The FUNdamentals of Movement

The FUNdamentals of movement are usually referred to as the A,B,C's, this is because the 3 skills that can be transferred to any sport are agility, balance and coordination. It is suggested that developing the A,B,C's at a young age can help the athlete develop more complex skills as they progress. The reason for this is that the athlete develops a good foundation of the 3 basic skills and as a result the athlete will be able to adapt and learn new skills a lot faster. Top coaches also suggest that if an athlete develops a good foundation the athlete should theoretically be able to play all sports, in my opinion I think that the A,B,C's are not taken as seriously as they should be and coaches/teachers don't pay enough attention to this area, for example I have seen too many children aged 9-12 who can not catch a ball or can't demonstrate changes of direction and they carry on running in straight lines.

You can train the A,B,C's with simple activities such as ladders; ladders help develop the athlete's coordination and balance is developed to a degree. The activities need to be targeting all areas, for example in coordination both foot and hand eye coordination need to be trained. In my opinion the A,B,C's should be developed frequently during sessions and they should target all ages to help retain the athletes skill base. Furthermore I think it is more important to do A,B,C's at 13-14 years as wells as 7-8 years of age, this is because through puberty and growth spurts the athlete will lose coordination as limbs grow at different rates. I have had experience of this in the past as I went through a big growth spurt around 14/15 years and my balance was dramatically affected and my coordination suffered in terms of catching and kicking a football. My football coach at the time wasn't really aware of the difficulties I was facing and this resulted in losing my starting place in the team. I quickly lost patience with the sport as I thought I was not good enough but really I just needed to go back to basics.

I attended a rugby league coaching course called 'becoming caypable' (yes that is how they spelt it) the course was similar to a level one in terms of basic games and activities you can do with a group. When watching a group demonstrate a few of the games I began to see the quality and I appreciated the game in terms of A,B,C development. The game that I saw was a game called 'king of the ring', the game is played in a circle and the athletes wear tag rugby belts and have to steal the tags off their opponents until they are the last man standing. After analysing the game I found that it was fun, engaging and effective. The athletes had to grab the tags off each other and this helped their balance by leaning and also their hand eye coordination. The athletes also had to dodge opponents and change direction very quickly to protect their tags. This game covers all 3 areas and is very fun, I am trying to look for more games that allow all 3 skills to be developed.

Finally, to summarise the above the FUNdamental movements otherwise known as the A,B,C's are essential in developing an athletes skill foundation. There is research to suggest that developing a good skill foundation will set the athlete up to develop their skills more effectively and at a faster rate, also if the athlete has developed a good foundation they should be able to transfer the skills to nearly any other sport. The A,B,C's should be developed as early as possible to develop the skill foundation however, from playing experience I think that they need to be continually tested and developed along with growth spurts and puberty. This is because limbs grow at different rates and the A,B,C's will be affected in one way or another. The activities need to be fun for them to be effective, the clue is in the first 3 letters 'FUNdamentals', the athletes will enjoy the activities and take a lot from them if they are fun no matter how old the group is.