Welcome back to Finding the Edge Podcast.
I'm Garrett Boyam joined with Garrett Baker.
It's been a it's been a minute since you've been on and today
we wanted to go over we we all have seen the sport movement
skill conference and these two were were at it.
Baker presented at it. So we wanted to do just a a
debrief or yeah on it and like kind of promote, promote the
event people should come next year and all that sort of stuff.
But yeah, so have have on Baker's fellow Co worker AJ
Ferrara, I don't know if you guys want to do a little brief
intro especially for you AJ because we haven't had you on
the podcast before. So who Who's AJ?
Sure, Al. First boy, and thanks for having
me. Garrett, good to see you.
The way I got connected with with Baker is I was kind of his
his henchman analyst guy working with the Mets and so we had some
great discussions kind of chatting about eco D frameworks
and playing parkour together doing everything under the sun.
So pleasure to be on here, kind of continue the conversation,
play ball D3 ball back at Johns Hopkins and then I studied
engineering, was kind of doing some software engineering right
out of college, transition more into analytics role and kind of
thanks to Baker got my mind looped around the idea of
integrating eco D more into sports and live.
So I've been pretty fascinated by that recently.
I guess I I owe your apology for pulling you, pulling you down
down into this. But no, I mean we we've had
probably and if anybody goes and watches the SMSC and sees my
talk, my, my training, my parkour training partner which I
talk about a little bit tied in with baseball was AJ the the
entire year. So we basically just moved
around jumped on walls looked kind of look kind of foolish.
The random onlookers on on Florida just going for their
nice Florida morning stroll down in Port Saint Lucie.
But we've had some nice nice eco detox and then here we are
wrapping up the the SMSC which again like I mean Garrett talked
about and we'll talk about as we go forward here I'm sure.
But like great, great event and I highly suggest anybody to go
go check it out, not just because I spoke, but because
like there's good talk after good talk.
And now they set it up 20 minutes at a time, which is
really good. So if you don't have a ton of
time, like you can grab 20 minutes worth of a talk and then
come back later for more. I'm a little Ted talk style.
So I think I think the event was really well done and a lot of
good, a lot of good ideas shared.
Do you want to briefly because there was an in person part this
year, Do you kind of want to talk about like your guys's
experience real quick of like what what was your guys overall
experience especially being at the in person part Because I
think you know hopefully in the future you know there's more
people that come to the in person part because there
there's something about being in person being able to to really
interact with others really creates a different experience.
You know and you you learn you can learn so much more by being
there in person. And so I don't, I want to kind
of hear what was your guys's experience with that because I
think this is the first year that they've done it like, you
know, part online and part in person in such an intimate
setting. Yeah, the first one was all in
person, all that sort of stuff. But I think I'm kind of curious
like what's your guys's experience with this was?
Was it, was it similar to, you know, other ones like in person
or what was? Was there anything unique about
this set up? This was the first in person
I've been to, so maybe Garrett can add some more context, but I
thought it was really good from the standpoint of the Ted tile.
Ted Talk style presentations were great exposure to different
concepts. But where you really learn and
start to integrate them into your own framework is when you
actually get to interact with them with other people keeping
those conversations. I know that in the in person we
did a bunch of that chatting with people, getting to hear the
things that they're working through with other participants.
And then also we had our back channels as well where both
Garrett's, we had great conversations off the sides.
And that's really where you start to integrate it into your
actual knowledge base and find ways to apply it is by
interacting with those ideas you're exposed to in the actual
sessions. Yeah.
The in the in person I think compared to most in persons is a
lot more intimate and it's really cool since you it's kind
of like kind of like a hot stove type deal where you go through
all these talks throughout the day and then you meet up in a
little more intimate group setting.
And it you can either talk through some of the concepts
that you heard today or that day or you can talk through just
anything on your mind. And I think the one cool thing
that Sean and Tyler did is really take us through some
practical things even like they took us through an entire warm
up and how they may potentially structure or warm up or how they
may potentially structure some kind of practice design.
And it wasn't there on the football side of things.
But then they opened it up for any other coach there to present
to their practice design. And then all the other coaches
can pitch in and ways they could potentially make it a little bit
better. And basically it was a big,
there's a big like group discussion, a roundtable
discussion around coaching around these ideas of eco D
about pretty much anything, anything was on the table.
So it was, it was unique in that in that front where it's very
informal, there was, there was a loose structure to it, but there
wasn't anything like an agenda you have to follow.
That allowed us to kind of guide the sessions a little bit more
than your typical conference where there's a certain agenda
they want to get through these exact topics versus like we were
able to give and take in different ways where we could
present some of our ideas and also take while other people
were talking about their own ideas or just like some of the
theory or just stuff they heard that really resonated him for
that day. So I think that was that was
really cool and in my opinion it was one of the the more
impactful in person conferences that I've actually been to, even
though that was only a small portion of of the actual event.
Well, good deal. So if you guys want to check out
the Sport Movement Skill Conference 2023, make sure to
head over to Emergent Movement MV mt.com.
I'll throw a link in the description.
And also if you want to save 7% on it, make sure you make sure
to use the Code Edge 7. So without further ado, I hope
you enjoy today's podcast. I think that's kind of some of
this. The thing of I've had to learn
that though. I think that for me is just
being so tied to the ideal that you kind of don't compromise.
But I think this is hopefully this get get us started on
something. Because I mean for me that's
where even with some of the ecological dynamic stuff like
I'd, it was helpful going through what I did at Missouri
State and then just having some stuff like change on the faith
side of things and just being able to find a way to learn how
to, like you could say submit to authority in a way, but also not
give up on what you believe in, but find a way in what in
somebody else's system, how to apply an ecological approach.
Because once you really, to me, once you understand the ideas
and the concepts, you can always find a way to make it to, to
operate within an ecological approach.
And so for me, it was, you know, little things of, like finding
what a person was already doing and finding a way to help them
with what they were already doing to have success.
And like, hey, here's a way that you can do this better, even if
even if it was not, you know, respected or, you know, if it
was what's the word, you know, it was decoupled.
You know, they're hitting off of AT or whatever.
It's like, hey, you know, here's how we could do this a little
bit better. Here's how I could make it a
little bit like, you know, manipulating constraints.
And that's The thing is the you know because constraints are
always present I can always manipulate them and help guide
the the athlete to be better at whatever it is that they're
doing. And so I think that that helped
me build build some trust with the athletes so so that I could
be able to kind of build a relationship.
But also I think the other thing you know taking a learner
centered approach and I always said you know what, but find
what works for you. I always said that to them and
gave them the freedom so that it wasn't like, well, you have to
do what I just told you to do, or rather find a way to make
this work for you so that you have success.
Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is we're, I think in the
ecological space, like we're viewed as like we're trying to
change everything. We're just trying to blow up,
blow up everything you're doing and you're doing it wrong and
you have to do it this way. But I think as I've matured
through these ideas, it is very much like, hey, I'm not trying
to, we're not trying to change everything.
We're trying to just make it a little better.
Like, how can we potentially make this a little better?
And while tying one of the talks here, like Tyler Yerby's talk, I
think was really practical on that, on that front in the SMSC,
because he talked about just like, guiding, guiding one
search. And that was the biggest thing,
like asking questions. And it's like, to use a
practical example, I forget exactly what to use for for
baseball. But it's a similar question that
he asked. It's like in a bullpen setting.
We're already throwing the bullpen, and we're going to be
throwing fastballs. So I could guide one searches
like, hey, show me how you would strike somebody out with this
fastball up in the zone. And now you're guiding one
search to an area of where you could potentially throw this
ball to getting out. And now you're coupling it to
the actual problem at a little bit higher.
Even if I don't stand in, even if it's just in the bullpen, but
you're just making it that little bit better.
And I think Tyler did a really good job of explaining that.
Or like, hey, show me how you can use your fastball in
different ways to get inside or jam a hitter.
And just simple things like that changes, changes their
intentions, which changes their search, which again, like now
we're kind of starting to couple it to it like a problem solution
dynamic versus just like hey, we're just doing rote
repetition, fastball, fastball, fastball or something along
those lines, which I think is a really good way.
And again, it's not, we're not changing what we're doing, we're
just making it a little better. And I think that's a simple way
to do it in an ecological approach.
Yeah I I think the two on that point the the whole question of
show me. I have to remember that
sometimes partially because you know in my context sometimes
I've had conversations with with with my head coach of like hey
we need to we can't just let them just figure it out.
Like sometimes like we got to give them answers, you know,
like they come here to us, you know, to you could say get
better, like you know, to have some sort of answers.
It's like, OK, you know, that's that's not really how.
But at the same point I was like, all right, you know what,
I'll just take this and and and feel like I have the freedom to
speed up the process. Because a lot of times I was
just asking questions and having them, like, try to answer and
they had no idea how to answer the questions that I'm asking of
like, well, you know, like, for example, all right, let's begin
to think of the problem of hitting.
So like what? You know, what dictates where
the ball goes on the field. Like just different, like, or
like how many different ways, blah, blah, blah.
And so like these things they just had no answers for like how
could, how else could you get to this inside pitch right to using
that as an example because that's, you know, you pitchers
want to throw it inside and up and in and it's like, OK, how do
you, how do you get the barrel there?
You know show me some different ways and they just have zero
clue. So sometimes I'll I'll be like
hey here's one way that you could do it.
And so sometimes I would give them the answer but I wouldn't
tell them that this is the only answer and that they have to do
it they this way. And I think for me that's kind
of how I'd I found kind of a happy medium with that of.
But at the same time sometimes when I, if I if I'm explaining
too much I think that's where it.
I always have to go back to the thing that Tyler said a long
time ago is like show, show, don't tell.
You know so when instead of like the athlete, you know coming
back and like hey, you know what what happened there, you know
and I go what could you do next you know next time and they
start to explain. I go no, no, show me.
And I think that that is an important piece because, you
know, I might have said this on a podcast once before, but like,
what's the language of the body? You know, is it thoughts is a
word, What language does it speak?
And usually where we kind of work to is like body doesn't
understand thoughts. You know, it can kind of
understands feeling. But really what it really,
really truly understands is movement.
And so if you want to make a change, you actually, a lot of
times you actually have to feel what it is that you want to do
or you know, Yeah. And so that that for me is, is
what I have to remind myself of like show don't tell especially,
you know this whole idea and this concept of knowledge of
versus knowledge about. And so if we're, if we're
talking about it like we are now we're we're in the realm of
knowledge about. And if we want to get into how
the game is played and it's because the game is embodied,
then it needs to be knowledge of.
And so knowledge of is demonstrated in terms of how it
actually shows up in the game. And so to me that that means
that that's going to be, you're going to have to move because
that's that's how it's expressed in the game.
That's how the knowledge is expressed.
So therefore if you want to make a change we need to actually
move and I've and when guys do it and really fully buy in and
really work at it, it's amazing how fast the changes occur.
You know it might take a guy 5 swings to figure out an
adjustment. I can by by them working on
their fuel reps they they can get that down to like two or
three you know and and that I think makes a huge difference
when it comes to you know helping guys make adjustments
and and find success. Yeah.
I think I think to kind of kind of circle back on some of the
some of those thread to start pulling up on the the show me
thing I think is extremely powerful because it it doesn't
demand a verbal answer it it's asking for an actual action it's
asking for movement. So it's like when you say show
me it's not you're not asking for them to tell you some
knowledge about it. You're actually having them show
you and gain knowledge of the environment and they show me how
you would potentially go do this.
And I think the verbiage there is extremely important where
where they you kind of you giving them one answer.
I think again time skills are extremely important on that.
If we don't have a ton of time like you're headed into the
season and it's February like and we don't have all the time
in the world just to explore and have them fail and just kind of
surf, surf the surf the landscape and try to find any
possible solution. I think starting them in one
spot kind of opens everything up and kind of speeds the process
up. But the idea of showing you
versus just having them dictate it back, I think just opens
everything up. And then how you could
potentially do it. I think has been so powerful for
me. Is it, It kind of like opens it
up. It's like, hey dude, I'm not
telling you I don't have the answer here.
Like I don't know how you could potentially do this.
I'm hoping you actually find an answer that I didn't even see
because then you're finding it in your own unique way and
you're kind of becoming your own unique mover.
And I think anybody who is anybody in sport, like, knows if
you're unique in solving problems and you probably have
an advantage since the average isn't that special anymore.
Like, we're looking for unique. We're looking for novel ways.
He's like, as a pitcher, like if I'm finding a new way to solve a
problem, like, it's that much harder for a hitter if I'm doing
what every other pitcher's doing, like they've seen it a
million times. It's like allowing them to
explore in kind of like open up the landscape and just try to
find their own ways. Even if I have to nudge them to
start like in saying hey show me how you could potentially do it.
I think changes everything in practice because it goes from,
it goes from like this this person who's and I think
actually like I'm going to I'm going to try to pull a pull a
quote from Alex Last Alex Laskew.
She said she started her talk off and she said like in I think
it was from 1A paper, but it was like like an ecologist create
conditions for athletes to exploit and flourish during
development. So you're just like creating
these conditions, you're not directly telling you and that
makes you the learning designer. And it's like coaches do not
need to intervene or nourish the athlete.
We just create these environments for them to go and
explore and then you can simply have them, you can nudge them
where they could go explore or in a way they could.
And there's a let them go and kind of find their solutions,
which I think is so much more powerful than just being the
person who just tells them exactly how to go do it.
Since you're you're basically confining them to that one
solution first, like finding their own potential way of going
to do that. I want to ask you guys, you guys
a question about that. So when it comes to the show me
aspect, I I think it is very valuable.
But I could also see in a pitching scenario how it could
pull the pitcher out of the actual competition, where if you
say, hey, show me how you'd get this batter out with XY pitch or
set up this batter with XY pitch, do you think that that
leads the pitcher to sometimes focus more on kind of displaying
the action for you rather than focusing on the competitive
aspect of trying to beat the batter and letting that thing
emerge? Well, I guess what when I'm
saying show me, show me how you would go do this.
I'm trying to connect him to the batter, right.
So it's like, show me how you would go get inside with your
fastball. It's it's directly trying to
connect them to potential ways to jam the hitter, right?
So it's like trying to trying to bring them actually there.
So it's typically like pitchers don't live in that space like
we're we're target throwers we're not we're not out getters
typically but you're just trying to you're just throwing your
your best stuff as hard as you can.
Which if you look at Bernstein, Bernstein talks about that like
one of the lowest levels of skill is just doing it as fast
and as hard as you possibly can. Like you're not.
You're not you're not overly what's the what's the term he
uses. I forget exactly how how he
phrased it. But like he you're basically
showing that your skill isn't that high since you have to go
Max out every single time like you're not.
You're basically using all your energy sources versus this idea
of like, hey, let's let's find different ways where I can
actually potentially go and get you out where I'm not completely
just emptying the tank every single time to go do that, if
that makes sense. Yes, the the definition of
dexterity that which he he coined.
Is it's efficient. You know, so it's you know I
think that's an element of and I think that's a really good point
bigger of you know this this lower level of skill of like
it's Max effort. It's like and and this is kind
of the thing of like, you know, especially for pitchers, if you
want to be able to be out there a long time and to pitch three
times through the through order, you can't.
You can't just go and just try to pump 100 the whole game.
Like it's just not or I don't know, 105, I guess, right.
You know it. Depends who you are, Depends who
you. Are right and I think 105
probably does have more more play to it but even 100 now like
guys guys can hit 100 like that's not that's not as to your
point novel anymore. And so yeah I think that's
that's a a key piece of it. It's important to to be
efficient you know and actually you know to to the point of I
think it's about being intentional.
You know exploring how can I begin to interact with the to to
to be competitive because you can add that element in.
Because when you start thinking about OK, when I'm competing
what is what is my goal what's directing and shaping the
movement like what are my intentions.
And sometimes the intentions might not be to like how how can
I throw a guy inside. But if you're wanting to expand
his capabilities you may need to spend some time exploring that
question how can I do this can I even do this.
And so to me there there's there's levels of in practice
we're exploring our action capabilities and we're trying to
find the whole thing is about finding a functional fit.
So how can I functionally relate to this problem or to this task?
And how many different ways can I can I begin to relate to this
and functionally or find this is going back to this idea of
dexterity or degeneracy. How many different ways can I
solve this problem so that when I get into situations and and I
and I start encountering different constraints.
I've already explored the you could say the the space the the
task space so that I I know you because to me that for because a
lot of the the task space or the what's the the the other space
the the motor landscape. OK.
So if you think about it like a map, you know if you are a
delivery driver, you really want to know your route and like the
surrounding streets around your route and the the surrounding
area. The more you know it, the more
you know as construction or traffic or whatever shows up,
the more that you're able to actually navigate around that
and find different ways to still make your delivery show up on
time and stuff like that. And so to me that's that's kind
of what this analogy is of like during practice we're going to
explore all these different ways so that when we get into the
game and you know, different constraints show up.
I don't have a good example off hand right now.
But you know you have a Rd. closure.
You know you know how to get around that.
You know and what are the other ways to to get to the result
that you want you know, as let's say for example here here is
actually a good one. The umpire, the umpires stops
calling a certain part of the zone.
Well then you know big league hitters like they should pick up
on that because they're all about their walks and on base
and swing decisions, whatever. You should pick up on the fact
that all right he's not calling this.
I can eliminate this pitch now and what if that's an effective
pitch for the pitcher all of a sudden up and in is not being
called like it's it's a totally different game when the umpire's
calling that up and in pitch then now you actually might have
to swing at it. Well now I can just eliminate
that one and so it's different things like that.
OK what do you do if a certain pitch isn't being called.
What happens today if I get a blister on my finger and I can't
throw this pitch you know that I that's that's really effective
for me. Well, do I have other pitches
that I can go to, you know, to to mitigate that.
And so that that to me is kind of the whole purpose of what
Baker is describing of like, hey, show me how many different
ways or how could you, you know, throw a guy inside and make that
be effective? Because it always comes back to
The whole purpose of the search is to find something, to find a
functional way of interacting with the problem.
Yeah. And I think, I think that was
kind of like the first pulling on the last thing you were
talking about. Like the one of the first things
I was trying to display within my talk was the idea like skill
acquisition versus adaptation. And what we're chasing after are
we chasing like this fixed skill and we're just trying to acquire
this fixed state where I now have this quote UN quote skill
and I just plug it in anywhere. Which again doesn't work.
If you if you saw my talk based on my parkour experience or
skill adaptation where we're able to adapt to the environment
say like you're talking about you have that blister on the
finger or the zones changing whatever.
Do you have a solution to those or do you not?
Do you just have this one set way of going to do it which I
think is very often have what what pitchers and hitters are
chasing after is skill acquisition.
Acquiring this direct state of this is my movement that
produces my best outcome or my best pitch or my best swing
first. Like going out and trying to
adapt to ever changing environments and trying to find
solutions or having skillful interactions with the
environment across all these different conditions.
Which again if you think about the the the best athletes they
are the most adaptable like you would you would I think any
coach would say that like they're adjustable adaptable
however they may say that and like how you're setting up your
learning environments and what you're exposing them to their
practice. And I think the the idea of like
a show me how you could potentially go do something is
exactly what we're talking about expanding that toolbox and then
we have more potential options like if that up and in is not
there. Well I have a solution to go get
out even though that's my best, my best solution typically for
this this situation, well it's not there.
So now what? Do I have something, Do I not
have something? And I think it comes down to how
you train and what your training environments actually do look
like. That's that's actually a really
interesting, like, evaluative framework in my mind.
In my head, I have Craig Kimbrel when it was in the NLCS.
And so he walked a few guys and was getting some really getting
squeezed by the umpire ran into that conflict and that solution
he was trying to use didn't work and then he just started
throwing all fast balls. So, like, I'm thinking about an
evaluative framework of when you kind of hit adversity or one of
your solutions isn't working, do you either go towards using more
different solutions or do you go like revert towards your
preferred single solution? That would be interesting.
Like if you look at an inning of a pitcher, oh, he there was a
bad call. He's getting squeezed.
The guy made an error behind him.
Does that cause him to solve problems differently and more
creatively? Or does he kind of kick, excuse
me, kick into the reversion mindset of I'm just going to go
back to this one solution. His degrees of freedom of
solving problems just dries up. I think, I think there's there's
two elements of it because you have to be kind of careful and
this, this I took this from Sean when he was working with Everson
because they spent all this time on exploring explore explore
explorer. That was why I think one of
their themes, one of the years and then Shawn recognized
because too Everson I think was near, was in the later part of
his career. And so you know his when you're
when you're in your, when you get older, especially in the NFL
like your playing time starts to like you, you have to now earn
it, right. If you're in the middle of your
career and you're like one of the best players, like you know,
it's kind of like it's a lock. But so he just remembers like,
OK, during the pre season when he needs to like lock down a
spot, he's watching, He's like, man, he's still out there
exploring different ways to be doing things.
He's like, dude, you need to go out there and just like you need
to, you need to solve this problem right now.
You don't need to be trying to figure out how many different
ways can you do it. And so for me, that's kind of
the important piece of remembering like, OK, we're in
competition, right? You're in the NLCS.
Well, right now is not the time to try something different.
It's OK based upon my task, experience, what do I know works
like we need, we need to shut this down and we need to get out
of this and so there, but OK, so there's that element of it.
Now on the flip side is, has an athlete been trained or is
attuned to be able to pick up the specifying information in
the environment and be able to adjust based upon that
information? That I think is the other
element of it, of that allows you because the whole purpose of
exploration is to be able to become more attuned or sensitive
to the specifying information in the environment or to
information within the environment that you can use to
exploit, to find or to be able to have functional solutions.
And So what that comes back to is like, OK, our pictures, we're
just talking about pictures here.
Are they picking up on how how batters are making adjustments
to them? You know, are is a hitter
sitting on certain pitches? Like how how are how is the
batter reacting or responding? I want to use the word reacting.
How are they swinging? Like, what are what are swings
telling me about? You know, how are they getting
on me? Like, is there a certain pitch
actually that I should be throwing here based upon the
swings that I'm getting? Like all that sort of stuff is
is important pieces, you know, in addition to like what's the
umpire calling, you know, and what what do I have a feel for?
And I think that's the element that we need to help players
with, is being able to pick up all the different pieces of
information in the environment and know what to do with them
and how to exploit that information for their benefit.
Yeah, I, I'm, I'm going to tie in another quote from the SMSC
here, so I think this is really good, Marion Davis said.
Experienced learners or experienced learners know the
meaning of the information, which I think is is extremely
powerful because I think that that's the that's the
difference. Because it's not, it's not just
you, you can pick up information and we can we as coaches can
direct a direct attention to certain bits of information.
But until they know the meaning of the information, how to act
based on what they're they're picking up in the environment,
it really doesn't mean anything. So again, like that that kind of
just speaks to like in in these practice environments like
exposing them to these bits of information and allowing them to
explore and interact with them allows them to Start learning
the meaning of them. Like it.
You can see a hitter hitter act in a certain way based on your
pitch type, but you may not know actually what that actually
means. It's like, OK, he did this and
then he did that. He stepped out-of-the-box and
then this is this is how he practiced his swing after that.
It's OK. So what is all that telling you?
How I should now go act to try to go get him out and like you
could pick up that information? I think that's a start.
But until they've experienced that and tried things based on
that information and explored, OK, so this happened, I'm going
to go explore here. OK, well that didn't work.
OK, so now I'm I'm, I'm exposed to that same type of
information. No2 problems are the same but
something similar. And now I go explore it in a
different way. OK, that worked.
And now you're starting to kind of learn what the information
actually means to actually act upon skillfully, which I thought
that quote was was extremely, extremely good.
Because I think there's a big difference in like just picking
up the information, which I think is a start.
But actually, like, having your athletes know what that
information actually means is completely different.
And I and I've been a kind of on a football kick a little bit
with the Patriots struggling, Max Jones just falling apart.
I should put a thread about it, just because I've been so
fascinated by by the quarterback position recently.
But when you look at a quarterback and all these
different, all these different defenders are moving pre snap
like they're showing different looks, but they're acting in
certain ways ahead of time and then they move post snap.
And then you being able to pick up that information and actually
know what it means in lieu of what your route combos are or
what your athletes capabilities, your receivers capabilities are
along with your capabilities of your line and and so forth.
And so that's what makes a good quarterback in my opinion and
that's what I thought. We potentially had Mac Jones of
the Patriots. But again right now he's just
not picking that information up at all.
He's missing that bits and not not acting skillfully because of
that he doesn't know the meaning of the information or he's just
not able to pick up that information at all.
And I think that's a that's a super interesting way and I
don't in my opinion I never has talked about in pitching except
for like you listen like Greg Bannock's talk maybe like I've
listened to him talk a couple times and like he he you could
tell he's really in tuned with the with the information.
But again like how do we foster that?
Like was that something everyday Oh that was just natural.
It's OK Well same with some guys we throw really hard that's
natural too but we're also teaching guys how to throw
really hard. So can we teach pictures to pick
up this information and act skillfully.
And I think that's the question like I've been on the search the
kind of answer and how I could potentially answer him.
Not saying I have the answer to that question, but I think
that's that's something I don't think is explored within our
community nearly as much. And to to kind of I guess you
could say take that piece that you had there and twist the,
the, the diamond just a little bit so you can see a different
side of it. The other thing I think you know
with that quote, I think that quote is is awesome of like OK,
what does this information actually mean and AJI think that
also works well for you as an analyst, right?
There's all this, this number, this data.
Like, what does it actually mean?
But I think to to use something that that Sean and Tyler talk a
lot about is like, OK, where does this live and breathe.
OK. I think.
I think with information part of the meaning, there's not just
one meaning, OK, you know, that you have to understand how where
does this information actually live and breathe and like, how
does it, how does it? Because, for example, you can
understand, oh, all right, If I do this, I get this sort of
result. And that's like a super
superficial understanding. If you really want to understand
where it lives and breathe and all its different facets, it it
actually takes more. There's a higher level to
understanding meaning, right? You can understand the meaning
of a word, but really how to use that word and where all the
places that that word really works and can connect with
somebody. That takes time, you know, just
thinking about my kids, right? You know, you give them a word
and then they just start using it all over the place and it's
like, yeah, it doesn't really fit there, but that's that's
kind of where I'm going here. If like early on when somebody
picks up on something, you know, an exploit, so you could say,
you know, and it works. They just use it all the all the
time for everything. It's like and then they find
out, oh, you know, it doesn't actually work here.
And then it it it, it grows. And so that's that's where I
think that that's taking it to the next level of like what is,
what is it getting to the deeper meaning of this whole concept of
what is this information mean I think is getting to understand
all the different facets of how you can use it and utilize it
and exploit it. Did did you guys watch the
corresponding Ted talk that went with that quote that Marianne
talked about? I don't.
Know say the gist of it I actually it what?
What is it? What's the Ted Talk?
Sorry, What's the Ted Talk? What's the Talk?
It's called. Where do I have it?
Oh, it's called the reason to be afraid of AI.
Nice, nice. So the the basis of the Ted talk
was there was this robotics engineer and he talked about
that there was a machine learning algorithm that would
essentially try to identify if a photo is either a dog or a wolf.
And it was it was pretty good and then at a certain point it
identified a Husky as a wolf. And so then the programmers
essentially probe the node of the decision tree that sent it
down the way of a wolf rather than a dog and what the
algorithm was looking at as the information that specified that
was the snow. And so it just so happened that
all of the training data set, all the images of wolves had
snow in the background. And so the computer essentially
thought that snow equated to a wolf and that potentially lack
of snow equated to a dog. And so when it saw the Husky in
the snow, it said, oh that's a wolf.
Why? Because there's snow.
And I actually think that that's a really interesting support
argument for Rep without Rep as well, where being able to have
as many different representative environments prevents you from
making connections with specifying connections with
information that's not specifying.
So by varying all the different ways that you can have things
and having a very diverse quote UN quote training set for the
human. OK, in in one circumstance it's
Oh my fastball. Got guys out here.
I'm just going to always use my fastball.
Well, maybe that actually won't work in all situations.
So having a variety of different situations allows you to connect
with the things that are actually important and can
hopefully have you be more correct and accurate in choosing
your solutions to the the problem at hand.
But I think that's that's important.
It the the some of our, I think sometimes we fall into what is
easiest logistically and I think the the thing that perturbs us
that allows us to actually search for a better solution.
I think this is true for athletes, right.
If something's really working for them, you have like in order
for somebody to search for a new solution there has to be
something wrong or they have to be encountering some difficulty
that causes them to search. And so this is the whole concept
of why we want challenging practices at times like that are
more challenging than normal to allow the athlete to start to
search for new ways of connecting with with the problem
and and so or and sometimes it's not even about making it more
difficult. It's simply like changing the
problem to your point because you want to create this you know
some some instability so that they actually have to search for
a new way of connecting. And these are all these things I
want to say this at, you know, all these things are things that
people have intuitive, intuitively known, you know,
coaches, right? Like, we're not saying anything
that isn't known. You know, a lot of guys, coaches
be like, yeah, I want them to fail, so then they'll listen to
me. That's a version of what I'm
saying, right, Of like, when guys start to struggle, then
they become more open to finding new ways of doing things.
We're just saying that we don't think it's appropriate to try to
force them down a certain path, you know, to make it, you know,
make them fail so that. And they will just do exactly
what I say, but rather when they fail, we will help them find a
new and better way of of of solving the problem or finding
success. And so to me that's that's where
you know, when people hear this like, Oh yeah, you know, we've
been doing that forever. It's like yes.
But do you understand why and how to, how to utilize that more
and more effectively? How do you stay more in that
area of to me it's this idea of the 8020 rule, you know 20% of
what you do gets you 80% of the results.
OK, So what is that 20% so we can make sure that we're doing
that enough. Because I the way that I see it
of like programs and you could say dynasty is how they kind of
or where where a program has success.
They don't always know what why they got the success and then
the program declines over time and you're like well what
happened there and I think some of that comes back to is they
they lost sight of what actually made them really good.
And some of it is, is that you know what got you success in one
year because everybody else, you know the your competition is
constantly adapting and evolving.
So what worked one year might not continue to work the more
you do it over time because of the fact other people, you know,
other programs are starting to do other things that maybe
either counter it or are using the same things now.
And so that that advantage that you had begins to disappear.
And so if you don't know how to iterate it in a way that gets
you more of the the stuff that you're doing that is good, then
eventually everybody else catches up and you kind of start
to go on the decline. And so to me, that's that's the
whole point of why. OK, yeah, you're hearing like,
oh, yeah, You know, we've, we've done that, Like that sounds like
something that we've already done.
It's like, good Do more of it here.
Here's, here's more ways of building it out and thinking
about it so that we can continue.
You can continue to have success and maintain your edge over your
competition. Yeah, I'm.
I'm going to pull on two things here.
One is that I've heard that argument a lot for the, the
ecological framework. It's like, oh, good coaches have
been doing that for years. It's like, OK, well, if good
coaches have been doing that for years, Oh yeah, we do a version
of that already. Well, if you already do it.
And so you already believe in it somewhat.
And if good coaches have been doing that for years and you're
calling them good coaches, usually they call them great
coaches. But we're giving you basically a
framework for how some of the greatest coaches have been doing
it. Maybe they didn't have this
framework, but they kind of intuitively knew it.
And now we had kind of have this framework of how these coaches
have potentially put this together, but an actual theory
behind it and how you could potentially build it out.
So like, that argument I always hate, I always hated.
I was like, this is actually like, you're actually telling me
there's a ton of value in what I'm saying and how we could
potentially go build it out now that we have a theory showing
you why this stuff worked when great coaches deployed it,
right? So I think that that, for one, I
think is always interesting. And two, I think there there's
something, another talk I want to pull from in the SMSC, from
Keith David's. He talked a lot about this idea
of innovation, creativity and he talked about the intelligent
performer and the idea of the intelligent performer.
And every every coach wants an intelligent performer because
this is somebody and he says it can solve problems by the use of
information. And they they show creativity
and innovation. And he talked a lot about in
like this idea encourages a ton of Rep without Rep and kind of
exploring the perception action couplings.
But I I think one thing when I was reading up on Bernstein's
paper, he talked about the biggest piece or the last piece,
and he thinks the most important piece of dexterity is
resourcefulness and this idea of quick wittedness or
intuitiveness. And like those two things, I
think right there is where you start seeing this person who can
solve all these all these different problems, but they're
always are quick witted, even when they're exposed to
something new. And they always have this
intuition about how to potentially go change how
they're doing something. And that that could be a coach
too, like how they change their program like that they have all
these success all these years. Well, they know how to
continually to adapt and change and they're super resourceful
with how they go about and behave.
And that's no different with a, with an actual athlete.
And I think it's really interesting because Bernstein
always talked about dexterity as the highest level, right?
Like everybody wants a dexterous mover.
Well, a piece of that is this idea of resourcefulness.
And it's like, again, like, are you just born at that?
Or can we continue to kind of foster that quick wittedness in
this intuitive intuitiveness within the athletes so they can
continually kind of solve these problems by the use of the
information and continually kind of adapt to it.
And like the whole idea again, what Burns he's talking about is
like it's not repeating the means of just the movement, but
solving the problem over and over.
And that's the Rep without Rep, which what we're kind of talking
about, which I think that's that's key.
And I I've kind of been sitting on that for a while.
It's like, OK, so how do we, how do we kind of help our athletes
become more resourceful? And even like me as a coach, how
do I become more resourceful and actually have that kind of when
I see something in the environment, How do I
continually challenge myself to be able to be a little more
quick witted and to be able to kind of maneuver the the
landscape or change the learning environment or manipulate these
constraints in different ways? To have the athlete or meet the
athlete at their actual challenge point a little more
consistently or just manipulate the information they're
interacting with? Right.
And I think that therein lies the highest level of skill.
But again, like something I don't hear talked about a ton,
but something I've been kind of ruminating on.
But like this whole idea and I think where the SMSC is kind of
like this idea of art and science and like the this, the,
the art piece of this whole thing is like the you see these
athletes. And like I think everybody would
say the best athletes are most creative.
They have these creative ways of getting out of situations where
they come up with a movie you've never seen before.
But like the that's the art being displayed on field with
this theoretical backing, which is maybe a little more of the
science scientific piece of it. But like the art this displayed
is only shown, I think if they're allowed to explore, be
exposed to this Rep without Rep and not put inside these silos
or these boxes that they have to perform within.
Or they're they're kind of stuck within these because you'll
never see a resourceful athlete if you're telling them what to
do or how to do it, or giving them the solution.
I agree that I guess I want to I want to kind of throw this over
to to Aja little bit more I want to get him talking a little bit
more. I mean the other thing too I I
should mention like this is the I really liked you know Sean
does a really good job coming up with I'm assuming it's Sean
coming coming up with the with the themes for the for the sport
movement skill conference. And I think this is kind of the
the thing, you know, because I've also heard people knock
like, ah, it's just a theory. There's no, you know, when it
comes to like the, the computational or the the, I
think it's computational ways of thinking about or computational
theories of or information processing, theories of, you
know, how the brain works, all this sort of stuff.
You know, there's all this more science behind this and versus
that. And I think people don't take
for granted that well there's there's an art to this as well
like and I everything. I think people are too wrapped
up in the the academic stuff of like oh, I'll only believe it if
it no, there's science behind it.
Not that there isn't science behind this stuff too but it
just I I find that a little bit frustrating in the sense that
when you start getting down to like OK, how do I actually help
an athlete? To me this is where just from
experience this seems to make more sense.
Like an athlete seems to have more success, transferable
success and the the last piece I guess I wanted to loop this in
before. What I have seen where an
athlete has the most success is when, you know, I kind of help
guide their search a little bit. But then I let them go.
Like I might help, you know, educate their attention here or
help them, you know, with their intention or whatever.
And then I step back and I let them just like kind of figure
out like, OK, what do they actually want to work on?
We give them space to explore. And then I just sit there and I
observe what are they doing, how are they trying to interact with
the problem. And then I come back in, like I
said before of like, OK, what are they currently doing?
How do I help them to the next step for them to be successful?
And then I come in and I leave and it we just have this because
a lot of times guys will they might go off on like following
some guy on the Internet who is really focused on some sort of
mechanical cue. And I don't think I'm ever going
to be able to prevent a guy from going that if they're inclined
that direction they want to go that direction.
I think you have to let a guy go explore where they want to go
explore. But then for me it's about
helping them reintegrate that back into them being successful.
And I had that conversation with with one of our hitters of he's
really down the the teacher man rabbit hole and like now half
the team like I'm watching them like coil and do one legged
stuff and whatever and it's fine because there's some value
there. So it's like hey let them let
them find the value and how it works to them.
But then I have, I've, I've come back and I've told them, like to
to the guys that start to struggle with some of his, like,
hey, man, you know, are you, where are you?
Where's your focus? Are you?
So you're so wrapped up and coiling over your back hip and
making sure this or whatever. Like, you know, like I asked, I
asked one. I was like, you know, do you
feel free or do you feel like you're you're constrained,
you're chained, you know? Or do you feel not free?
It's like, yeah, I don't feel free.
It's like, hey, man, like you need to like, allow yourself to
focus on, like, you know, because we had this
conversation. Well, actually a long time ago.
You know, I tried to step in and try to like tell him, you know,
like, hey, man, you know, if like you're not having success,
Like, what's the definition of stupidity?
You know, trying the same thing over and over again and, you
know, and then it just, it didn't, it didn't land with him.
But I because he he just remembered being like telling me
no, no, like the whole reason I'm like chasing this thing
right now is this worked really well for me in the summer and
it's like I felt so calm and I was thinking about it later.
I was like, oh, that's it right there, that calm feeling.
And so like, anyways, I looped that back in and I was like, hey
man, like you told me before, you know, like you felt super
calm. Like do you feel calm now when
you're just focused on this back hip?
And I was like, no, it's like, hey, man, like this maybe.
Maybe, you know, like I told him, hey, you need to understand
there's this ideal space. You need to understand where you
are right now and how you're relating to it.
And so, you know, it's how you need to figure out when it comes
to, you know, other people's stuff, you know, like the back
hip or whatever. When is it that you need to
focus on that? And when is it that you need to
just be fully present in the moment and focus on just hitting
the ball and just being free and then knowing when to grab that
thing and to use it and to be successful.
And like that's the thing that's you know going back to what you
were saying Baker of like the meaning like when does this
matter? When do you need to bring this
in and focus on. Because from my own personal
experience, I actually have to use mechanical cues of like you
know I'm getting too tilted this way.
So I need actually need to get my back hip more.
I need to actually let my my front hip and that helps get my
my ball up doing this whole thing of like I'm just focused
on on staying connected whatever and blah blah blah.
Like I didn't get enough success but I found I'd get moments of
success for that next pitch that would get me back to.
I didn't need to focus on it. I just need to focus on you know
like my army needs to go through this window or whatever it is.
Like I now know like what are my little mechanical things that I
need to go to to make the adjustment but I don't.
But I found if I keep focusing on them, I this the the
effectiveness goes away. And so I was kind of trying to
help him understand where does this, where do these things that
you, you that you pick up on the Internet, like how do you
actually incorporate them into your toolbox and how to be able
to effectively pull those things out.
And so anyways to me that's that's kind of the thing of like
you know coaches you know get all hung up on like all this guy
is wrecking him whatever, you know because he's all focused on
mechanical whatever. But if this is what a guy is
interested in, like I just need to help them figure out how to
integrate this back and you on my long rant to try to tie it
all the way back. What I tend to find is that they
will naturally begin to interact with the stuff that I was
talking about. When I give them the space and
the freedom and they go on their on their own way and they
explore this other thing, they'll eventually over time
like come back and explore that and be like, oh, this is how it
works. But it has to come in its own
timing. You can't force the timing of
when, when what you brought to them when it comes and it finds
its full fruition, you know. And so that that for me is the,
the thing that I think is important is giving guys space
to where you just step back and you let them explore and kind of
do their own thing and like kind of figure it out on their own.
Yeah, I I think there's actually something really profound in
there and it relates back to what?
Baker talked about of having the dexterity as as a coach as well.
In my mind, it's kind of a a fallacy to think, oh, we don't
want our players to plug and play solutions like we have one
technique that we apply to all problems and if you flip it on
the same way, it also shouldn't be the same with a coach.
There shouldn't be a one way of coaching or going about things
that you apply to every single athlete.
And personally that's that's very convicting to me to be able
to have that open mind and being able to experiment.
If we want our athletes to be creative and experiment within
practice, we also need to have the grace to be able to
experiment with our own style of coaching and developing practice
as well. And that's something where going
back to kind of the art and science aspect of the the
conference, if you think about art and science, they're both
experimentation. You know, they both kind of are
experimenting different ways that I can use in art, say,
whether it's painting, different ways, I can use colors to
generate some sort of some sort of image in science, it's oh,
what different ways can these variables interact together that
we can kind of find something kind of beautiful through it.
And I think that core of the experimentation, keeping the
open mind and OK, I have all of these constraints and tools and
abilities at my disposal, How can I potentially shift those in
different situations? And I think from a coaching
standpoint, if we're asking our athletes to do that, it kind of
needs to also fall back on us for us to keep that same sort of
mindset and be able to apply that in our coaching as well.
Yeah, for sure. And I'm a playoff of the idea of
the art and science Music kind of sprung a thought in my mind
that actually came off of Bernstein's paper.
The idea of like a really good artist, if he's if he's doing a
painting and he accidentally drops a glob of paint somewhere
on his painting, like, is that painting done?
Or With really good artists, he's able to see what now it
just got created because of that mistake and create something
completely different, but potentially even better because
of his ability to be a little more resourceful, quick, witted
and act, act a little bit, a little bit more like what you
would of course say is a little more dexterous within within his
time. And I think that's the same with
within any kind of athlete or with any kind of coach.
It's it's this idea of like you you have some kind of mistake or
there was a mess up or something like how quickly can you go
correct this. And based on the new information
that's within the environment. And I think that's that's really
interesting. And I think, again, I'm going to
tie another talk in here on the SMSC.
But Jim Haberstrom I think did a really cool job.
I I loved his talk it. It talked about the technique
takes care of itself. But one of the first things he
talked about was being a musician for a bunch of years.
Like he he was a professional musician, trumpet player, that
and that. And I I wrote this quote down
and he said he wasn't. He got to a point where he was
the best trumpet player when he said he was not worried about
playing the trumpet, just playing music, which I thought
was absolutely fascinating. It's it's his idea of like he
wasn't no longer like focus on all the techniques and all these
perfect ways he has to play the trumpet.
He was just trying to play the music.
And I think there in lies again, Garrett, some of what you're
talking about like this, the person who's so focused on their
technique and how they they have to move this way or that way,
they're so worried about just swinging versus playing
baseball. And I think that's that's a
massive difference. And like when you can get the
person again like what he talks about it have the technique take
care of itself. Again it it Darren, I think to
your point, I think there there is time where like playing with
different different kind of mechanical quote UN quote cues
or whatever could have some potential value for that person.
But at a certain point like that you're going to self organize in
your best solution are are you adding action capabilities or
effectivities in ways you could potentially move by practicing
some of that? Sure.
But then once you're back into it and you're just playing
baseball, like the technique may potentially take care of itself
in a better way. And he kind of talks about in,
in in. I would highly suggest anybody
who hasn't got in the conference.
Like even if it's just like for a couple of these talks I
brought up, this is 1 great one. Because he talks about his
journey as a coach and like how he how he was talking about
these perfect techniques. Like even just like, hey, this
is exactly how you have to bend your knees.
And then you're seeing all these different kind of ways of people
bending the knees. And then he, he added some
different constraints like jumping, jumping over something
and how they landed. OK, so the technique kind of
took care of itself. That's exactly where I want you
kind of to be, But it's because you landed and then you were
there. Or then he started using
different analogies. He talked about Nick Wiggleman's
book and, like, he was getting so frustrated with their
athletes not being able to do what he wanted to do.
And then changed it to this different kind of game and kind
of was a little more quick witted.
Like, hey, these young kids love cutting people in line and watch
what they do on skates. When they cut them in line, it's
like, OK, so like let's have them try to cut people in line
while they're trying to gain an advantage, trying to go, I
forget what he calls it. I were, yeah, he called it
creating angles. And it's like I'm trying to get
him create angles. But I tell him just to cut the
guy in line as he's skating, like I'm going to see it.
And then what emerged is the technique he was looking for.
And I thought that was a really cool way.
And kind of how he talked about his journey and like how he was
frustrated with the verbal cues he was using, trying to get
this. And then he was like, well, this
isn't working, obviously. And then just seeing it was open
to what is within the environment, hey, like cutting
cutting's kind of emerging what I want to see.
Let's use that and see if that kind of gets it.
And it did, which is really cool.
Two I want to plug plug for for anybody now who's listening SMSC
23 you guys should check it out. Hopefully this gives you like
some ideas of which talks. I mean I we should have.
We should have if I had if I had done this open this the way that
I I should have of like an actual podcast episode.
I would have put this in here of like you know started the
started us with hey what were your favorite speakers because I
think some of it is for people like you know knowing like you
might not know all the names like oh you know who's who's Jim
what was his last name I can't starts with an HI think.
It's Haverstrom. I could be saying it wrong.
Haverstrom. Yeah, You know, like, who's
who's that? I've never heard of him, you
know. Right.
But like once you begin to see like, oh hey, we're finding a
ton of value, like hey, this is a talk that you want to go
listen to. You guys should pick this up and
if you want a a discount on it, use Edge 7 to get a 7% off.
OK. So if you're wanting to save a
little bit of money too and get this or if you want to pay full
price and and support emergence, by all means don't use it.
So with that being said, yeah, what what were some of your
guys's favorite talks that you guys hold a lot of good info on
and slightly I'm getting off topic here.
I'm going to back up just a second to go off of what you
were just saying Baker. That's exactly.
I just listened to that talk with Jim when when this guy was
getting all domed up on on his on his rear hip coil.
And so I was, you know, like that's where I would say for
people that talk for sure you need to listen to because it
was, it was really helpful for me to be able to connect with my
one of my players and really help him and just kind of like
he had a kind of an aha moment. It was just fun to watch him go
back in there and like he's miss hitting balls, all this sort of
stuff and all. And like our machine we have a,
we have a a poor man's version of an eye pitch.
And because all our balls are different states of quality.
So, you know, there's sometimes it'll throw you a good, a good
fastball and other times it'll throw you a splitter, change up,
whatever. And it was fun to watch him be
able to now all of a sudden adjust to those off speed
pitches and hit them. So he's hitting the fastball and
he's being able to adjust it to to the off speed pitches that it
was throwing in that. That's where it's like, yeah,
man, because this is this is the thing, the other thing too for
me when it comes to this stuff. You know, I know there is a
process where like, yeah, your performance might dip a little
bit, but in my opinion, when you get it right and the athlete's
able to connect with the environment, it clicks.
It's not a it's not this whole like, hey, you're going to suck
for a for a long time like what we're trying to do.
When I'm trying to guide your search, I'm trying to guide you
to a place where you have this functional fit.
When we find the functional fit, it clicks it.
It's not this. It's not this whole like suck
for a while and then get better. It's it's I'm trying to help you
better relate with the environment.
And so when we find the thing it we should start, we should see
success, we should start to see, you know, we should start
trending towards success. Maybe we don't see success right
away, but we start trending in that direction.
And so to me that's that's where I, I think, you know some folks
who you know in order to get a player to buy in will say, oh,
you need to suck, you know, you're going to suck or
whatever. It's like I I kind of, I dislike
the underlying implications or insinuations there.
I think no, if I'm going to give you something you should find
success. I I like this thing that Donnie
Ecker said. You know they try hey try this
and it doesn't work. I was like, yeah, let's pretend
that never happened. We'll never do that again.
I I I think there's something to that of like what I give you
should you know should help you work towards success.
And sometimes yes, it's true I give it it's actually
inappropriate time. But I sometimes you do just have
to introduce it and you just kind of walk away and you just
kind of like revisit it and it does take time.
It does have that. So I don't, I don't fully hate
it, but I I don't think we should lean on that too much.
Anyways, to the, to the, to the other question of like what were
some of your guys's favorite talks?
Hey. Go ahead.
I mean, there's a ton of ones I really, really enjoy.
Obviously at Haversham's I've already, I've already shouted
out. I've shouted out a few of them
and I think it really depends what you're interested in right.
Me as I think a lot of them took different ways.
But I mean I I would be remiss if I didn't bring up Keith
David's and that Keith David's again like he he's a little
heavy in theory at times. So if you're a little more
experienced with the ideas like Keith Davis is a no brainer even
if you're not just to get exposed to them.
I thought he he did a really good job and it may be something
you have to listen to if you you you're not familiar with these
ideas a few times. But that's how I kind of started
learning these ideas like I had to listen things over and over
and over like some of these some of these type talks and then I
started kind of like oh I see that oh I'm sorry to understand
that. So I think he's he's really
good. Tyler Tyler Yerby's was super
practical. I think anybody can grab
something from that super quickly and again I already
brought him up again Sean runs the whole thing.
So I think, I think he he's. I thought was good too.
Yeah, he talked through his paper and there's a lot of
theory in there, but I I like that one that you can go back to
the paper. And two, like it is really
practical at the same time. Like, he did a really good job
of still making it practical, I mean.
If you don't understand any of the words like the whole, the
whole, his whole talk was like being being at one or being one
with the environment like you don't.
You don't need to understand technical terms to understand
that concept of being one with the environment.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I just, I just know when I
started, I would get lost. Like I start bringing up terms I
wasn't familiar with. Like when you start talking
about system degrees of freedom, I didn't know what the heck that
went right. So it's like just being aware
that there may be some concepts you may have to wrestle with a
little bit or re listen to or go read the paper afterwards and
that's how you're going to grow. I just wanted to at least at
least throw that out. What was that?
Bernstein paper, by the way, that you kept you keep reckon.
Just dexterity in development is his classic dexterity in his
development. Like I found APDF version of it,
I think baseball wise like Rob Gray, obviously.
Like I think most people who listen to this are baseball
people. So I think Rob Gray's a no
brainer, like go listen to Rob Gray's.
I'm not going to say listen to mine instead of be prideful, but
I was the only other baseball talk on there, so feel free.
But I also talked about parkour healthy bit.
So you're also into parkour like then definitely listen to it.
But I'll stop there because I'll let AJAJ happen there if there's
any that spoke to you. Yeah, I mean, didn't you didn't
need to do the pridefulness yourself.
I was going to pitch yours. Obviously.
I I was kind of there when you're going through it and
working through the ideas and and it was awesome kind of being
able to connect baseball to parkour and be able to talk
about the synergies that is this in between was was pretty
awesome something that really jumped out at me was was Tom
Parry's one. I know that one was maybe kind
of buried in there on day one, but something I'm really
fascinated with recently is kind of how these different
constraints of kind of the stories about how people view
themselves impact the way that they play.
And that kind of ties in a little bit into Kirsten Wings
and Chris Mccoskirs as well. But kind of talking about, well,
like, what is the national culture you're a part of?
What's the soccer culture you're a part of?
In Tom Parra's example, what are those different cultures, and
how does that kind of shape the way you play the game?
I know Baker, you'll know with a lot of the guys on the Mets
where there's a lot of Hispanic players, and that really shapes
the way they play. A lot of their upbringing kind
of shapes their attitude and the solutions that they find on the
field and I'm really fascinated about how we can learn more
about that and be able to help them understand how that context
fits into the problem solver they are as an athlete.
So that was something that has been really fascinating to me
recently. And I know that's less of the
activity based setting up practice type of things, that's
more pre work stuff. But I find that incredibly
fascinating of how that drives the practice design and also
just how you relate to your athlete and how it helps you put
yourself in their shoes to understand why they're going
about different solutions in different ways.
So that that was a big one for me.
And then honestly anything that kind of opened up different
portals that Stu McMillan talked about things that were different
or that I hadn't seen before and kind of sent me down different
rabbit holes was was huge. Stu obviously had a few of
those. Austin Yoakam had a bunch of
those, but just something that kind of pops up in the
environment, so to speak, that you can pick up on and say, oh
man, I never thought about it in that way.
How can I maybe do a little bit more research on this on my own
to be able to integrate it into how I view the world and kind of
what my framework is? Where does this fit?
I think those were things that really got me excited, was kind
of open up the affordances for me to pursue by myself as well.
Yes, stews is great and so same with yocums I think.
Yes. And see like for sure go listen
to yocums. I thought, I thought he did a a
really good good job of kind of like his old way of thinking,
which I think is the most traditional way of thinking
versus how he's viewing the world now.
I thought that was really good. And yes, stews, I mean Stew, I
don't think I've ever heard Stew talk and him not crush it.
And there were some quotes in there that like I, I, I use
almost daily nowadays because it's so it's so powerful.
Yeah. I mean, I hate to say it, but
like as I I've listened to the talks like maybe two or three
times certain ones and as I go back through it, I'm like, oh, I
really like this one. Oh, I didn't pick up anything
from this one. But now I actually picked up a
lot from stuff like that. So I would say, I mean you could
start anywhere honestly and you're probably going to get
good stuff. Anything we've mentioned I think
like naturally like spoke to us a little bit but I even think
like I'll shout out Andrew Wilson too.
He was on the on this podcast already like he's his was an
incredible talk talking about the role of science within sport
and how like they are actually could be partnering with us
versus like us as practitioners or coaches like we see almost
ourselves as odd like what the heck do they know, right.
We kind of talked about like how they could actually be impactful
and then some of the examples later like so, so practical like
His Doors example, like I'll leave it there.
I mean we could talk about it, but like I would highly suggest
going to listen to that just just for that example so that
that will that will connect with people like right away.
I think that was a super practical example.
But yeah, there's so many good talks honestly.
And and I would always suggest like listening to a multiple
times because I've listened to a couple, three or four times and
I realized that my suction for notes on that talk wasn't big
enough. And I'm like in the margins now.
And there's stuff that didn't speak to me the first time,
spoke to me the second time or third time, which is, which is
always really cool. The other one that I think we
haven't mentioned yet, and I I just listened to this one
yesterday and I really liked it, was Ben Franks.
Ben Franks is always good but like his stuff was more relevant
I think too because it's baseball adjacent.
He was he was talking about cricket and cricket batters and
I was like well so if you're I mean this has been pitching
heavy but if you're if you're into hitting Ben Franks Ben
Franks's talk I thought was was really really good and
interesting and you know when he was talking about specifying
information because this is this is some of the stuff I think you
have to to me this is kind of impart the art and the science
right. There's the the because this is
where also too I like Ben's talk you know he he's talking about
you know he's not such a hardcore ideologic or idealist
when it comes to eco D anymore. You know, he's like, I got, I
got, I got away from that a little bit.
You know, part of it helped, he said.
Getting off Twitter and you know stop getting in those Twitter
spats. And I think for me that's that's
where it's it is you do have to get there because for me the cue
part of like focusing on my back hip whatever I was like this is
an ecological, it's like, but I'm like, but it works.
So I kind of to me this is the art and the science of
understanding. To me, ecological dynamics gives
me a framework to understand how where to put like where things
live and breathe. And so like each each of these
things has a place that it fits ecologically.
So for example, you know, I'm talking about these cues.
I understand because of the ecological approach that I
really need to be focused on my connection to the problem in the
environment. And it needs to be, you could
say for a lack of a better word for people who are a little bit
more familiar with this external.
But it's interesting and I don't know, you know, maybe it has to
do with the different streams of the brain.
But you can you can hold two things kind of in in intention,
you know. So for example when I'm throwing
BP or whatever, I still am going to be connected to my target and
focus on that, but I might I might focus on my hip a little
bit more. So it's actually kind of like
there's the I have it's kind of split in two, but I keep one
more primary. I have to remember that my
primary focus has to stay external.
And this is just a a point that I have to, you know, feel and
kind of focus on it. But then after I do it once or
twice or whatever, I can start to let that go and I can start
to focus more and be even more external.
Because to me, from an ecological perspective, it's all
about our relationship and how are we relating to the
environment, to the problem part of that relationship.
It involves like, OK, how am I relating to myself?
How is my body right now relating to the problem, or how
am I relating to my body and to the problem?
And so sometimes I have to, you know, interact with my body to
help it connect and relate to the problem better.
But it's it's not. Because the old school way of
thinking I used to think this way, is if I just got my
mechanics perfect, the results would take care of themselves.
And it turns out that while that is true, sometimes the system
itself will not. You could say, you know, because
of entropy, no, it tends to move towards disorder.
So even if you can get it into that spot of like that per SE
and it feels like that, I don't think that's really what's going
on. I think the system gets attuned
and calibrated and so you have that attunement that's going on.
Your nervous system is highly sensitive to everything that's
going on and it gives you that feel of you know, I my mechanics
that just said it and but there's some there's some
element of truth to that too. Anyways because you know there
are higher order variables that we can that we attune to and if
you can figure out these higher order principles, everything
becomes more simple. And I think that's that's the
other element of this of how this all starts to pull and and
come together is actually when you become more of a master
things actually get more simple because the information
basically specifies what to do and you have like these these
principles and you know how to properly order things.
So what what I mean by that is I know that being external is the
higher principle and so it's so the this internal focus of
attention actually sits down here.
So I don't get hyper focused on it.
I just know when to bring this in to help me connect better
with my external environment and then I can let it go.
And I and I know that this is the primary thing.
And so when you when you have, when you can begin to understand
what are the the bigger principles, everything becomes a
lot more easy. I think of it and I'll analogize
it with this is I used to think that you know I this hopefully
is not a knock on Cressy. But like you know you needed to
have it a program, right. If you didn't have the program
written out and handed to a guy, you're letting a guy down.
And that was like, you know, if it's just a guy's head that's
like super lowbrow and whatever. But then you begin to find out,
like Louis Simmons, some of the best strength coaches literally
had nothing written down and you just come to them.
They'd they would be watching the sets, whatever, and they'd
tell you exactly what the next thing you're supposed to do.
What I realized is that's actually the highest level of
coaching is they are adapting what they're doing on the fly.
They know from experience and from, like their understanding
all of it. They're pulling it all together
to know in that moment exactly what to give a guy.
And so that to me is where you're trying to get to with all
this stuff of like that adaptability of like, OK,
something slightly shifted. No problem.
Because I understand conceptually in my framework of
like how all these things play together and what's actually the
most important thing and how to get me to that that place.
Last analogy here, Lord of the Rings.
I this one of my favorite books. I remember that.
So the story of the minds of Moria OK Gandalf takes the the
fellowship into to the minds. He doesn't have a perfect map
and know where he like how to navigate through this exactly.
But instead Tolkien talks about he knew what direction he wanted
to go and so he he steered the fellowship based upon his
understanding of like where we need to go and kind of like
through the feel and and kind of his his old memories of it and
and so to me that's kind of the thing of like I might not know
exactly where I'm going but I have an idea of where where
north is. I'm steering myself towards that
that true north. And so to me that's kind of the
how this this to me kind of works is like I have that goal
and I know and I'm trying to figure out OK, where are my
relationship to that goal. And as long as I'm working
towards it even if I'm ending up going I know I need to go up.
But I'm going up this way while I'm slightly moving closer, so
as long as I'm moving closer, even if it's not exactly linear,
I'm still making progress towards that thing.
And so to me that's kind of the the how I look at like the
ecological approach and this whole notion of like non
linearity and how the all these things play together to help me
get to my intended goal of the performer being able to be
successful in any given situation.
So to me it's like, you know, if you, if you can divine define
what it is that you're trying to do, everything else begins to
organize itself around that that thing.
And so you have to figure out what's that highest, highest
thing that's going to give you a lot of all the other things It's
kind of this whole notion of constrained to afford.
Anyways, that's my my long rant. Yeah, I think, oh, go ahead,
babe. Go ahead.
No, no, you got it. That was going to say I think
something that really jumped out of me in there is that being
being open to kind of where different things come from.
I know those kind of a little bit earlier and then you kind of
work towards how does that all fit in the framework.
But I think that's really important where, like Baker
said, he was able to take something different and
something new from every presentation And even in
presentation where he originally was.
Like, you know, I'm not really connecting with anything, but
going back through it did. And I think that's really
important is whether it's something that you know exists
in the way of your way of viewing the world, whether it's
in the ecological dynamics framework or not.
There is some sort of kernel of value in there somewhere that
can relate into your own framework in a way.
And so it's kind of figuring, OK, how can I keep an empty
enough of a cup to allow for those things that at first might
not seem like it's something I agree with or something that it
fits into my way of being? How can I see?
Is there any kernel of this that can fit into the framework that
I can use to be able to Orient towards the goal of achieving
something? You know, some people might
think that there's one way to do something and someone else has
another way, but they're all trying to achieve the same
thing. It's just a different way of
going about it. And so how can you create your
own unique framework of orienting toward that North Star
goal? Yeah.
And I think, yeah, I think it's lost face.
You never stepped in the same river twice.
I think that's a lot of what goes on when when somebody like
me goes back and listens to a talk like.
My recent experience is what I've been looking into, what
else I've been reading on the side, just how my life has been
playing out, all that kind of stuff is now shaping how I'm
interacting with these talks a little bit different every
single time. And things are speaking to me
differently, or the same things speaking to me in a different
way than it was previously, which I think is it shouldn't be
important. Is that that can easily tie into
like a the performer environment relationship where where you're
just going to practice. Like it may the the same problem
may speak to an athlete completely differently based on
what he's been doing or who he is that day.
Because I think that's that's super interesting when you can
view yourself. And I think this is something
I've been trying to do a little more myself as kind of that
learner. And as I'm going through things
and as I go through a journey, even like me trying to learn
Spanish this offseason. Like me going through those
experiences and learning. Like the the app I'm working
through actually challenged me a little Rep without Rep.
And things are starting to click a little more because, like, I'm
challenged to use phrases or words in new context.
Like, I know just don't learn a phrase.
And then we move on. Like I learned a phrase and then
I have to say in a different context, in a different
conversation later on in the same lesson, which is helping
me. And then I get stuck.
And I I was like, oh, I didn't, I'm not adaptable with that yet.
Like, I yeah, I acquired that phrase for that exact one
situation, but I I haven't actually gained skill yet with
that phrase because now I can't go use it in all these
situations. Like, it's actually not a usable
phrase for me. And just being able to connect
that again, like I talked about that a little bit of my talk
when I learned that through parkour, it's like, oh, I
learned this move. And like, yeah, this thing's the
same height but the environment so differently that it's
speaking to me in such a different way that I can't even
go perform it anymore. Or maybe that it looks the exact
same, but like I'm gonna do something different, since who I
am that day is a little bit different.
But I think that kind of sparking that idea for me and
like, I think that's really important for coaches as you
kind of just view anything. Like you go listen to a podcast
you've listened to before, you're gonna pull something
differently than you did the first time, which I think is
really cool. So it's like you can, you can
literally, it's same as reading books.
Like you could, you could read all these different books and
change books every single time. But if you literally go back to
the same book you read two years ago and you were gonna pick up
so many different things and you didn't pick up the first time,
or you're gonna read the same thing and it's gonna speak to
you so differently. I think too.
Or it's gonna remind you, 'cause I know there's sometimes it's
like, oh man, I forgot about this like, very true.
How did I get away from this? And it just, yeah, so good point
AJ or. Buenos in your Baker.
So I don't know if you guys want to wrap there, but I also wanted
to see like are there, are there any other things though before
potentially wrap it up of that you wanted to talk about like
things like concepts, whatever that came up in the talk that
either you wanted to flesh out more or you didn't understand.
I guess that's kind of what I at least wanted to see from you
guys. Yeah, I mean, personally, I
there were two things that kind of jumped out in the tickler
file that I want to talk with. You guys thinking one's kind of
more procedural and one's kind of more about practice design.
I guess we can start with the practice design first.
But the question that's been taken up residence in my mind
recently is do we have enough opposition in our practices?
Like, I think about baseball and everything you do, there is
always an opponent, There's always opposition.
And if you look at a time breakdown of how we spend our
practices, the time spent with an opponent there is very
minimal. Like I I look back to my own
playing days and I would go dominate bullpens, but then as
soon as I go get out into the game, I would really struggle
because there's an alive human being in the box doing things
that I did not expect that was going to happen in the bullpen.
And obviously, we can simulate different intentions that Baker
talked about in bullpens, but it nowhere comes close to having
the same sort of opposition. I think baseball is definitely
behind in that area and I'm curious to hear your guys's
thoughts and in ways that we could potentially integrate that
more into practice. I mean I think it's it's simple.
I mean I don't know if we've talked about it Baker, but like
I'm 100% with you. The thing that I, I want to more
start with is like, why is it the way it is And I think we we
already have enough success in doing what we're doing that
there's no, there's no reason to.
Right. Because nobody else is doing it.
Like, why Also logistically it's it's harder.
Like I I have in my mind exactly how I'd want to do it.
But you have to integrate. You have to integrate your
offense and defense together. Like going back to you know
eventually I'll get I'll directly answer your question.
But the going back to you know things that successful coaches
have done in the past they scrimmage.
Right. Like a lot of their fall ball
was just scrimmages and like they got way better.
Well, why is it just, you know are they just playing the game.
Yeah. Sure.
I mean there's ways to again the ecological approach helps you to
not just we're not just playing the game like all of a sudden.
For example. OK.
Let's use the scrimmage as an example.
OK. And to me this is the highest
level. Right.
All right. We're scrimmaging now.
We're going to create different slices, you know, OK, we're
going to create different scenarios.
We're going to just start throwing in different game
scenarios. This is the thing of, yes,
random is fine, That, like, you know, all of a sudden you have
a, some random dude just run through the middle of the field
during the during your scrimmage.
OK, all right. You know, something, something
or you, you know, throw a, a a physio ball on the field and
like smack a guy, OK, you know, while he's doing like, OK like
something like completely crazy off the wall.
You can do that. And there might be some small
marginal benefit there to help guys find better solutions.
But eventually, because this is the whole thing, I was talking
to another coach and maybe I'll release this podcast at some
point. Bobby, Bobby Tewksbury is on.
He's like, look, the game is not completely random.
Everybody talks about this randomness.
I'm totally with with him on this of like, yeah, you're
right, the game is not completely random.
There's not just like, you know, again you're not going to just
have like a a physio ball just like fly in and hit a guy in the
middle of the game. That's not going to happen.
You know, all of a sudden the ball is not going to fall
straight down from the sky and it's going to have to like an
hour quick swing and like hit a ball.
Like it's not those types of things are not going to show up
in the game. So the game is predictable.
There is, there is some predictability to the game.
Otherwise you wouldn't. You need the proper constraints.
Constraints actually create predictability.
If you didn't have the constraints, you won't be able
to play the game because it's too like if the umpire just
started changing the zone a ton, right?
That's why I like guys get pissed off.
It's because it's like, well, that wasn't a strike, you know,
an inning or two ago. All of a sudden the zone just
completely changed and it's like changing, like the game would
not cease to function, right. So because of that we we
actually have to constrain things to the point that you do
get some level of consistency, but it's about the variation.
And so anyways this is where I'm going with this of on that long
rant side rant, we can create slices of the game, OK and so we
can have guys do different passes through certain areas of
the game more frequently if that's what they need to work
on. OK.
And so this intervention, this whole thing of like, oh, we just
sit back and we don't do anything.
No, we can come in and we can intervene and change the what's
going on, you know, maybe do more stuff with two outs,
runners in scoring position, etcetera, higher pressure stuff,
right. All stuff that people have known
before. But these are the things that
you can do more of. I think that's my point.
OK. So this is the highest level
Baker. Do you want to throw anything
else in there before I I get into like specifically answering
his question of like, OK, because to me it's all about
logistics. When we get down to this of like
why is it that people do what they do the way they do it now
versus what we're talking about, I think comes back to logistics.
It's all about logistics. I'll hop on the backside, I'll
let, I'll let you finish your rant here.
Well, because I So to me, as you're going to your question of
like, OK, how do we, how do we integrate this more?
You already were starting to say it like, OK, put a batter in
there. You know, like now we need to
like have a batter and throwing to batters, like, to me this is
like, duh, right? That's step one.
But if you want to scale it up, OK, how do we make it more game
like for both? This is true for both the hitter
and the pitcher. You need an umpire.
But the umpire now needs to become the coach, needs to not
call the zone a perfect zone. He does not do that.
You actually have to be intentional.
I think at the highest levels of you need to change the zone,
whether it's within session or session to session.
It can't be like and that's hard having tried to do it, it is
hard. It's hard to do and you need to
be disciplined because you're going to fall back to your
preferred zone and you have to be intentional and set the
intention of OK, this is the zone that I'm going to call
today. And sometimes you do have to get
in there and feel it out of like, you know, we are our guys.
You know where like you know kind of feel the room and get to
read the room and figure out like OK, what what type of zone
actually needs to get called today.
You know and like how do I want it.
But you, but you do have to maintain awareness of what that
zone is And that is I think for you know a lot of people that
that's going to be difficult. Some people who are like really
type A and on top of it, I don't think they won't struggle with
this. But I do think for from
observation of just trying to implement this stuff and using
it as the specific example of calling his own, We like, I've
tried to do things ecologically and eventually you just fall to,
you fall back to certain things and then it becomes all the
same. Like I, I, I find that happening
a lot of like or I want something that has all this cool
variability wrap without wrap. But we were like we just hit off
the machine a lot you know and that's but you know and we fall
back to these certain things. And so This is why I'm saying
like you have to be very, very intentional if you want to have
things. If you want to be able to
explore things and you have to be kind of paying attention and
it and it's a lot of work because it's all about logistics
in my mind and and that's what's going to play into what you can
do is like OK, if your if your system is not set up for your
pitchers to throw to hitters consistently guys aren't built
up. Your pictures aren't built up to
handle that workload you can't do it.
You know like that. That I think is a big
prerequisite of you need to have pitchers who's who are
conditioned and their arms can handle it to be able to throw at
the level that they're able to interact.
Because it's a question of like, you know like basic things of
like number of repetitions, like how many passes or opportunities
are you going to get at this thing and we begin to break it
down like the number of opportunities.
The way the current system is set up for pitchers is
incredibly low. You know, oh, once a week, you
know for 25 pitches how many like that's what maybe 3 batters
like that's that's really low number of like repetitions like
like so how much can you really explore when you're only facing
3 batters. There's not like you can't work
on very many things if you're if you're only going through three
batters. So it to me, that's where it's
it's all about logistics. You can't you have to have
certain prerequisites met before you can actually scale it up to
be able to do something that is truly like what this looks like.
And that's why I said in a tweet a long time ago like ecological
dynamics is is for specifically baseball but just in general for
sports is in its infancy. Like we have not fully fleshed
out like what this looks like and that's where it's it's
really cool. I mean to me you do kind of hit
a point at some point maybe maybe I don't know where it's
like you kind of you kind of hit like the the the gains become
more incremental right. Like we're, we're early enough
on the curve that if you do something, the amount of
benefits you're going to get from it is going to be there's
a, there's a big return for your that.
And I feel like with with analytics, you're we're kind of
hitting that peak too of like the more you go, the less you
get now from it. Whereas before when we first
introduced analytics to the game like there were big massive
jumps and advantages that you can get, not that you still
can't. You have to work a lot harder
though now to get that. So anyways, that's kind of where
I'm going with this is like, we're still in our infancy when
it comes to this of like. So that's at least my start of
like 2 very specific examples that are I think fairly easy to
integrate a batter and an umpire.
Very, very simple stuff. I mean, yeah, so those are my my
basic thoughts. I'll, I'll just jump in quick
here, but I, I, I 100% agree logistic logistics are the issue
with the with the whole thing. So I think that that brings up
the questions like one. OK so you say you can't get a
batter and you can't get an umpire.
Like what are the workarounds? Like how can we still make it
more alive since I think a lot of people are struggling with
that. Like I, I, you look at back some
of my TJC posts and I'll just, I'll just point that out for
anybody who wants to go back and look at those like simple way
you could potentially add an umpire in.
Like you have a bunch of pitchers standing around like
they could become your umpires and you can tell them what zone
you potentially want, especially especially if you know like
certain guy struggles or something.
Or you just want your pictures of tuning to a different
different zone like hey like hey you're going to call ball ball
outside here right. So give them a ball out every
single time or like hey I want I want a low zone today and like
you tell that pitcher that and I think it's one it's helpful for
those other pitchers to get the different vantage point and like
they they start trying to try to like oh is that a strike is that
a ball and they start actually tuning to the zone.
I mean from a different perspective but at least it's
better than just standing around right.
And two, it's like the pitchers are actually throwing are are
starting to attune to like the changing zone.
Hopefully they don't always. But now you as a coach can start
guiding like hey, what have you noticed about those last last
two calls on outside? It's like, oh, I just, I got
them, OK. So now that you're 1-2 in this
hypothetical count where could you potentially go assuming that
he took those pitches and looks frustrated.
So you can kind of add those layers in there of like you can
kind of like mention like what how the batter's potentially
responding so they're acting at least in accordance somewhat of
a problem, even if you don't have a batter.
I think the other thing that kind of came came into my mind
sometimes you have a, a really good pitcher like a dude that's
gonna blow the guys doors off every single time or just has a
wipeout breaker or something. And the batter's just not at
that level. And I think that's and we talked
about that in the in person. Aji think Sean or Tyler brought
up the example that they they use with some of their, some of
their NFL guys when they have a guy there was against the
college guys a lot better, right.
But there's ways to give an advantage like shrink that zone
like crazy for that pitchers a lot better than that hitter and
have them explore new ways of potentially getting out.
So you're still expanding their capabilities in a different way,
but you're getting better within a smaller zone, which they may
potentially face. Or if they don't face it, they
just got better in zone, like they're controlling their self
better in zone and it gives the hitter A slight advantage.
Or vice versa, right? Like it could be, could be a
hitter way better. The pitcher?
Well, OK, well, the zone's going to expand a little bit.
We're going to try to open your capabilities up as a hitter to
have to go a little further out. So the simple ways you can
manipulate that kind of stuff. But yeah, I think what do you
what? Do you think on that I want to I
want to dive into that because I don't love that and the reason
is is that hitting his if a guy's got a good sweeper like he
might chase it anyways. Don't matter that you shrink the
zone like the advantage is still to the pitcher.
That's where I I don't know how you and.
Which? Which which example are you
talking about? Like what is it for the pitcher?
Yeah, well, no, no. Meaning the advantages to the
pitcher and generally speaking, the advantage is to the pitcher
because like where, where, where, where are you going to on
the development scale? I think it's easier to develop a
pitcher than it is to develop a hitter Just in the, in the
current way of doing things right, we can, you know, pitch
design, all this sort of stuff. Velo, it's the contactability
stuff is not there for hitters yet as far as I can tell.
Like most people are not focused on developing guys who can hit
nasty stuff. So if your stuff is nasty, it
don't matter if you, you know, if you can't lay off of it, you
know what I'm saying? Like it's the integer still
going to be to the pitcher. Like I don't need to throw it in
the zone, he's just going to swing at it.
And so like to me it's, it's a question of like I guess, I
guess. Are you saying like you don't
like it for, say, the pitcher's better than the hitter and we
shrink the zone? Yeah, I it's a question of like,
OK, how do I play with this idea of we start trying to
disadvantage the pitcher to get it more on par so that the
hitter has a chance. And the only thing I can think
of now what I'm starting to think about is like, I don't
know, eliminate pitches. Like the pitcher can't throw a
sweep for sure. You.
Know what I mean? But that doesn't in the end,
like, I mean, I will do this for our hitters anyways is like, I
will. I will start to when I'm
throwing to them, I'll change, you know, like I'll limit the
number of breaking balls or I might go fastball heavy.
So, like, there might just be a whole stretch where I just throw
a bunch of fastballs. I did this to one guy, like one
of our better hitters. He was just struggling to.
He's just always under it. And I was just like, oh, you
know what? This is like a game too, right?
I'll probably. He's just going to just see
fastballs because he can't prove that he can hit it.
So I'm just going to feed him fastballs.
And I know he's a good enough hitter.
Like he'll figure it out eventually.
It took him probably like 4 rounds before he actually got
it. And then he was on it.
And then it turned out like I'd actually helped him get a little
bit. And I mean I kind of then was
more nasty to him afterwards, but it it seemed to hold a
little bit better out. You know some of it too is I got
in the pattern and so I like threw him a pitch.
I was like why did I throw that pitch there he was like he's
hitting those now. So it's kind of interesting.
But anyways, my point is, is maybe to cheer point of like, I
just needed to work through it a little bit of like, OK, how do
I, how do I, how do I gain a little bit more parity when we
do have that mismatch? Like it's easy to me to make it
harder for the hitter, you know, like I can, even though I don't
think of anything offhand. But there are just different
ways of like I move them closer. That's going to automatically
make it harder, you know, if a pitcher is struggling, like.
Depending depending on what they're making this look.
Bigger or whatever. Like these, It's easier for the
hitter, but to me, for the pitcher, when the pitcher has
the advantage, I think that's harder to help help, help give
the advantage back to the to the hitter or to make it, to level
it out, just because it's so much about being able to contact
the ball for the hitter. Yeah.
And I think I think I kind of constrained myself and just
using his own example. But in my, in my mind, like if
I'm going to take the advantage away like I'm, I'm going to take
away a lot of this like shrink the zone a little bit.
I may, I may have the pitcher now he's going to explore
different ways to say he's got a nasty sweeper, but he never
front doors a sweeper, but that's a way to landing in the
zone. So it's like at the same time,
like the hitter's not as good, but I'm expanding his potential
options that he may not explore. Because he's going to get chases
all the time away, and he's going to get that outside corner
potentially away. But I'm going to take that away.
So like, the hitter now knows, like, hey, the zones in a little
bit don't potentially have to swing at those away.
Now the pitcher has to find a new solution.
That's kind of where my brain went with something like that.
That's that's also where I think the Athlete Co design comes in
as well where a lot of what we're saying is oh what what can
we change that would make it easier for the batter.
Sometimes the batter knows kind of what he's not picking up on
or what he needs and so kind of putting the keys in his hand to
make some changes and recommendations.
Not only on the complexity side but I also think it comes in on
representative in this side like giving your athletes the keys of
anytime during this drill. If this doesn't really feel like
a game, you have freedom to go make adjustments to this
activity to make it feel like a game.
Like anything that you do is, is you're you're part of this
practice design. You can a coach can set
something and you know to an athlete he'll say this is close
but it's missing this. All right well add it in like
that's that's all yours to go for and and fix.
They know what's best because they're actually in the moment
doing it. Yeah, that's a good point.
And I think, I think that's a big piece, too.
It's like, OK, So what? What?
What do you think we need to take away from the pitcher as a
hitter, like or like, as a pitcher like, OK, So what?
What should we take away and give you a disadvantage and see
what they come up with, honestly.
And then we could potentially play off of that.
And they they probably come up with better ideas than we as
coaches do. And a lot of times they're
living. They're actually within the
environment. The knowledge of is higher than
what we're going to have. And I think too they're for the
people that might be like the naysayers, partially because
this has been my experience a little bit like I think working
with pro guys, pro guys know that have a lot more experience
working with junior college guys who are just fresh out of high
school. Yeah, I know.
But like there there's more, there's more percentage, right.
But with with the, with the guys that I run into and you know to
your point AJ that yeah, sometimes even the pro guys
don't don't really know. But I find that OK with the
young guys that I have to remember, they don't have a ton
of experience. So therefore, you know, coaches
will be like, well, they don't know.
Like I asked them the question, they just don't know.
I think I have to remember this too.
But like, you have to teach them or invite them to start thinking
in this way. They're not going to get it
right away. They're not going to have
answers for you right away. But it's about the environment
that you create and you keep that invitation open for them to
give input. And sometimes you have to
override that input because the other element of it too is like,
sometimes guys will just change it to make it easier and they
just want to be comfortable the whole time.
So like you're like, no, you have to, it has to be
challenging still. Like you can't just go over
there and just, you know, do easy, easy front toss and like
easy beeps like or just like for a lot of times too, like guys
will just set the machine to something kind of slow that they
can just sit there and mash and it's like, come on, like we need
to. If you actually want to get
better, we have to make this more challenging.
You got to turn the machine up. You got to let the ball spray a
little bit more. Like you can't, you can't just
groove it right down the middle. And so like these are things of
like we have to figure that out of like what's that balance?
Because even too, like this is from like a parenting
standpoint, like I kind of heard this, this example of like OK
with the kid, you can't have the reins just pulled real tight all
the time. Like you got to let the reins
out a little bit sometimes. So like, you know, there are
different, for example, when I did or weighted bats this, this,
this go around, I made sure that the machine was not set to super
hard because one, if they're going to get the value out of
the way to bats, they need to hit the ball.
So if it's too hard and they're not hitting the ball and they're
swinging missing, like it's like this isn't working.
But I also don't believe like we should be doing, you know, front
toss and hitting off AT either like then I'm not, yeah, I'm
building bat speed, but I'm not building the ability to hit the
ball. So I wanted something that was,
you know, like easy ish, like close to BP ish, but maybe just
slightly harder than BP part part of our machine is just
going to be that. And so, but I didn't want it to
be spraying all over the place and I wanted it to be something
that was doable. So like what we did is we did
like a, you know, we set the machine at like upper 70s, low
80s. I kind of wanted it at 75, but
we ended up being like 77 I think on average.
And then we did a slow a slow breaking ball machine in the
other cage. And so I had kind of and but the
goal was not for it to be nasty. It was just to be something that
was doable. And I think there there's a time
and a place for that to to like find those places where you can
let those guys do that comfortable thing where it's
where like it doesn't matter that it's like super high in a
representativeness. It can be a little bit lower and
there can be a space for that And I think, but you can't let
guys just stay there the whole time.
I think that's kind of the you know that that give and take and
finding out like OK where where can we do those things of like I
can let the reins out a little bit and we can go you can kind
of do that and I think there is a space for that.
So at least I would, I just wanted to put that out there of
like you know, for those people who are like, you know, are you
saying that has to be like this the whole time or like what
about this, you know, yeah you you do have to you have to find
that happy balance with with guys you know and you can't give
up on it though. I think that's the biggest thing
of like if you're not getting the response, if you believe in
the thing, you can't give up on it.
You got to figure out how to foster it.
So anything that you want to close on?
No, I I I think that's a pretty good wrap up.
Boy, that was a good, nice little you.
Had a you had one other thing. I don't know how much time you
have left Baker you got you got like 5/10/15.
What's your, What's your, what's your cap?
But I think for the safety amount being probably like 5.
OK. I don't know, AJ do you have
like what is the procedural thing question second-half of
your? Yeah, I mean this is like this
is more like out of curiosity like with with you guys.
But I was thinking about an act after action review and I was
wondering if like if that's something that's worth it in a
in in a team setting. So I'm thinking about, say, a
pro or college program. You obviously go through a game
and then you kind of pick out some certain aspects and walk
through it with your team. I wonder if that loses things
because again, you're out of, you're out of context, you're
just watching it on a screen. I was curious if you guys
thought that has value that, you know, maybe it's a conversation
for a different day, but that was something that I've been
kind of kicking around in my mind recently.
Baker, what are your What are your initial thoughts?
Are you talking like game review?
Yeah, like a game review style of thing where certain things
come up and kind of talk about, well, well, maybe why do we do
things this way or why did this happen?
Like, is that useful? I know that in the military,
after every single mission, they go through an after action
review, things that went well. What didn't go well, what could
have gone better? Like, I was curious if that's
something that's useful in the sporting context to try to drive
some sort of learning based off of what you did instead of it's
like, oh, this happened, all right, we're just going to jump
to the next game and just hope it doesn't happen again.
Yeah. No, I think it's, I think it's
extremely valuable and I think it's how you go through it and
how what language you use while you're doing it in my opinion
really, really matters. Again what you're.
I think in baseball, if we're just looking at baseball, your
typical one is you're going to be looking at the just specific
actions of the athletes. I think that's how it's
typically done and I think there could be obviously there are
times where there could potentially have value.
But I think that gets dangerous compared to looking through.
And you can kind of understand especially if you're you're
talking through it with an athlete or with athletes like
what they potentially were seeing or why they weren't
behaving in the way they were. And one, you can kind of
understand them better and you can kind of point out things
they may have potentially missed where they could go explore in
future practices. So I think there's a ton of ton
of value in that and just kind of like fleshing out wide things
potentially unfolded the way they they did since stuff you
won't get in game visit you can't just be with the athlete
and ask them what they saw after every play, right.
Like why they behaved or what they were connecting to where
that kind of time, what can be helpful.
And two, you can point out things that may have potentially
been missed or like like hey, because of this like you could
have potentially or you could throw it back on them.
It's like what you could you have potentially done.
And it's kind of like just educating their attention or
intention, obviously not on field, but that can be later
brought to the practice setting based on what you saw and it
kind of just like here's them into what you may have them
interact with later. No, I know I'm, I'm right there
with you and I think there there's value to it.
I just think you have to have some feel as to when, where and
where and when to put it because I do think like right after a
game, yeah, it's more fresh. But guys are also depending on
how long the day was, all this sort of stuff, there might not
be as checked in, you know, because those things can get
kind of long. You know if you're doing a,
you're doing a good debrief like it that that can take some time.
So I think I think you have to figure out where that works best
and like not get to, you have to figure out like, OK, where you
know, I want to touch on this thing after the game, you know,
and just spend a little bit of time on this.
But there are other things and I'll cover that other stuff like
it's not as important. You know what I mean?
Like there's that nice balance I think that you have to figure
out of where this lives and how it, how to actually implement
it. But I think it's it's highly
valuable just for the the mere point of like you you there's
value in spending some time like like Stu Macmillan was talking
about asking that what if question what if you know like
what if we had done this and playing these different
scenarios out so that next time you go out there you can begin
to your your attention. You're able to pick up different
things in the environment that you weren't able to before and
maybe see ways, different affordances, opportunities for
action to be able to interact with with that problem
differently. Different solutions, you know,
might emerge for you. So that's kind of my thought
there. So where can people find you
guys if this ends up being an episode like that You know where
can people find you what what do you guys got going on?
I know Baker you're you're back with the the Mets and then AJ
you're you're currently a free agent trying to trying to find
out or get connected with with folks and so where can people
connect and see more of your work.
Yeah, I mean, for me, I I check it sparingly, but kind of on X
or Twitter or whatever it's called at AJ Ferrara.
Nice. Nice.
I guess for me it's at Coach G Baker.
Neither Twitter or X or Instagram.
Probably I'm more on Twitter more.
Honestly, I'm less most both of them less now than ever.
But I'll still be beyond both. And e-mail, same thing.
Coach g.baker@gmail.com. If you want to want to hit me up
on e-mail, I. Mean most people never listen to
the end so but you guys should definitely get the Sport
Movement Skill Conference 2023 and or any of the other ones and
if you want a discount use use the code edge 7 to get 7% off.
OK so there's that plug. Hope you guys found some good
stuff out of this and good takeaways and till next time.