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Basketball Legend’s three step process for behaviour change explained

 In Learning from Luminaries, Sports people

John Wooden, legendary US basketball coach taught in chunks, using what he called the ‘whole-part method’. He would teach his players an entire move and then he would chunk the entire move into individual parts.

I read about this particular Wooden technique in the book, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. (a good book I’d recommend).

Coyle explains Wooden’s methods as follows. “Wooden formulated laws of learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, correction and repetition.” In my speech communication and sales presentation work, I’ve found that participant improvement does indeed follow Wooden’s laws.

Coyle also quotes Wooden from Wooden’s book, The Wisdom of Wooden: “Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.”

The ‘how to apply’ for this post: Find an expert to Explain and Demonstrate a skill, move, or technique you want to develop. Video-record the explanation and demonstration. Then by yourself, view the recording as you cycle through the following steps:

1.                  Imitate

2.                  Correct

3.                  Repeat

Keep cycling through the steps until you can imitate/closely approximate the expert’s demonstration of the skill/technique.

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