The Talent Equation Podcast Stuart Armstrong

Jamie Munro is a Lacrosse coach who has found a fascinating way to coach his sport through film. His method is to use free play as the basis for learning and to then use reflection through watching the film of these sessions with athletes to observe what might be useful as a tool for learning.

Jamie is a free play evangelist but as he say's this doesn't remove the place for the coach, in fact the coach is really important in free play....just important in a different way...."the Free Play model doesn't remove good coaching from the development equation. Good coaches have tremendous value as mentors, as teachers, and as tacticians, but coaches can't teach "Feel". Only the game can teach "Feel" and the "Feel" is the whole key!"

Jamie has a podcast too so we decided to have an exchange of ideas and to post the outcome on our respective shows...

You can find out more about Jamie and his approach here... https://www.jm3sports.com

Laurence Cassoe Halsted is a two-time Olympic fencer, having competed for Team GB in the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games. Following his retirement from competitive fencing after Rio he has been in the role of Performance Director for the Danish Fencing Federation. Laurence is also engaged with a charity called The True Athlete Project as Director of Mentoring.

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In this conversation we dive into Laurence's experiences as an athlete, coach and performance director and how they have shaped the writing of his new book 'Becoming a True Athlete'. We discuss how coaches and parents can help young people to unleash far more of their potential as individuals and groups, through a better understanding of what drives us as humans tapping in to our deepest sense of purpose and meaning in life, while connecting us more closely with nature and with each other.

https://www.laurencehalsted.com
https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/halsted/

Dr Josephine Perry is a chartered psychologist working with those in sport and on the stage and in business to help them overcome their barriers to success so they can achieve their goals.

Josie has a background in communications and behaviour change having worked for many years in journalism, marketing, public relations and crisis communications across private corporations and government. She has a MSc in Communications, a MSc in Psychology and a MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology. She also has a PhD in Political Communications.

In this conversation we explore some of the key takeaways from her new book 'I Can: A Teenage Athletes Guide to Mental Fitness' and cover a range of subjects including athlete wellbeing, toxic environments, why mental toughness is all wrong and how parents and coaches can avoid falling into the 'expectations trap'.

https://performanceinmind.co.uk/
https://performanceinmind.co.uk/shop/#ican

Craig Morris joins some members of The Talent Equation learning community 'The Conclave' and myself from his hotel room in Slovakia (where he is preparing for a world championships with his athletes) to share some reflections from his experiences at the recent Tokyo Olympic Games.

It is an open and honest insight into the preparation for the games during the pandemic and the ways that he and the athletes were forced to adapt their training to address this...he also shares some of the experiences of the games themselves and what he took away from the experience.

Andy Kirkland is a Lecturer in Sports Coaching in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He leads the MSc. in Performance Coaching at the university as well as being a Chartered Scientist and a BASES Accredited Sport & Exercise Scientist (support & pedagogy).

Andy has worked as a sport physiologist, a coach developer at British Cycling and support others in developing performance environments. He is also a practicing high performance triathlon coach.

This conversation was stimulated by an article that Andy wrote that created some challenges for the coaching industry in the UK. We explore some of his ideas and I share some perspectives from my role leading coaching system transformation at Sport England (this is a bit of a departure for me as I usually keep the podcast quite separate from my day job but in the this case I felt that the discussion warranted publication here.

You can read the article here. https://spark.adobe.com/page/p8LN8wGMqTC6V/

Hope you enjoy

David Hinchliffe makes a welcome return to talk about his coaching experiences working with a constraint led, ecologically driven model within a school environment within mixed ability groups. We explore motivational challenges, 'false gamification', co-designing practice and loads of examples of activities and practice types linked to various types of striking games.

David also does some counselling for me to help me work through the challenges that I have been facing coaching u13s (including my son!)

Hope you enjoy