own. Now I know how to do that.)

It is a different kind of understanding or knowing than I had before.

Old Way New Way^® has been great because I practice kicking less often and it improves significantly more that it used to!! That is, it helps me work smart instead of just hard. The "return" from Old Way New Way^®, i.e, the benefit gained for the time put in, is excellent.

For the first time, I have seen real improvement in my kicking during games as well as during training. I think this is because I know the technique well enough in my own mind that I can do it under pressure and quickly.

My coach can see the improvement. This time, when I finally said to [....], after he told me how bad my kicking was that I thought my kicking was much more accurate, the kicking didn't let me down in the following game and even [....] said that it was great! Miracles will never cease!

It is a technique that I can use to obtain further improvements in kicking and in other areas of my game.

I feel so much better about my kicking and am so much more confident in myself about it. Now, at club, players that I respect want me to cross the ball to them instead of someone else because I can cross a decent ball.

I am sure that the confidence I feel with kicking is impacting on other areas of my game, for example, people are telling me I have really good "vision" and I think it is because I can finally put a ball where I want to put it.

Why was Old Way New Way^® so helpful? What makes it work well? In my opinion, the presence of both sports psychologist and coach is critical, particularly in a situation where a coach has (possibly justifiable) preconceptions about the inability of the player concerned to execute the relevant technique.

For me, with respect to kicking, I think Old Way New Way^® taught me to focus on one thing at a time and to focus on direction rather than other aspects of kicking technique such as whether it was good strike or went the distance, or whatever. A successful kick was one that went straight, even if it felt terrible to kick and went along the ground instead of going in the air. Once I was able to kick consistently and strike a ball so that it went straight ahead, it was easy to make it go in the air and get more distance.

As a result of doing Old Way New Way^® I now think that the way to work at increasing distance is not so much to practice long kicks but to practice kicking technique over a shorter distance. Once that is right it seems to me to be much easier to get the distance.

The Old Way New Way^® sessions were the first time, I think, that I had ever had a coach actually work through with me in one session all the different things needed for good kicking technique. Most of what we talked about I had heard before, e.g., foot next to the ball, head down, follow through, toe down, etc., but never all at the same time and in a way that helped me put all of them together into one kicking technique. It was really important to build up a "new way" from all of those little things.

As well as learning a "new way", I learned how to trigger it - that there were a few things that if I got right the rest would follow.

Golf coaching: Golf pro uses Old Way New Way^® to overcome an established technique problem

Roger Stephens, the golf pro at South Lakes Golf Club, Goolwa, South Australia, used Old Way New Way^® to quickly eradicate a flaw in his downswing that had resisted correction for 15 years.

Golf professional Roger Stephens (real name) had always been taught from an early age that the power in your downswing comes from the knees and legs.

So, to give your swing more power you had to drive your right knee towards the ball. However, this movement started a sequence of events that led to the development of a flaw in his downswing.

In his own words, "First, my head would move away from the ball to counter balance my body. This would force forward the swing path of the club head so that it traveled left of target. Furthermore, as my right knee moved towards the ball the downswing path was blocked by my right knee. As a result I would lose 'space' and 'width.' "

"Since the downswing takes only 0.25 second I couldn't 'feel' anything to help me make the required changes to what I was doing wrong."

Roger said he had been trying to correct this technique difficulty for some 15 or more years, without success.

In 1997 Roger heard about a new method for overcoming technique difficulties when he met Harry Lyndon, the developer of Old Way New Way^®, a new method for accelerating skill correction. Harry's interest in golf and Roger's wealth of professional experience combined to help Roger decide to try Old Way New Way^® on the long-standing problem with his downswing.

Old Way New Way^® quickly helped Roger make two important changes in his downswing. The first change was that Roger came to "feel" what his right knee was doing during the downswing. This was something he was unable to be aware of before, despite many attempts at correction.

The second important change Roger experienced was that he was able, through the Old Way New Way^® procedure, to make his body quickly change from the "old" habitual swing to a "new" swing in which the knee did not get in the way of the balI and his head did not shift position.

"I was able to feel the old swing flaw as never before and then make the change to my preferred new way with a new right knee action and was able to 'feel' my new way as never before, making the change quickly", Roger explained.

Remarkably, these improvements took only 20 minutes to accomplish.

Furthermore, there was no period of adjustment required with the new swing, as you would expect with more conventional skill correction methods and even more importantly the new improved downswing remained a permanent part of Roger's game.

Golf coaching: Young aspiring golfer learns how to manage anger with Old Way New Way^®

Eddie, aged 15 with a handicap of 5 after two years playing golf, is a rising star but things look bleak because he finds he cannot control his angry outbursts when he plays a bad shot, so he loses both his concentration and the game.

Sports psychologists teach athletes and players useful mental skills and how these can be used to improve sports performance.

As useful as these skills are, it usually takes quite a bit of prolonged, effortful practice to acquire mental skills, especially if you are not used to playing that way. In other words, before you can learn new mental skills you have to change your own, established, habitual ways of playing the "mental" part of the game.

Since old habits die hard we now know that simply "practising over and over" a mental (or physical) skill will not help you learn it quickly. In fact, it can take you up to 2,000 repetitions (practices) of the new way before it becomes an established part of your game.

Instead of just practice, we need to use Old Way New Way^® to quickly change our old ways into new and better ways.

An example will illustrate how Old Way New Way^® can be used to help a player overcome a problem with "anger". The problem I describe and the solution we used applies equally to all sports.

Eddie is a young golfer with excellent potential. After playing only two years he has a handicap of five. At the age of 15 he has been singled out for special advanced coaching and is expected to, "make it big", one day not too far away.

However, this rising star has a serious problem. Whenever he makes a bad mistake in competitive play he "loses it" in a grand way. His language is formidable and while he does not actually throw clubs he pretty well does everything else.

His anger, of course, is directed at himself. His frustration at not being able to perform as he feels he should gets the better of him and explodes into uncontrollable outbursts.

The down side of all this is that Eddie's concentration is affected by his angry outbursts. After such an explosion the rest of his game is in tatters and he is unable to recover.

Eddie has come to believe that he cannot change himself and that the situation is completely beyond his control. His coach and his father who is also his best supporter have tried everything and told him not to be so hard on himself, all without success.

His coach and his father say that he will eventually "grow out of it" but it has got to the stage it is seriously affecting his game and is retarding his progress. Clearly, Eddie knows what he is doing wrong (getting angry); he knows what he should be doing instead (not getting angry and concentrating on his game); but he cannot make the change.

Having failed to control his anger early on and thereby allowing it to happen over and over, he inadvertently "practiced" getting upset and angry. Whatever you practice you will learn, so it soon became a habit pattern.

Eddie is now the prisoner of habit. It will take him quite some time, frustration and expense before he gets over this problem.
Eddie's father called me in to help with this problem and we spent two hours finding out why Eddie gets so angry and then helping him quickly learn some mental skills that would give him more control.

Psychology helps explain how your beliefs about your abilities lead to certain expectations about your performance and, when these are frustrated, how your emotions are aroused to an extent where your concentration suffers and your game falls apart.

Eddie's predicament is a good example of how the "mental side of the game", namely personal beliefs, expectations and emotions all interact to influence physical performance in sport.

During the session it became clear that Eddie believes in his golfing ability. Deep down, he knows he is good; he believes that one day he will be a great golfer. These are all quite realistic beliefs, based on his phenomenal progress to date and the constant reminders from his coach and his father that he will surely make it to the top. They believe in him and it shows, and this reinforces his own beliefs.

These beliefs lead Eddie to have certain expectations about his level of performance. For example, he expects that he should not make serious mistakes. To Eddie, making mistakes means "failure". Mistakes threaten his fast track to success. Mistakes are totally inconsistent with his abilities and general performance. Mistakes are "bad".

Whenever Eddie plays a bad stroke in an important match he sets off this string of negative self talk that triggers his emotions and produces his uncontrolled angry outbursts. His anger then gets the better of him, makes him lose concentration and then his game falls apart.

The fact that his self expectations are totally unrealistic is the crux of Eddie's problem.

Despite the best advice and assistance, he is unable to shake these ingrained misconceptions.

Having identified the problem, we spent the second hour changing Eddie's deep-seated ideas about his "mistakes".
Eddie's (incorrect) "own ways" were identified as:

• "I should not be making a mistake"
• "Mistakes are bad"
• "If I make a mistake I'll lose this game"
• I can't recover from a mistake."

These beliefs and expectations were then labeled, "old ways" of thinking about mistakes.

We then offered Eddie some "new ways" of thinking about mistakes and how to handle them:

• "mistakes happen; it's no big deal";
• "you are supposed to make mistakes - it's part of the learning process and you're still learning";
• "you can recover from a mistake - you know what to do";
• "concentrate on the next thing to do, not on what you just did."

We then developed Eddie's awareness of how he usually responds to a mistake (his old way) by repeatedly having him deliberately mishit from the tee and helping him focus on how this feels.

Using Old Way New Way^®, we then exchanged Eddie's old ways for new ways. His negative self talk was changed to positive self talk and his unrealistic beliefs and expectations changed to a much more realistic self assessment.

We also taught Eddie some simple, useful techniques for releasing himself from a state of high emotional arousal (anger). He could use this technique whenever he found himself getting too upset about a mistake.

Finally, we taught Eddie how to self-correct on those odd (up to 20% of occasions) when he finds himself doing an "old Way", i.e, getting angry.

Two weeks and several competitions later Eddie's father reported that his son was doing quite well. There had definitely been an improvement. He had achieved the 80% change we predicted, after one session.

It took just one extra session lasting an hour and the problem was completely fixed.

The important things to note from this example are:

• we did not change Eddie - he changed himself. He was empowered by Old Way New Way^® to change himself.
• this change occurred very quickly - much faster than by conventional coaching methods which do little more than tell the person to "practice, practice, practice" the new way
• after just one short session, Eddie had improved by 80%. After two sessions he had improved 100%
• the change process involved a team effort - to diagnose the problem, to come up with acceptable solutions and to enable the changes to occur
• the change methodology did not require incentives (rewards or punishments) and was uncomplicated and easy to administer
• Eddie has now acquired a learning method he can use any time from now on to improve his technique as well as his mental skills
• finally, Eddie is a much happier player now. He is more confident, much less easily thrown off his game and very much in control.
• Eddie is back on track and his handicap has gone down to 3. His future looks rosy.

Football coaching: Ball handling skills

Palm Beach Currumbin High School's Sports Excellence - Australian Football program employs skill correction.

Football coach Neil Mackay runs the Palm Beach Currumbin High School Sports Excellence - Australian Football program. In this program talented students spend a lot of time learning about and playing Australian football, a game that has been described by some as the fastest football game on earth.

Neil had spent several months during 1996 working with two of his prize players to correct technique errors they were experiencing with hand ball and marking, two of the key skills of the game. What appeared to be well established faults were still resistant to correction after all this time.

Another football coach had attended a coaching seminar where Neil presented a paper on skill correction and the challenge this presented for all coaches, and this coach contacted Personal Best Systems. A meeting was subsequently arranged and a plan of attack was developed.

The PBS facilitator worked with both players and the coach for 20 minutes, improving the players' self-awareness of their technique error and then re-programming their old technique with a new, correct, method of marking and hand balling.

Both players and the coach were taught a simple method for self-correcting on those 20% (or less) occasions when the error was expected to resurface. The players were told to get as much practice of their new techniques as possible and a follow-up session was scheduled.

When the follow-up check was done 2 weeks later, the coach reported that he had monitored the errors both during practice and in competition and after several applications of the simple post-treatment correction method, the technique problems had not resurfaced.

Foot ball coaching: Kicking technique correction

Mark Woolnough corrects his kicking technique and makes the All Australian Team.

Mark Woolnough lives and breathes Australian football. He was a star player in the State under-18 team and has a bright future in the game.

One evening in early May 1997 Personal Best Systems was called in to help correct a resistant technique problem Mark was having with his kicking.

Despite being highly motivated to improve and with all the encouragement from his coach, Mark was unable to make much progress with this habitual problem with his kicking.

While Mark could kick as well as the best of his team mates, quite often he would kick too high, sending the ball up into the air rugby style instead of giving it a flat and faster trajectory. The resultant delay waiting for the ball to come down to earth gave opposition players plenty of time to intercept the ball before the receiving player could get possession.

The PBS facilitator first diagnosed the problem with the coach and with Mark, and then put forward a plan to correct the problem. When all were agreed on the plan they went back out on the oval and started work on the problem.

With input from Mark and his coach, Mark's error was diagnosed as being due to excessive backward lean while kicking. This leaning backward meant the ball when kicked went up high and came down slower, instead of travelling low, flat and faster.

This body posture problem was corrected in 20 minutes using an Old Way New Way^® procedure. Mark's coach confirmed 6 weeks later that the problem had not required any additional correction and had not resurfaced.

However, another interesting development had occurred. Mark had developed a new, completely unrelated, bad habit with his kicking.

Being a talented footballer, Mark was always in the thick of the action and often had possession of the ball. While his kicking trajectory was now mostly flawless, the point at which he often aimed the ball was unfortunately not the best.

Quite often, when he kicked the ball to another running player that player was often tackled and lost possession.

Error diagnosis revealed that this was because, instead of kicking the ball to a point ahead of the receiving player so that player would have to keep running to catch the ball and by running fast could keep clear of opposition players, Mark would kick short of this point, so that the player either had to slow down or even come to a complete stop to mark the ball and was therefore easily tackled by opposition players.

Further discussion with the coach suggested that part of the problem was incorrect body orientation - Mark was facing the wrong way when he kicked and this caused the ball to go in the wrong direction. Now that the "wrong" and "right" ways had been identified, the road to correction was clear.

Mark then completed an Old Way New Way^® skill correction session. A week later he went to Melbourne for the national competition where he was selected for the All Australian Team.

Update Mark was selected for the Geelong team.

Running coaching: Professional runner improves starting technique with Old Way New Way^®

Pat, a professional runner, improved his starting technique.

Pat Henderson, a professional runner in his early twenties, had just completed his 20 minute warmup and stretching routine and was ready to set up his starting blocks.

A teacher by trade, Pat had heard of a new method for quickly overcoming technique faults and agreed to take part in a demonstration of the power of Old Way New Way^® to change what for him had been a major obstacle to improving his competitive performance, his starting technique.

Bob Spencer, a top South Australian running coach had been trying for 7 years to get Pat to change his starting technique, without success.

Pat knew what the problem was, alright. Instead of pushing off the blocks hard with both legs, he was supposed to push off with only the left leg and simultaneously lift his right knee up into his middle. The required action was similar to the karate exponent who pulls his left fist back while executing a standing forward punch with his right fist, in an equal and opposite reaction.

No amount of encouragement from his coach nor the fact that he was a highly motivated professional runner had enabled Pat to break what for him had become an ingrained habit.

The PBS facilitator in Adelaide, Harry Lyndon, spent 20 minutes with Pat, improving his awareness of his technique problem and then overcoming the learning block caused by the interference from the old habit.

By the end of this brief session Pat was amazed to report that after only 20 minutes his new technique now felt so much more comfortable than his old method. "If this new method feels so right for me now, why has it been so difficult for me to change over during the last seven years?" he pondered.

Gait correction: Physical therapy treatment effectiveness improved by Old Way New Way^®

Andrew learns to walk again and overcomes a long standing health problem.

Andrew had a walking problem. His gait was unusual in that he normally threw his right foot toe-outwards on a forward step, instead of pointing it straight forward.

To an uninformed person that might not seem so drastic but the problems that it caused for Andrew, now in middle age, meant that his personalised walking style had to change and change quickly.

His physiotherapist had diagnosed the cause of his swollen achilles tendon, his tight calf muscle and his persistent lower back pain as all due to his unfortunate walking style. The prescribed treatment was that Andrew actively concentrate and practise a new way of walking. Instead of throwing his right foot out to the side he now had to point it straight forward when walking. In fact, he had to learn how to walk all over again.

The prognosis was dubious at best. Given a lot of effort and sufficient time, Andrew might re-learn how to walk in 6 months, or perhaps longer, or maybe never. He was somewhat pessimistic about his own chances of making the change. Having had the problem for so many years the injurious walking style was deeply ingrained.

Fortunately, Andrew was conversant with Old Way New Way^® and sought the assistance of the PBS facilitator. A session was scheduled for the next day.

Andrew had paid close attention to his physiotherapist's explanation of the problem and could give the facilitator a detailed description of the problem. After this Andrew spent some 15 minutes walking back and forth in a room, with his shoes on and at other times with them off, and sometimes with his eyes open and at other times with them closed, all the while speaking aloud of his sensations while he was walking in his usual way with his foot thrown outwards.

While walking in his own way he described the sensation of feeling the back of his right heel strike the floor first, followed by a "foot roll" or something he later described as a "rocking motion." He said that there appeared to be a two-stage impact. When asked to walk in his new way he described the sensation of feeling less heel strike, making a flatter impact, having more bend in the foot and in the centre of the foot and feeling more lift-off from the ball of the foot and from the toes. His foot seemed to be "working harder," he added thoughtfully. Andrew also mentioned that he could feel his right knee "working" to keep the foot pointed straight ahead when he walked.

The remaining part of the half-hour session was taken up by Andrew comparing his old and new ways of walking, followed by a short practice session where he walked in his new way. He was given a simple procedure for self-correcting his walking whenever he detected he was walking in his old way and was reminded that his progress would be reviewed in two weeks.

In an informal discussion a few days later Andrew said that the metacognitive treatment appeared to be working and that he had been able to successfully apply the self-correction procedure a few times. He also complained of a new pain in his right knee. The facilitator suggested that he should mention this to his physiotherapist on his next visit that evening and also asked him to explain to the physiotherapist that the Old Way New Way^® process had now enabled Andrew to exert more conscious control over his walking such that he was actually walking more often in his new way and consequently using his right knee more to maintain the new direction of his right foot. Andrew agreed that this was a likely explanation of the knee pain and said that he would mention this to his physiotherapist.

2 Weeks Later. The knee pain has gone and Andrew's walk is now much improved. He has noticed the improvement himself and so has his physiotherapist. Altogether, its been a very positive outcome for all concerned.

Improving too slowly?

Sports coaches and players try to get it right the first time but invariably end up spending a lot of time trying to correct technique faults and bad habits that somehow develop.

Once established, habit pattern errors like technique faults are notoriously hard to correct because they actually disable learning of correct technique and slow down or completely block improvement. This makes an athlete uncompetitive and can lead to a career-threatening performance slump.

The typical advice to practice skill drills and train hard is usually not very effective. The athlete may appear to improve during training but repeatedly falls back to old ways under pressure of competition.

Transfer of training from skills coaching sessions and practice drills to competition is consequently poor.

Transition training, required when the athlete has to change over to a new code, new equipment, new techniques or new rules, presents similar adjustment difficulties. Old habits die hard.

Fortunately, a coaching science discovery called Old Way New Way^® Sports Coaching offers:

1. A new perspective on the transfer of training problem.

2. A cost-effective and user-friendly method for rapid skill and technique correction, and habit correction.

3. A fast and practical method of sports transition training.

This page explains how established and habitual technique faults can interfere with skill development and learning of correct technique.

This page presents sports coaching case studies in technique correction using the Old Way New Way^® method of couching sport.