[elbows]

Yeah, this is a weird article to have popped up on HN and probably pretty opaque to anyone not already versed in the topic. The "ecological" part here comes from ecological psychology [1] which, in contrast to cognitive psychology, tries to explain perception and action in terms of dynamical systems. The terminology is indeed very strange if you're not familiar with it.

When applied to sports coaching it basically comes down to:

- Skill is a matter of interacting with and adapting to the game environment (which includes the other players), rather than memorizing or automatizing correct movement patterns

- Humans are good at unconsciously figuring out how to move in order to interact with their environment, but bad at consciously controlling their movements

- So to teach people effectively, instead of telling/showing people what to do, you set up carefully designed practice environments and let them experiment and figure stuff out

[2] is probably a better introduction to this topic than the linked article.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_psychology 2. https://swordstem.com/2023/07/31/part-1-ecological-psycholog...

[shanusmagnus]

Thanks for the summary -- that was really helpful. Is ecological psychology used in a broader way than just movement / sports? I guess I'll read the wikipedia page, but I'm intrigued by the idea, so if there's a review paper you'd recommend or some other reference aside from the one you linked, I'd dig it.