DEVELOPMENT OF SKILL OF MOVEMENT IN KIDS - THE EVER PRESENT
PROBLEM - part 2
Just to illustrate how urgent this problem is I would like
to quote a member of the Pose Tech running forum, named "roobarb"
(I have no knowledge of the real name of this member) replying
to my article on the web site: "I couldn't agree more
with what was said. My daughters do sport but I never felt
like pushing them because I watch the coaching people receive
and the skill of movement is not only not taught, I don't
think many coaches do even know it exists."
Yes, it is the ever-present problem, which is not recognized
yet by the modern society as a necessity. Certainly, we have
an idea that we need to teach kids, but what to teach and
how to do that is quite a blurry picture in most cases.
I know, you could say that my words are not true, because
there are many coaches, and even good coaches, who are working
with kids and training them, and kids get faster, stronger,
etc., as a result of their work. But the question is where
do all these kids disappear when they grow up? Just some statistics
fact from the research in the Soviet Union of how many elite
level juniors in endurance sports made it to adult elite level.
I'll just give you the numbers from the 70-ies and 80-ies,
which is about 5%. The rest disappear as elite athletes.
Why does it happen? The main reason is a disproportion between
what they achieved by being gifted and the level of their
skill. For a while their talent compensates for the lack of
skill, but not for long. When this disproportional development
between the skill and their performance reaches the peak,
their mental, psycho-emotional, physiological and mechanical
conditions start falling apart, leading to injuries, frustration
and loosing focus.
One of my young colleagues told me once: "It is easy
to get results with kids. No matter what you do, they'll still
improve and progress just by growing up naturally". He
was absolutely right. And this is the reason that we do not
see how much we are missing and what results could have been
achieved if these kids were really taught right.
What are we supposed to do? Certainly, we have to teach,
which is my deepest and sincerest belief. How should it happen
is a good question. Just coming back to the observation made
by "roobarb", "However watching children run
at an early age when I'm at my daughters' school they seem
to be more pose than me, their feet land in line with their
column, they have a tilt forward," I have to agree that
lots of kids, before they have been "taught", have
a natural tendency to "listen" to nature.
Later on they start listening to teaches, parents, neighbours,
friends and some others whom they respect and love. At this
point we start loosing their right direction of development,
because "teachers" are coming from their own experience
and thoughts, but not from the nature's point of view.
"What I feel is: do we need to conserve the skill of
movement in our Children rather than keep it?"- Just
asking, "roobarb". I have to answer this question
in only one way – we have to constantly develop the
skill of movement in our kids, first of all, because it is
an endless process, and second, because only the presence
of skill would allow us to really open talent in our kids
no matter, if it is in sprint, endurance, agility, strength,
etc.
Dr.Romanov
Pose
running website
PoseTech
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