How an expert artistic swimming coach gives technical instructions:

Case study through narrative and episode description

Abstract

    In Artistic Swimming (AS) competitions, each performance is scored by judges. Therefore, the point of view and behavior of a coach is especially important when giving technical instructions to swimmers because they need to incorporate such information into their movements. In this study, the author, who has been studying AS coaching for not less than three years, used episode description and stimulated recall methodology to analyze an expert coach's interaction with three swimmers about “thrust”, one of the basic movements of AS. The coach has experienced the Japanese national team's coach many times and contributed greatly to training elite artistic swimmers and the development of AS. (1) The expert coach created a coaching situation considering not only relationship of trust between her and the AS swimmers, but also “interpersonal relationship” based on the context and background among the swimmers such as their positions and relationship. (2) She understood that her “verbalization” had a limit. Thus, she guessed from the swimmers' expression and behavior how much they grasped her intention, instantly searched for hints for their understanding, and explained such hints to them through various ways. (3) In the coaching scene of thrusting, one of the basic movements of AS, she created an “intentional situation” where everyone including the coach herself, the swimmers who were given instructions, and the other swimmers waiting their turn, could easily observe each other. This intentional situation was an effective situation of coaching practice to acquire the thrusting movement of AS.