Efficiency in training

[darius]

But sometimes putting that theory in place with a practical exercise can be difficult. I just finished doing a series of exercises today that had mixed results because of the different level of the students and (perhaps) the drill objectives.

The two are probably linked; there are some drills that work well when the students posses a specific set of skills or personality traits, but not so well when they're at another. And to make matters more interesting, there are drills that completely break if the delta between the students' abilities is too great.

I think often a coach has to designed drills and stay completely on top of the drill at the start to insure that it meet the criteria for good training. I feel that if the coach is watching the drill from across the room and the drill looks very bout like (in its final form -- the start of the drill may look a little rough or mechanical, I think), even if its a "bout" with limited actions, then the drill MIGHT be doing its job.

Generally when I design something, I want to stay on top of it to make sure athletes are doing their jobs (thus developing the qualities that I believe the drill improves). Also, I want to see if they're discovering holes in the drill, or have an issue that needs correcting.

Designing and understanding drills that actually do their job is actually pretty difficult, and deserves some discussion.

Definitely. Where to start, though?

How was France?

darius

[Durando]

Allen said: "Designing and understanding drills is difficult."
Darius says: "Yep. How?"

The only really worthwhile drills I've ever done are tactical and have depended on secret instructions between groups of fencers.

I was with Allen when we were set a drill whose objective was well, but overly explained. In hindsight, lots of handwringing on the part of the MdAs would have been saved by simply setting the objective once, giving a visual model, and letting us go--freeing the MdAs to circulate and correct. After a bit of work, the drill should have been re-explained. The objective wasn't successfully set and the drill only came off because there were a number of good teachers among the students.

So, to answer you, Darius, my starting point would be:
1) Identification of a tactical objective;
2) Writing conflicting instructions to give to both groups which naturally lead to the objective;
3) Thinking a bit about the expected solutions and being up-to-speed on technical instructions;
4) Use a test-teach-test model to restrict long explanations and privilege student discovery.

[Allen Evans]

I think Neal's list is a good one, and I'll add a sub-section -- call it "3A" -- which would be: "Thinking about expected errors in the drill, and steering fencers away from them".

In a well designed drill, the errors are going to be on the part of the fencers, not built within the drill itself, and correcting the errors will directly impact the fencer's behavior in the drill, rather than correct the drill itself.

A

[keith]

Allen said: "Designing and understanding drills is difficult."
Darius says: "Yep. How?"

The catch it is that the problem of the theory of a well design drill is not straight forward to apply a specific set of students.

It is a shame that there is no established model of peer education which might rely on the ability of of a (private) group of individuals to share specific information (text/audio/video) at a distance and then develop strategies.