More on Kisakallio and some recently found interviews
More details have surfaced about my upcoming trip and about the facilities at the Kisakallio Sport Institute.
The institute is an educational sports facility that offers 2-3 years study programs for Vocational Qualification in Physical Education. They house about 200 students a year and most of them live there for the duration of their program. Outside of that it is a training facility for individuals and teams. Their main focus area in the past has been gymnastics and basketball, and they are the official Olympic training center for both rhythmic gymnastics and basketball.
And, they are expanding (due to being an official Olympic training center) this year to include beach volleyball and handball. In addition to this they have a close collaboration with the Finnish Curling association, Finnish Icehockey federation, the Finnish Ringette association, and the Finnish canoeing and rowing federation. They also work with figure skaters, synchronized skating teams, floorball players, volleyball players and dancers. Needless to say they have a lot going on and house coaches off all variety of skill-sets.
The conference itself has a very broad focus, with speakers from all over the world gathering to talk skill acquisition and development. For a better idea of the subjects that will be covered, here is the itinerary for the conference:
Wednesday 18.11.2015
12:30 Opening Ceremony
Principal of Sports Institute of Kisakallio: Asko Härkönen
Dean of the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä: Dr. Lasse Kannas
Head of the Research Institute for Olympic Sports: Dr Sami Kalaja
Chair: Dr Sami Kalaja
12.45 Professor Keith Davids – Learning design in sport: Implications of a nonlinear pedagogy
13.30 Professor Wolfgang Schöllhorn – Differential learning unifies motor learning theories
14.15 Jörg Ahmann – Enhancing the attacking technique in beachvolleyball with Differential learning
15.30 Richard Shuttleworth – Constraints-led coaching in team sports
17.00 Dinner
Chair: Professor Beatrix Vereijken
18.00 Professor Charles Hillman – The relation of physical activity and other health behaviors to childhood cognition, memory and achievement
18.45 Professor Janne Avela – Interaction between motor skill learning and brain plasticity changes
20.00 Welcome reception
Thursday 19.11.2015
8.00 Exhibition open
Chair: Dr Kaisu Mononen
9.00 Professor Jia Yi Chow – Nonlinear Pedagogy: An insight into pedagogical principles for effective learning in sport
9.45 Mark Upton: Assisting coaches and national programmes in the use of a constraints-based framework for athlete learning and development
10.30 Professor Geert Savelsbergh – Talent identification and development of young football players
11.15 Al Smith – The ecological dynamics of talent development
12.30 Lunch
Chair: Minna Blomqvist
13.30 Professor Duarte Araújo – The ecological dynamics of decision making in team ball sports
14.15 Professor Graham Kerr – Embedded design structures for enhancing perception-action linkages: using textured insoles to improve functional movement capabilities in different populations
15.30 Professor Beatrix Vereijken – Skill acquisition in children and adults: Balancing stability and flexibility
16.15 Exhibition
17.30 Possibilities for physical activity
19.30 Social evening
Friday 20.11.2015
8.00 Poster Interactive
8.30 Parallel sessions for oral presentations
Session 1: Cognitions and emotions Chair: Professor Geert Savelsbergh
Session 2: Motor Performance Chair: Professor Duarte Araujo
Chair: Jukka Hokka Kisakallio
10.30 Dan McLaughlin – ”The Dan Plan”
11.30 Break
Chair: Dr Marja Kokkonen
11.45 Professor Jean Côté – How to optimize competence and psycho-social development in youth sport through effective coaching
13.15 Closing words Professor Keith Davids
In addition to all of that, I will be arriving a few days early and will have the opportunity to talk, along with Finnish golf coaches Henri Salonen and Jukka Hokka. Both of them are covering topics on how to train for golf and strength through the winter.
There will be a number of golf and strength coaches attending the conference and I have already been fortunate enough to set up meetings with a handful of them, from physical therapists and strength coaches to golf specific coaches. It should prove to be an excellent learning experience as well as a great chance to share my own story.
Speaking of that, I have been working on my presentation for the past week and have found it rather insightful to go back through the blog and all of my personal notes. Reminds me of all the things that I have been fortunate enough to experience as well as the good and bad times throughout the past five years. I think it is important to reflect from time to time, and especially to do some deep reflection at least once a year. The winter seems to be a good time for that.
The plan is to cover my own experience as well as talk about everything I have learned about learning. There has been so many right and wrong paths that I have gone down since starting this and one of the most important things that I can do while sidelined is to share my experiences on both to those. Hopefully I can help others in golf and, potentially, in learning.
I will do my best to capture as much as possible in video, photos and in words. That reminds me, I need to clear off my phone so there is enough storage for the videos…
On a side note, there have been a couple new stories about The Dan Plan recently. In particular this one from SUCCESS magazine:
http://www.success.com/article/the-10000-hour-theory-does-practice-make-perfect
Also, I found this video from August:
Back to preparing my talk. More updates soon!