Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players, Second Edition, provides an alternative to traditional sport instruction. This innovative and authentic approach to teaching sports combines contemporary theory with the experience of practical and reflective work in real sport environments. Coauthors Alan Launder and Wendy Piltz, both with wide-ranging experience as players, teachers, and coaches, expand and update the play practice approach they presented in the first edition and show how it can be used to help improve sport skills for players of all ages and abilities. This flexible model of sport pedagogy can be applied as a whole or one element at a time. It covers a wide range of team and individual sports, including archery, table tennis, flag football, snow skiing, cricket, and track and field. Plus, you’ll find a wealth of field-tested ideas for working with diverse learners in schools and communities. The second edition highlights the significance of key terms such as games sense, technique, resilience, and fair play. It also provides new information relating to the complexity of learning and addresses the difficulties beginners face in the learning process. The second edition of Play Practice integrates a thorough analysis of skilled performance with an understanding of the conditions under which people best learn. It also shows how the strategies of simplifying, shaping, focusing, and enhancing can help you create situations to maximize learning and positively influence the attitudes of learners. Over 130 illustrations and photos demonstrate specific approaches, ideas that can work for multiple sports, and ways to apply the approach with beginners through elite players. Summary sections in each chapter help you quickly identify and review key topics. And two bonus chapters about the origins, evolution, and theoretical bases for Play Practice are available free for download at www.HumanKinetics.com/PlayPractice. Play Practice is based on the idea that an individual’s commitment to achieving mastery is a powerful motivator for learning. Learn to harness these motivators and create enjoyable practice situations in which learners young and old, whether resistant beginners or highly motivated professionals, are encouraged to strive for excellence.

This new edition covers a broader variety of disciplines including exercise science, kinesiology, movement studies, physical education, sport science and sport studies.

Describes play workshop experiences that give educators a deeper understanding of play-based learning and illustrate the power of play.

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

No matter what you have tried so far, there is a better way. There is a better way to practice so you lower your scores and have more fun. The better way means learning to go beyond your comfort zone on the range so you are in your comfort zone on the course. The better way means combining the mental and physical aspects of golf to create habits of excellence. Practice to Learn, Play to Win uses the latest research in brain science to supercharge your golf. The better way to golf starts with great practice and ends with great scores.