The Talent Equation Podcast

Carl Woods PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He also works with high performance sports teams as a coach and consultant with his main focus sport being Aussie Rules Football. In this conversation we explore a range of issues related to how ecological principles can be used and adopted and applied by coaches. The range of subjects include... - Why coach...

Mark Williams is an academic and one of the world’s leading authorities on expertise and its acquisition in sport. He has published 18 books and written over 500 scientific articles on how people become skilled and achieve success in sport. Mark's new book is called 'The Best: How elite athletes are made' is a really interest delve into the science of athlete development told through the stories o...

Iain 'Brunchy' Brunnschweiller is the Head of Coaching and Player Development at Southampton FC. His work seeks to improve the development experience for the players within the academy so that the club can continue it's impressive record of supporting the development of some of the countries most able young players. In this conversation we explore the ways that Iain has evolved his coaching approa...

I was invited by Ivan Cobb and Adam Haniver to join the community of boxing coaches that they convene to talk about skill acquisition, ecological dynamics and the constraints led approach. It is a wide ranging discussion where I am responding to questions and exploring the ways that a 1 to 1 combat sport could utilise ecological principles and apply the constraints led approach. Hope you enjoy Bec...

Greg Spencer has spent a good proportion of his life afloat...he is a paddler...he is passionate about all forms of self propelled floating water craft...he particularly loves canoes and he loves helping other people to fall in love with canoes. In this conversation, Greg and I explore how canoe coaching sets so comfortably with the ecological approach and how it has influenced the ways in which h...

This weeks podcast comes from a 'Breakfast Club' session that I did with the Mark Cairns, one of the founders of 'Coach Logic' and Dr Ed Coughlan. In this conversation, Ed walks through his ideas about helping coaches to develop using a 'cut, bleed and bandage approach' and we then explore various other methods and some ways that coaches can commit to their development and learning. Hope you enjoy...

Kathy Sierra is the name behind the fabulous @intrinzen Twitter account and the @Pantherflows Instagram account. Kathy has an amazing backstory including time as an exercise physiologist and owner of one of the biggest gyms in California to a career in video game design. More recently she spends her time using ecological principles to develop the movement capabilities of horses. As her website put...

Gérard Jones is Elite Coach Educator with the Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football (Moroccan Football Federation). He is also published author and professional football coach with over 14 years coaching experience across the world. He recently served as a Grassroots Instructor with USSF and Director of Coaching in the US, having also been a Head of Academy Coaching at EFL League One side Bristo...

Jamie Edwards from 'Trained Brain' makes a welcome return to the show to explore some of the challenges being presented by the current lockdown and how coaches can help themselves to deal with the effects of social isolation as well as helping athletes to work through it. In this episode Jamie meets 'The Conclave' the Talent Equation's monthly learning community to answer questions. It is a really...

Mark Bennett from 'Performance Development Systems' and Alan Keane, Head Coach of Reading Rockets Basketball Club make a welcome return to the show to share some of their latest thinking around coaching and coach development. The conversation centres around why they have moved away from the term 'athlete centred' or 'player centred' coaching towards 'need centred or needs led' coaching. We explore...

I caught up with Shawn Myszka and Tyler Yearby, the co-founders of 'Emergence' a www.emergentmvmt.com , a dedicated resource and community for coaches and movement specialists looking to explore the ever growing world of skill acquisition through ecological dynamics. In this conversation we explore why 'emergence' was set up and the impact it is having for coaches looking to learn more about this...

This week I catch up with Marianne Davies, Tyler Yearby and Rich White for an episode of the 'Book Club'. This month we explored a research paper which has questioned the way that sport and physical activity is experience for people who are often marginalised from the sporting world. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338454051_Re-conceptualizing_embodied_pedagogies_in_physical_education_by_...

This week I get together with 3 of the organisers of the Movement Skill Acquisition Ireland conference, Phil Kearney, Olly Logan and Alan Dunton along with 2 of the speakers from the event, Keith Davids and Nick Winkleman to reflect on what has happened in the world of coaching and skill acquisition since the first event 2 years ago. In this episode we explore the ways in which coaching has evolve...

Another Dog Walk Diary...this time focussed on the challenges coaches often feel when confronting self-doubt or a loss of confidence. This has been stimulated by a number of conversations that I have had recently with people in a range of contexts and explores how we can use this as fuel for our development. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-p...

Dog Walk Diary - Thank you mum Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support . Ready to explore these ideas further? Join The Guild of Ecological Explorers – a community of practitioners committed to deepening their understanding of ecological dynamics and constraints-led approaches. Head to www.thetalentequation.co.uk and click t...

Ben Strafford is studying for a PhD at Sheffield Hallam University under the guidance of the legendary Keith Davids. He is exploring how Parkour could be a 'donor sport' to a load of other sports in that it provides a range of dynamic action possibilities that are not based on 'movement norms' like gymnastics or athletics but are more about a human being interacting with an environment to develop...

Scott Sievewright is an martial arts coach from Milwaukee in the US. He is originally from the UK but moved to the U.S. in 2005 where he discovered martial arts and has never looked back. He designs his approach to coaching as... "we design our curriculum and practices based on well-established principles of motor learning, skill acquisition, and human motivation. We believe learning is best achie...

Scott Mowberry and Mark Edwards from the http://thesoccercoachingpodcast.com/ are two coaches that believe that one of the best methods of player development is coach development and have worked to develop a podcast that facilitates informal learning so that coaches can be progressive, engaging and effective in their delivery. They are both experienced grass roots coaches who have embraced the gam...

John O'Sullivan started the Changing the Game Project in 2012 after two decades as a soccer player and coach on the youth, high school, college and professional level. He is the author of the #1 bestselling books Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes, and Giving Youth Sports Back to our Kids and Is it Wise to Specialize? John’s work has been featured in Th...

Stephen Rollnick provides consultancy, mentorship and training on the subjects of motivation, change, teamwork and Motivational Interviewing. He an Honorary Distinguished Professor in the School of Medicine in Cardiff University, Wales, UK with a research record focused on good practice in efforts to promote change and behaviour change among patients, clients and the practitioners who serve them....

Throughout her career as one of the world's top athletes, Annie Vernon struggled with a question about the purpose of sport in our society: why do we do it? What is it about our psyche that makes pushing the mind and body to their limits in order to win a foot race, a swimming race or a rowing race such a basic human desire? Having retired from competition, Annie decided to look for answers to the...

John Kessel works for USA Volleyball, as Director of Sport Development. He currently serves as the staff liaison for Disabled Programs & USA Deaflympic Teams. His main goal is to help make all coaches more efficient, positive and creative, no matter what level - 7 year olds in an elementary school program or National team players and programs. He challenges old ways of thinking and help coaches cr...

James Vaughan returns to the podcast to share some of his latest insights into the world of talent development, skill acquisition and coaching. James is a coach at AIK Stockholm and is one of a team of experts that are leading a transformation in the way that the club engages with the community and with the young people within it's academy. It is a talent development environment that is very much...

Ted Suikonen is a Skill Development Specialist Coach that has been working in professional ice hockey for most of his career. He is currently the skill development coach with Locomotiv Moscow in Russia and boasts an impressive track record of developing players to play at the elite level in Russia many of whom have been drafted into the NHL. In this fascinating conversation which we recorded when...

James Stafford has a strong interest in how information guides movement. Questions like how can we judge a gap between cars when crossing a road and how does a cricketer successfully intercept a ball travelling at 90 mph led him to working with Professor Cathy Craig on a PhD at the Movement Innovation Lab at Queen's University Belfast. James wrote a fascinating thread on Twitter about the Australi...