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MOVEMENT SKILL EDUCATION COMPANY
Emergence was created to help unite the movement skill acquisition world while helping you explore sport movement behavior in greater depth.
Emergence was created to help unite the movement skill acquisition world while helping you explore sport movement behavior in greater depth.
Underpinnings was created to bring clarity to your journey and discuss the pertinence of the vast array of important, conceptual ideas which form an ecological dynamics framework for sport movement behavior. At EMERGENCE, we live and breathe by a Dr. Mel Siff and Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky quote where in Supertraining (2009) they said, “Sport then becomes a problem solving activity in which movements are used to produce the necessary solutions."
Keith Davids
In this ONE HOUR (yes, 60 minutes!) call with the leading thought leader in the field of ecological dynamics, the one and only, Keith Davids. Very few individuals had as bold of a fingerprint on ‘Underpinnings’ and the entire Form of Life that we believe in here at Emergence. From his work co-authoring the several of the most seminal texts in the movement skill acquisition space such as ‘Dynamics of Skill Acquisition’ from 2008, ‘Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition’ in 2016, and the latest book, ‘The Constraints Led Approach’ in 2019 (among several others and countless journal articles and book chapters), Keith has been at the forefront of The Movement for decades! Because of that, we were not only humbled but also grateful to have him join our Co-Director of Education, Shawn Myszka, to discuss a whole host of topics related to sport movement behavior.
A few highlights from this one that you are bound to enjoy as you listen over and over include:
Rob Gray
Unless you have been living underneath a rock, and as long as you are even remotely into evolving your expertise as it pertains to movement skill, it’s highly likely that you have been influenced by Dr. Rob Gray at some point in your craft development especially over the past five years. Having started the now famous Perception Action Podcast back in 2015 and having completed over 250 episodes in that time, Rob has explored the science and the art of movement skill behavior more than just about anyone else. As our Co-Director of Education, Shawn Myszka, states, “Rob is like a living and breathing encyclopedia of movement skill behavior!” Well, in this 30 minute call with Shawn, Rob shows us exactly why he’s referred to in that way! Within it, Rob explores:
Stuart Armstrong
Stuart Armstrong is an individual who is never allowing the sport movement skill community to settle where they currently are. He truly embodies this within his craft and how he goes about the evolution of his thoughts. Very few individuals push themselves by asking more constructive and deeper questions of themselves as Stu does. This is really rather evident through a listen of any of his podcast episodes with any of his guests on the now wildly notorious Talent Equation Podcast. Not surprisingly then, in this entertaining call with our friend Stu, our Co-Directors of Education Tyler Yearby and Shawn Myszka have an invigorating discussion that goes down various rabbit holes of movement skill acquisition. It was certainly dangerous getting Stu, Tyler and Shawn together as the call could’ve easily gone on for much longer periods of time but we are sure that you are bound to gain some tremendous insight, specifically:
Ben Franks
If you are as fascinated about the role of information and the nature of affordances for action as we at Emergence are, you are going to want to listen to this 30 minute discussion between our very own Shawn Myszka as he dives into the ever-important topic of information and how movement is coupled to it with an individual making a major impact on the thoughts of the community in Ben Franks. If you are unfamiliar with Ben prior to this point, we are sure that you’re going to get as much from his thoughts in this jam-packed 30 minute call. We are certain that you will find yourself gaining something new each time you get a chance to listen to this interview because it is truly that good! Ben specifically discusses:
Rich White
We know that the various conceptual ideas shared throughout ‘Underpinnings’ will mean very little to you if they don’t practically apply for your athletes across the timescale of development and skill acquisition. Furthermore, not everyone is working with elite-level athletes. Our next individual in the Expert Interview Series has worked with athletes, both male and female, across the learning spectrum and across a wide variety of sport domains. In fact, both of our Co-Directors of Education (Tyler and Shawn) have locked arms personally with Rich and worked alongside of him. In this really honest conversation, Rich sits down with Tyler and Shawn to discuss where he has come from and how his ideas and thoughts have grown along the way (due to some poking and probing by both Tyler and Shawn!). Though he’s still relatively new in the whole scheme of things as it pertains to the use of the ecological dynamics framework within his craft, this may make Rich the perfect person to hear from on many of these topics because it’s likely that he has been where some of you out there currently are: a place of intrigue but reluctance, trying to determine how to absorb the ideas to use in your individualized craft and in your personal setting. Rich also discusses:
Stephen Osterer
Many sports across the world are guilty of adopting traditional dogmas and simply doing ‘what’s always been done’ within our respective crafts to try to impact movement skill in the competitive sports environment. The sport of baseball may be as guilty as they come in this regard. However, a number of individuals in the baseball realm are beginning to change the thought processes which guide the training environments that are designed. Leading the way among that group of maverick individuals is Stephen Osterer of The Baseball Development Group. In this call, Stephen sits down to chat with Shawn Myszka of Emergence along with the Director of Operations at Emergence and fellow baseball skill acquisition junkie, Garrett Boyum, to chat about his unique views in the utilization of ecological dynamics in his peculiar role and setting. Additionally, they discuss:
Movement Meet-up Zoom calls each month where over a 60 minute period of time you will get an opportunity to hear from members of the EMERGENCE team on the various concepts and ideas related to the course content. Can’t make it on the call? That’s okay; they will be recorded and you will have access to them!
Forever! As long as Emergence is alive and kicking, Underpinnings also will be. Thus, you will never lose access to its content.
We believe that Underpinnings is for anyone who has a passion and vested interest in understanding movement skill deeply. It was created to open up dialogue around the most pertinent concepts for viewing movement behavior in a comprehensive, systems-based perspective. Thus, many of the ideas it contains can actually serve to unify and unite those across the movement skill community ranging from sport coaches, strength and conditioning or athletic performance specialists, athletic trainers, scientists, academics, and anyone in between. As long as you love movement skill, we believe that you will love Underpinnings.
Ideas within an ecological dynamics framework live and breathe everywhere within the world around us. Additionally, of course, no matter what we do and how we seemingly differ from others (even those who play sport), we all aim to solve movement problems within our world and to do that, we must organize functional movement solutions (tightly interwoven perception-cognition-action couplings) to do so. Thus, even if you don’t work with athletes, we believe that Underpinnings will make you think vastly different about your craft no matter who it is that you work with on a daily basis in the enhancement of their movement skills to match the problems that they face!
Yes! In fact, this is precisely what our ‘Movement Meet-ups’ were intended to do and why we elected to give anyone who purchases Underpinnings free access to the Meet-ups each month for a year. Within those hosted Meet-up chat rooms you will have the opportunity to ask questions and interact with not only those who were responsible for the content development of Underpinnings but also others from around the movement skill community.
Additionally, if you have a question that you feel needs answering before that point, feel free to reach out to us on the ‘Contact’ tab above or on any one of our social media outlets. We are always happy to interact with others who are passionate about the study of sport movement skill and behavior!