2. What is skill?
✤ “The learned ability to bring about pre determined results with
maximum certainty with a minimum outlay of energy and
time” (Knapp 1963)
✤ Key elements of a skill;
✤ Consistency (constantly achieve the desired outcome)
✤ Coordinated movement
✤ Minimum Effort (low energy expenditure)
✤ Practice (produces the desired movement and result)
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3. Motor Skill
✤ Often used to describe ‘skilled performance’.
✤ A motor skill is any activity involved in moving the body to achieve a
specific goal.
✤ Examples?
✤ A basic motor skill vs. a skilled performance.
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4. Motor Ability
✤ “Born a natural”
✤ Coordination, Balance, Strength
✤ inconclusive
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5. Motor Programs
✤ A series of motor skills can be put together to make up a motor
program.
✤ Dependant on the individual motor skills being placed in the correct
order or sequence and with the correct timing between each
subroutine.
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8. Skill Classification
✤ Motor skills are often categorised under;
✤ movement precision
✤ type of movement
✤ predictability of the environment
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9. Movement precision
✤ Motor skills can be classified according to the number of muscles or
muscles groups involved in the activity.
✤ Gross motor skills.
✤ Fine motor skills.
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10. Gross motor skills
✤ Involve a combination of large muscle actions that result in a
coordinated movement.
✤ Examples
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11. Fine motor skills
✤ Involve the cooperative use of small muscle groups and the senses of
sight and touch.
✤ Examples
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13. Type of movement
✤ Motor skills can also be classified according to the type of movement
as;
✤ discrete motor skills
✤ serial motor skills
✤ continuous motor skills
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14. Discrete motor skills
✤ Involve movements of brief duration, and they are easily defined by a
distinct beginning and end.
✤ Examples?
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15. Serial motor skills
✤ A series or group of discrete skills strung together to create a more
complicated, skilled action.
✤ Examples?
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18. Predictability of the environment
✤ Motor skills can also be classified according to the extent to which
they are influenced by environmental factors.
✤ Closed motor skills
✤ Open motor skills
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19. Closed motor skills
✤ Are performed in surroundings where the performer had the greatest
control over the performance environment. The environment refers to
external factors such as the weather, playing surface and opposition.
✤ Examples?
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20. Open motor skills
✤ Are performed in a less predictable environment. In an open
environment, the conditions are constantly changing and the
performer has limited, if any, control over their environment.
✤ Examples?
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21. Closed/open skill continuum
✤ Not all sports skills, whether classified as closed or open, are identical
in their ease or difficulty of execution. Some skills can be classed as
more closed or open than others. The classification system is best
represented along a continuum, with closed motor skills at one end
and open motor skills at the other.
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