Complexity in Games Teaching and Coaching

Book excerpt: Shedding new light on sport pedagogy and the teaching and coaching of games, this book shows how complexity theory can be used to improve team sport performance, coach education and young player development. The book draws together insights from both the humanities and behavioural sciences, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, and play theory, into a new educational methodology for team sports. It shows how concepts from complexity theory underpin and inform team sport dynamics, including the uncontrolled nature of live human systems; the nature of complex systems and how this shapes student and young athlete learning; self-organisation and its relation to decision-making in play; and mental self-regulation and motivation. It presents an innovative and sophisticated definition of sport pedagogy that can help teachers and coaches deepen their understanding of teaching and learning in team sports, and help them to develop more motivated, more effective and more creative athletes.