APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2021 , Vol . 7 of skill , expertise and movement coordination ( for overviews see Chow , 2013 ; Renshaw and Chow , 2019 ). While many academic papers and studies explore skill acquisition training methods , bridging the gap between theory and practice sometimes tends to lag and catch up slowly . For this reason , here we provide a brief analysis of key ideas of NLP and the CLA for sport coaching and applied sport science practitioners .
Structure and purpose of the article To begin , we provide an overview of main concepts and ideas within a NLP and the CLA . It is our goal - using a one-page summary graphic ( see Figure 1 ) - to guide educators , coaches and athletes to better understand how these ideas link . Later in the article , academic references and knowledge sources are provided to support further understanding . Consequently , this article introduces concepts for readers to perhaps follow up by reading relevant research papers in more depth ( see Table 1 and reference list ).
We start by making the point that coaches and sport practitioners at all levels need a model of learning and the athlete learning process to guide their work . Here , we present an ecological perspective on skill acquisition in two parts . The first part of the article provides an ecological explanation of how athletes learn to use information in the performance environment to coordinate actions ( see Part A at the top in Figure 1 ). The subsequent section emphasises implications of these ideas for training designs and coaching ( see Part B at the bottom in Figure 1 ).
A key point summarised in Figure 1 is gaining an understanding of how athletes coordinate and acquire movement skills , relative to information from their surrounding performance environment . This perspective of skill acquisition in sport frames an overall approach to athlete-environment-centred coaching ( ie central , red rectangle in Part B of Figure 1 ) with relevant pedagogical principles for : i ) the designing of training activities ( left section in part B of Figure 1 ); ii ), the coach as ‘ Facilitator ’ and ‘ Moderator ’ in part B of Figure 1 ); and iii ), the athlete-coach relationship and making sense of the athlete learning process ( right section of part B in Figure 1 ).
Figure 1 : One-page summary to introduce key skill acquisition and motor learning principles
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