These disruptive times are showing us how good technology is at helping us learn the right answers to pass exams and to coordinate the completion of tasks across teams. It's also helping us to see how precious face to face time is.
We are hoping that when this all passes we will want to use our precious face to try different adaptations, combinations, and variations in co-ordinate moments of spontaneity, self expression and collective improvisation to do something extraordinary. To try different ways that we know will not work and when they don't work adapt to find another way and see where it takes us. To use face to face time to develop our ability to think in a flexible way. We will be ready for when face to face time becomes possible again
We use sports and games to help everyone think in a flexible way to enjoy unplanned, unpredictable jumps in performance as we play for fun, fitness and kindness
Flexible enough to go forward with only a rough idea of where we are going and what will happen. Flexible enough to grow in a very disruptive 21st century. Flexible enough to succeed in an adapting agile culture
We can get planned, predictable, incremental improvements by getting fitter and reducing technical mistakes. If we think in a flexible way we can try different ways that we don't know will work and when they don’t work we can adapt to find a better way. We can find unplanned and unpredictable jumps in performance. Mistakes become portals of discovery
We can’t have all the answers all the time. We sometimes need to think in a flexible way. Meaning we need the ability to safely try things we know will not work and when they don’t work adapt to find a better way and see where it takes us. Mistakes become portals of discovery
To use sports and games to help everyone think in a flexible way we have had to change how sport is traditionally coached
Most of us experience sports coaching based around a coach or PE teacher helping us to play in a correct way... meaning the goal is to be perfect and mistakes are things we do wrong. We don't coach that way.
Instead, we encourage all players to try things they don't know will work and when they don't work adapt to find a better way and see where it takes them. We call this play Smart. Letting other players learn by trying things they don't know will work is what we call play Kind. Only competing with those of a similar or higher standard to ourselves (giving weaker players space to grow) and doing our best to avoid fouling each other is what we call playing safe. As we all have different strengths and weaknesses we all end up finding our own different ways to enjoy playing sports.
We help top level players find ways to lift their performance beyond playing perfectly.
We help younger and older players adapt to their changing bodies to reinvent how they play.
We help all players learn in whatever way suits them to experience unplanned, unpredictable jumps in performance.
Everyone... all ages, all abilities, all ways of thinking enjoy improving by reinventing their own ways to play
To use sports and games to help players think in a flexible way we often have to redefine what competition means to many
When in a competitive situation many of us have been substituted when things go wrong. This can mean that when we focus on winning we tend to do what we know works. If it doesn't work we often lose.
At LifeSkills21.club we use competition to grow. When we are beaten by a better player who makes a move we can’t do... we copy it and try it. When it doesn’t work for ourselves, we adapt it to find a better way for us and we see where it takes us. In this way we compete to grow.
Many of the most successful and inspirational sports players compete to grow as well. Think of Roger Federer, Usain Bolt, Kobe Bryant. Yes, they want to win, but they also know that winning requires them to grow. Kobe calls it his Mamba Mentality. A passion to grow.
All our sessions are about competing to grow. We help players see games as a puzzle that they think their way through. To use their brains to develop good judgement on when to reflect to spot what is not working and stop doing it. To perfect what works for as long as it works. To use competition to find different ways to grow.
Our sessions are less about a coach imposed structure and more about self expression, identifying opportunities, executing skills, working space and attacking with instinct.
Players from league teams often use our sessions to step away from the need to “get it right” to win, to try different ways to grow which once perfected they use in their league teams.
We believe that everyone of all abilities, all ages, all ways of thinking can grow by playing sports and games with us.
