To aid motor development, make sure your demos are spot-on... and get your students moving.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do at this stage is to get out of the way and let learning happen.
not the student) because, again, to the student nothing feels right. Immediate, positive feedback is most effective. In training for my Level III exam, I was struggling to understand a particular movement a trainer wanted to see. After exhausting every explanation possible (with no success on my part to understand), he resorted to following me down the hill, yelling “Yes!” every time I successfully completed the task. While this approach might intimidate your student or be impractical in a group setting, it was exactly what I needed to understand the movement I was supposed to perform. If you see the correct movement, the sooner you can give feedback, the better. Another important factor in
the
cognitive stage is time: time to understand, time to experiment, time to absorb. In my first year as an instructor, I was really excited to teach my first intermediate lesson. A young woman was preparing for a college ski trip, and she wanted a few pointers so she “wouldn’t embarrass herself.” I quickly assessed her skiing, and off we went. First we worked on one thing, then another, then another. She performed each skill reasonably well before I went on to the next task, so I just kept adding. At the end of the lesson, I reviewed what we went over, and she looked at me like I
was speaking a foreign language. In my enthusiasm, I had given her four different things to work on in our one hour together. I made the fatal mistake of giving her too much too fast, and not allowing her to have ownership of any of it. Unfortunately, students rarely say, “Stop!
Too much! I need to practice that.” We have to stop ourselves so our good intentions do not impede the learning process.
2. THE ASSOCIATIVE STAGE: WELCOME TO THE MOTIVATION STATION
Te second stage of Fitts and Posner’s learning process is the associative stage. At this point, the student grasps the basic movement pattern. Movements become more efficient, with less error as the movement becomes more refined. Te student has less muscular tension, and some parts of the movement pattern might even be automatic. It sounds nice, right? Unfortunately, no. Tis can be the longest and most frustrating stage of the whole process. Just knowing the movement pattern is not enough. Or as Japanese musician, philosopher, and educator Shinichi Suzuki might put it, “Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill.” Developing a skill takes discipline. It takes
motivation. It takes practice with a purpose. Sometimes the process feels a little bit like banging your head against a brick wall. When I was director of Tiny Tots (a local ski program for 3- to 5-year-olds), I remember one instructor voicing this frustration to me: “I just spent the last two hours helping little Johnny get rid of his pizza and start making french fries. He was skiing beautifully! Now he’s out with his dad making the biggest death wedges I’ve ever seen. Why, why, why…?” As instructors, our job in the associative stage is more about encouraging and motivating, and less about explaining. You might inspire students with “Hey, if you keep up with French fries, you can move up a level.” Feedback is still important, but it can be less immediate and more intrinsic (i.e., coming from the student, not from the instructor). Hence, your student might offer up something like, “My first couple of turns felt terrible, but the last ones felt really good.” Trust is also important. Te student needs to trust that what you’re teaching is correct and worth all the effort. Sometimes, the best thing you can do at this stage is to get out of the way and let learning happen.
3. THE AUTONOMOUS STAGE: SWEET! I THINK YOU’VE GOT IT!
Te third stage of the motor learning process is the autonomous stage. Movements become smoother, more accurate, more consistent, and
In the associative stage of development, students grasp the basic movement pattern, and practice with purpose is the key to mastering it.
THESNOWPROS.ORG | 79
JAY CARROLL
KRISTEN QUINN
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