I spent last week skiing.  I’m fortunate enough to have found a fantastic ski coach who has turned me from being a weak to a passable skier over the last 5 years (and we only ski one or two weeks each year). It’s interesting to see how he has achieved this – mostly by giving me continuous feedback on what I’m doing right (and occasionally wrong) and helping me to calibrate to what I feel. Skiing, like most sports, is highly kinaesthetic in nature.  The trick (in my admittedly inexperienced eyes) is to feel the changing pressure against the skis and to use one’s body to control this, thereby turning.  It’s quite hard to do when you are at the top of a very steep slope, with terror being all too present.  The ultimate aim is to have the responses trained into the muscles so they are automatic.

So, if we look at how my coach is successful, its about putting me in situations that help me to experience difference (for example new snow conditions or steeper slopes), giving guidance and feedback to calibrate to the difference, altering my behaviour with demonstration, guidance and exercises and continuing to reinforce the desired behaviour until the response becomes automatic.  Being a sport the feedback is immediate, and it shows how a good coach, expert in their field, can really adjust behaviour fundamentally and very quickly.