Why on the Edge of Chaos?
Why do some people gain more from practice than others?
What seems clear is that when the reproduction of a skill or movement becomes ingrained no amount of increased practice/experience will bring about a marked improvement in performance.
For this reason, expert performers’ deliberately bypass ingrained behaviour by seeking out increasingly more demanding tasks.
Such tasks continuously require them to stretch their performance beyond its current level.
In other words, optimal training environments must be designed to place you or your player's current skill levels and capabilities on the edge of chaos.
In doing so, you or your players are forced to develop new attributes in order to regain a sense of stability in performance.
Learning for you or your players is the journey from instability to stability, when a new level of stability is found it must be followed by a new period of instability until your required performance level is reached.
It is a journey on the edge of chaos.
We invite you to join a community that allows you to discover, experience and create learning environments on the edge of chaos.
Course Launch: Season 2 of OTEC Education Registration now OPEN
Gain access to the golf forum, community, and educational content.
Frameworks > Tools > Eco-systems
The Golf OTEC concept is......

Frameworks
Golf OTEC attempts to demonstrate to you how a scientifically principled viewpoint with regards to golfer development can be positioned within the practical context.
Using the theoretical frameworks of ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory (ecological dynamics) you will discover how this can assist you by providing you with education and support to look at how theory transfers into practice.
Helping you to discover that 'how' golfers learn has more relevance to performance development than 'what'.
Tools
This learning platform designed for you consists of theory presentations, audio/visual session plans (practice games), webinars, blogs, one to one discussions and open, community-based, collaboration.
In addition to this, you will have access to a community forum library that consists of books, video clips, academic journals, and articles from expert researchers and practitioners.
Eco-systems
Using the framework and tools previously mentioned you will discover how to create systems that optimise you or your player's development. Exploring and understanding the difference between holistic and atomistic systems.
Enabling you to understand the dynamic nature of the human system. A system that when it interacts with an environment, and a task, it is subsequently changed by the interaction – and this is the player’s eco-system. Crucially any system that is changed by its interaction with the world underscores the need for 'context' in learning.
As such the smartness of the human system represents both a threat and an opportunity to you or your players. You will learn how to make it an opportunity.
Graeme & Pete
Graeme has an MPhil in Sports Coaching Education from the University of Birmingham and is a fully qualified member of The Professional Golfers Association of Great Britain.
Graeme has an MPhil in Sports Coaching Education from the University of Birmingham and is a fully qualified member of The Professional Golfers Association of Great Britain.
He is a full-time Golf and Sports Coaching lecturer at the SRUC in Scotland and an Associate Lecturer with the Open University. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Abertay Dundee.
His main area of research is skill acquisition in sport and as well as being a practitioner in this area with the high-performance golf programme at the SRUC Graeme has delivered numerous skill acquisition presentations at key industry events during the past 10 years. Graeme has shared his knowledge of skill acquisition with many of the world’s leading golf coaches.
Through years of practical application and research, Peter's views are radically different to the mainstream golf industries and may challenge some long-held beliefs.
He fuses the ‘The Science of Learning’ and real-life coaching to help you discover a clear understanding of how to practically apply information shared together.
He is currently just about to finish an MRes in Skill Acquisition & Motor Learning, interviewing current European Tour Players on their experiences, enabling him to share these experiences with players of all levels.
He has coached players of all levels, from complete beginner to European Tour player. He also advises and mentor coaches all over the world and has recently branched into other sports, such as the Rio 2016 Gold winning field hockey U.K. Women’s team on effective practice & technique change. He has also spoken at the English Institute of Sport, World Scientific Golf Conference & several universities on how he practically applies ‘The Science of Learning’ to golf.
Through years of practical application and research, Peter's views are radically different to the mainstream golf industries and may challenge some long-held beliefs.
Through years of practical application and research, Peter's views are radically different to the mainstream golf industries and may challenge some long-held beliefs.
Peter fuses the ‘The Science of Learning’ and real-life coaching to help you discover a clear understanding of how to practically apply research into practice.
Peter has a Masters by Research (in viva stage) in Skill Acquisition & Motor Learning primarily examing, via a constraints-led framework, the experiences of current and former European Tour Players, enabling Peter to share these experiences with players of all levels.
He has coached players of all levels, from complete beginner to European Tour player. He also advises and mentors coaches all over the world and has recently branched into other sports, such as the Rio 2016 Gold winning field hockey U.K. Women’s team on effective practice & technique change. He has also spoken at the English Institute of Sport, World Scientific Golf Conference & several universities on how he practically applies the 'Constraints-led framework' in golf.