- What is the functional evaluation of the athlete?
- What is the currently prevailing paradigm?
Unfortunately today, thinking to correctly apply the tools of science, treat the living matter as a complicated and complex; also the functional evaluation refers to this model.
The error often committed is to think of an athlete like a car made up of many mechanical parts, you are looking more and more to break down the individual elementary units.
For this we have the strength test, the heater test, The speed test, so that each of them, regarded as a fragment of a puzzle, give us information on a profitable aspect of the performance and potential of the athlete: "You lack the strength, then you propose sessions dedicated exclusively to it ".
As things really work, is this the right approach to take account?
The answer is: almost never. Not only it is not, but ultimately it is the biggest mistake you can commit.
The two fundamental characteristics to describe a system
are the elements and connections.
In a complex system elements are numerous.
The elements are mutually different.
Between the individual elements of these systems
There are also many connections.
The connections are not linear.1
To better understand how the complexity, I would like to begin by describing the environment in which and the manner in which it acts, and then drops to measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the current approach regarding the assessment's functional.
I find the best way to do that than with the example described in the wonderful book Nexus at Mark Buchanan
"In the field of ecology, researchers are faced with a similar problem when studying a problem of high complexity. Consider for example the case of South Africa. From the time its fishing industry argues that if the seals were removed on the west coast would increase the number of hake, fish in high demand in the market. Seals eat hake, have reasoned with rudimentary logic operators in the fisheries sector. But things are not so simple. Seals and hake are only two links in the food chain immensely complex, and actions that are done in a certain environment you can not isolate completely out of context. The ecologist Peter Yodzis, Canadian University of Guelph, estimated that a change in the number of seals affect the population of hake through the action of exerting intermediate species, in a house of dominoes including over 250 million journeys cause-effect. Remove the seals would really increase the noses? At the moment you can not even hazard a guess plausible. If the South African fishing industry decimated seals, may find themselves less lugs first. With a logic of cause and effect that ultimately leads to the solution of the problem but, paradoxically, to a worsening of the problem. " 2
in other words: the effect of a very small variation is propagated to a multitude of consequences, more distant and incalculable.
"The flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas." 3
(Lorenz all’American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, 1979).
The assessment is not measuring, evaluation is a very complex mental process, as far as we can force. The evaluation is never objective but always subjective, it stems from a myriad of considerations and reflections of the coach which results from a combination of factors such as data or measured data, from their own experience, from the model prestativo, from their attitudes, from their own culture, the athlete in question, by sport and so on and so forth.
At the base of each account and each approach should reign a radical principle that should never be forgotten:
common sense.
For this we need to introduce a new assessment paradigm that refers to a thought reform, based on the principles of complexity and indications of the philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin.
A complex system is a constantly changing and evolving. The measurement taken is now measuring this particular time, that is very far from a hypothetical second measurement in the meantime, will be changed to a multitude of circumstances and comparisons between the two are permitted only if they are accompanied by appropriate reasoning.
Careful to draw conclusions as: "It's improved strength because during the training sessions have used those particular training methods", I think it is possible to venture a similar conclusion, the infinity of factors and elements interconnected, changing, do not allow certainties.
For a correct approach we encounter the concept of the edge of chaos (described in the book Prey or spider De Toni and Comello), coach who has a special role; a dynamic role, not static. The coach must be able to manage change, must be able to suggest strategies to deal with, in a few words must walk the edge of chaos.
This is where you place the role of the coach as an accompanist, that Prof Bellotti examined.4
Complex systems at the edge of chaos
are subjected to a large number of small perturbations
and a small number of large disturbances
that, by destruction, generate
discontinuity, creation, innovation
(law of exponents).1
The evaluation not only marks a stage in the planning of training. Counter, it insinuates itself into every moment, at each instant, It stems from the dialogue and relationship coach-student. To manage this knowledge, the trainer must possess important tools; I refer not only to the technology, mathematics, the statistical, but also a new way of thinking.
"You can not be considered without taking into account the particular global and can not be considered without taking into account the overall detail." 5
When told by Pascal is the basis of the evaluation process:
in complex systems, the cause produces the effect,
which in turn feed back on the cause
in a circular relationship that self-feeding.1
A movement, even the most basic, is not a simple movement. In any action sums up the life of the subject. The Romans said:"We are the sum of our thoughts and tomorrow we will be the sum of our thoughts other thoughts." In other words, I would say: “We are the sum of our movements and tomorrow we will be the sum of our movements other movements. "
During the evaluation process can not take an element in itself such as the measurement of leap and separate it from the context in which it occurs.
A Zen aphorism says: "To watch a fish you have to look at the water." In our case: "To watch a leap necessary to observe the life of the jumper."
"So it's like if I said
that everything is connected with everything
in a network of mind as a big brain,
all the doors and all objects
mingle together and not together "
Reflection Zen
All the things and people around the world are part of an extensive network of non-linear incentives, constraints and connections (the web of life).6
Our body is a complex system of complex subsystems all connected to each other, as of nesting dolls. A system formed by holons that give rise to other holons, influenced by other systems that act on the body and react with the person. A set consists of several subsystems interconnected open, in which there is a cell that is separated from the rest of the body.
"We are all holon. A holon is a complex system that is part of a more complex system interconnected, is a hierarchy interconnected. "
"The fundamental concept is therefore
that the system is in the environment
and this is not surprising
and the environment is in the system. "1
"Complexity is everywhere around us but also within us. An ant but also a colony of ants are complex systems. " 7
We must not fall into the trap where you think that the sum of small fragments of a system to return the total:
"The sum of the parts is more than the total."A
The all is the result of a system of relations.
The total has features that are not derived from pure combination of the elements.
"Science is done with the facts as a house is made with bricks
but the accumulation of facts is not science any more than
a pile of bricks is a house. "
Henri Poincaré
Based on these assumptions:
- what's the Cartesian dualism that cares atomising?
- deterministic conceptions with which we want to address the problem?
- which particular measurement we want to do?
If we look to the mere measurement think if revenues do little. Fortunately, as we have already said a body is a hologram.
In a physical hologram
the smallest point of the image of the hologram
contains almost all information
the object represented.
The principle hologramatic
refers precisely to this fundamental concept
hologram and physical states that in complex systems
the part is in the whole and the whole is in part.1
So, in every fragment of each part can be kept almost the totality of the person, so even the most trivial movement you can understand a lot of the person. Only by a process of reconstruction, mending and contextualization we can obtain important information to be used for training.
I would like to clarify this concept with a simple example in which all the life we were. Anyone who happened to do a blood test. For a value busted, If we take in the cholesterol, as is done? To solve the problem on the basis of a cause-and-effect logic solution would be the administration of one tablet, but this is enough to solve the problem?
This is a very limited view of the problem that stops at the reading of the data and find the solution around the data regardless of the universe that surrounds (remember the previous example seals and lugs). Behind my high cholesterol, there may be factors of inheritance, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, a momentary weakness attributable to a peak stress. Already expanding my horizon of thought have focused on a number of variables that can intervene, maybe avoiding taking the tablet.
Then, how to get used to thinking in a complex model of training?
Continued in the next article ...
Giulio Rattazzi
http://www.demotu.it/wordpress/archives/category/complessita
Bibliography
- Prey or spider? Alberto De Luca Toni and Alberto F Comello. Toni and LucaComello, Prey or spider, Utet Library Turin, 2005.
- NexusBecause nature, the company, the economy, the communication function in the same wayMark Buchanan Oscar Mondadori – September 2003 – Pg. 275
- Lorenz all’American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, 1979
- ll 3 December 2008, in a Seminar for the ANDISM, SUISM in Turin: on this date, Prof. Pasquale Bellotti spoke to the coach as an accompanist.
- Edgar Morin, The head well done, 1999,Curtain
- The Web of Life, Capra Fritjof, BUR Univ Library. Rizzoli, 2001,
- Godel, Escher, Bach. Eternal bright garland.
- A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, Douglas R Hofstadter.
Sitography
- The main idea of the founders of Gestalt psychology, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts, somehow opposed to the model of structuralism, spread from the end of the 'Eight hundred, and its fundamental principles, such as elementariness. And from here the famous maxim: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".
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