Motor control and Training

Theory and Training

Korfball actions are intentional and always happen in a specific situation.
My professor of the PE university (CALO Arnhem, Netherlands) taught me what actions are. I would like to cite this famous sentence: “Actions are an indivisible unit of changes which are intentionally related to the specific situation”.
During action the motoral, sensory and cognitive processes are interacting with each other as a unity. By a specific program of the brains the player is able to control his movements and to reach the goal. The korfball player needs information to control his actions. The direction and the form of the korfball action is based on information. This information influences and organizes the brain programs by the interaction of the motoral, the sensory and cognitive processes. So a player who plays a korfball match needs to develop a korfball program in his brains, which is quite different from a basketball or a handball brain-program.
The information is taken out the specific (korfball) situation. The player is bound to this situation. This information is linked to the brain through different streams: A body related information stream (internal perception) and a situation information stream (external perception).
A. Internal perception (preconception) tells us what is going on in our bodies. We can sense where our limbs are, whether we are sitting or standing. We can also sense whether we are hungry, tired and so forth. The bodies information stream comes to the player by his different sensual organs: it is perceived by the eyes, the nose, the skin (limbs) and tongue. These organs are always bound or related to the brain to provide information.
B. The situation information stream comes from the specific situation in which the player acts. For these actions sight is often gives the most important source of information. External sensory perception (exteroception), tells us about the world outside our bodies. Using our senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, we discover colors, sounds, textures, etc. of the world at large.
In korfball, players have to act intentionally, to solve korfball problems. They need to act wirh intentionality on specific information. Important information for korfball players in a korfball match are for example the position of the ball and the korf and the positions and movements of fellow players and opponents.

Experiment:
During one training with the National Chinese Taipei Team, in Kaohsiung I did an experiment.
In the airplane to Taiwan I got a blindfold of the stewardess. I used this blindfold to keep the light away when I tried to sleep in the plane. During training I gave this blindfold to one of the best Tigers (top scorer in the Dutch Korfball League) to blindfold one of his eyes. I challenged him to make shots from about 3 metres with one eye blindfolded. Normally with two eyes open, he will score about 90 % - 100%. Now he missed the first tries and scored one goal after 6 tries. I did this experiment to show the players how you can intimidate a Tiger.
The routine of the Tiger is based on control of information which has a normal korfball information pattern. When a defender can change the perception of the Tiger, the Tiger will step out of this routine. By breaking the normal information stream of the Tiger, the defender can even influence the effectiveness of the shots of the Tiger.

Conclusion:1. Korfball training can only be effective when the trainer organizes korfball-game-like situations.
2. Playing matches is probably the best situation for learning: the hard match is the most effective training.
3. Players can improve their skills only by a hard competition: you need real competitors to improve the skill.
4. Variability in learning is a must, this teaches the player flexibility in the ways to reach his goals.