Lesson 3 Specific Movement Skills

Welcome to today's lesson! Today we are learning about specific movement skills. Did you know that our bodies have something called "muscle memory"? Muscle memory is our bodies way of "rememering" new skills. This is why it is really important to practice new skills many times with perfect technique - otherwise we will develop muscle memory for badly performed movements!

Specific movement skills build on fundamental (or basic) movement skills in that you use the fundamental skills you have learnt and adapt or slightly change the skill to make it applicable to your sport. This is known as transfer of skills. We saw an example of transfer of skills last lesson when we adapted the overarm throw to do a netball shoulder pass.

It is important that we learn to transfer our skills in a variety of ways (for example, different styles of passing a netball) because we play games in a dynamic environment. Dynamic means changing or moving. Sports are dynamic because the environment does not stay the same. Players move, the weather changes, penalties occur etc...

Many sports players train for their sport in a predictable environment. This is because it is easier to develop skills without the initial distraction of a dynamic environment. Once a player has developed a skill, they will often practice it in a dynamic environment (e.g: a 'friendly' game)so that they are fully prepared to use their new skill in a competitive game.

Today we are going to analyse how fundamental movement skills can be transferred to specialised soccer skills.

Activity 1:

Have a look at a minute or 2 of the first two video clips below. While you’re watching, look for examples of skipping, hopping, balancing and other fundamental movement skills that may or may not have been transferred to a specific soccer movement skill.

Question: Why do you think the soccer players needed to specialise the fundamental movement skills? Would soccer be the game it is today if the players could only do basic movement skills?


Activity 2:

Now, have a look at the first minute or 2 of 2 of the video clips under the heading 'indoor soccer'. Have a look again for examples of specific movement skills. While you are doing this, look for skills that have been adapted more or less for indoor soccer and outdoor soccer.

Question: Why do you think some skills are used more or less in the different types of soccer?

Activity 3:

Now it is time to reflect on what we have learnt about specialised movement skills. Open up your laptop or get out some paper and a pen, and answer these questions:

Q1: describe how you would adapt skipping to the sport of indoor soccer. Why is it necessary to adapt the fundamental skill of skipping to a specific soccer skill?

Q2: imagine you are a soccer coach, and are coaching a beginners team. The team have good fundamental movement skills, but don’t know anything about soccer. What soccer skill would you teach your team first, as the most important? Why did you choose that particular skill? How would you teach your team the skill?

Activity 4:

Divide into groups of four. Devise a game called "netfoot", incorporating the skills you have practised and observed from last lesson and this lesson.

When developing your game, consider the following points:

1) What are the major rules? (come up with 3-4)
2) What are the major fundamental movement skills you will need to play the game?
3) What specific movement skills will you need to play the game?
4) What is the aim of the game?
5) How do you play?

At the end of the lesson each group will briefly present their game to the class, explaining the 5 points listed above. You can make your presentation as a powerpoint document, or in any way you like. Remember, you are trying to sell your game to the class as they will vote in an orderly fashion on their favourite 3 games, which we will play next lesson.

Which means... DON'T FORGET YOUR PRACTICAL GEAR FOR NEXT LESSON!!!





indoor soccer: