Emerging actions and tactic solutions under constraints in boxing practice

1. Emerging actions and tactic solutions under constraints in boxing practice Robert Hristovski & Natalia Balague Faculty of Physical Culture – Skopje INEFC - Barcelona There is nothing more practical than a good theory. James C. Maxwell

2. Questions that were being asked about making decisions in sport • Do expert athletes detect game – structured information more effectively than novices? • Yes they do. • But what type of game - structured information they use? • Do they detect and locate objects within the visual field faster and more accurately than less skilled performers? • Yes they do. • What is the nature of that detection? • 3. Do experts use better the contextual information in anticipating future actions and making decisions? • Yes they do. • What is the nature of that contextual information that is being used?

3. 4. Do they use better expectancies for faster decision making? Yes they do. In what form are the expectancies present. How are they used? 5. Do expert athletes make faster and accurate decisions? Yes they do. How do they do that? 6. How do performers make decisions in sport? Indeed…how? By retriving the prescribed responses or…? 7. How do these skills emerge as a function of practice and expirience? Indeed …how? By encoding and accumulating possible responses…or?

4. What do athletes perceive during training and competition? What is the content of their perception? Is it just the momentary game structure, location of objects in the optical field or something else?

5. Affordances • In the ecological approach to perception and decision – making under severe time constraints, the athletes (especially experts) perceive and detect affordances (possibilities for action). • The structure of the environment is being scaled to their own (personal) constraints. • Affordances (perceived possibilities for action) constrain (i.e. do not prescribe) the decisions - actions. • Athletes can perceive affordances of other (including oponent’s) players • Examples of affordances in sport: passthroughability, reachability, catchability strikability, passability…etc.

6. Perception (information) - action coupling. The athlete acts in the environment, creates perception. The perception constraints her/his decision – action system. The cycle repeats.

7. Emergent decisions and action sequences Experiment 1

8. Manipulated constraints: • Perceived scaled distance (physical distance/arm length) from the target = strike-ability affordance • 2. Perceived efficiency of the strikes

9. Case of use of contextual information and strikability affordance detection in box training:

10. Perceived efficiences enhance the associated striking actions and inhibit the non-associated ones thus enableing competition between actions and action sequences. Perceived efficiency constrains the actions by expected effciency sensory effect from some particular action. Partial correlations between the perceived efficiences of actions and probabilities of actions Perceived Efficiencies Probability of occurrence of actions P jabs(D) E jabs(D) .94*** E hooks(D) -.94*** P hooks(D) E jabs(D) -.96*** E hooks(D) .95*** E uppercuts(D) -.90** P uppercuts(D) E jabs(D) -.34 E uppercuts(D) .98***

11. The number of decisions of taking a certain action and their probability changes as a consequence of the perceived distance/arm length ratio and perceived striking efficiency.

12. A. Probability of occurrence of action modes as function of the scaled performer - target distance B. Action unpredictability (H) and diversity (S) as functions of the scaled performer - target distance Scaled distance = 0.6 is a critical (meta-stable) point between phases of dominance of jabs (straight actions) to exclusively arced actions (hooks and uppercuts). The criticality is well manifested in the maximal entropy i.e. variability and decoupling of actions.

13. Strategic positions of boxers during competition emerge spontaneously by perceiving their’s own and each other’s affordances (possibilities for action)

14. Partial autocorrelation functions reveal dominant forms of emerging decision – action motifs and a purely random behavior (bottom)

15. Grey areas correspond to emergent coupled tactical solutions (decisions). White areas correspond to missing solutions that yet have to be discovered.

16. Some practical consequences: • Detecting small changes of the constraints that may abruptly increase or decrease the number of opportunitiies for action (i.e. solutions to the tactical problems); • 2.Encouraging learners to explore by their actions for constraints that afford their maximum diversity and unpredictability; • 3. Maximizing diversity and unpredictability depends on the interaction of the task, individual and environmental constraints = different athletes develop different diversity and unpredictability in simillar situations and vice versa; • 4. No stable coupling of sequential actions. It reduces the diversity and unpredictability (more meta-stable = floating action - action couplings); • 5. Devolopment of strong perception – action coupling regulating the decision-action sequences; • 6. In team sports – the same. Prescribed tactical variants often turn into emergent actions dependent on local –perception-action coupling.

17. Emergent tactical “rules” Experiment 2

19. Manipulated constraints: • Striking frequency of the attacker • (perceived defensability of the defender) • 2. Risk constraint

20. For risk = 0 for all striking frequencies the collecting tactics is stable

21. For risk = 1 -2 and lower striking frequencies the tactical solution is of meta-stablecollect – withdraw type and for higher striking frequencies transits to withdraw tactical solution

22. For risk = 1 -2 for striking frequencies lower than the transition striking frequency a chasing tactics emerged

23. Some practical consequences: • Manipulating with risk and defensability constraints brings about emergence of decisions (solutions to the tactical problems) without imposing explicit rules by the coach; • 2. Competitive environment (manipulating with emotional constraints such as risk) should be created in a way that it does not inhibit the free exploration of possible decisions (no high or extreme risks); • 3. Competitive environment, created that way, enables emergence of more diverse set of decisions and tactical solutions. • 4. Less risky environments on the contrary, possibly, tend to stuck the athletes to more secure solutions disabling to develop the diversity of tactical solutions.

24. THANKS YOU FOR YOUR continuous, dynamic, non linear, fluctuating ATTENTION