Constraints Of Being A Skillful Soccer Player

Looking back as far as I can remember soccer has always been a part of my live. I consider myself to be a skillful soccer player because I have attained the traits of voluntary, adaptive, consistency, and efficient. Also constraints play a big role when it comes climbing to the top of the mountain of motor development. These constraints are organism, task, and environmental, which lead me to climb to the top of the mountain of motor development. Passing and kicking a ball with accuracy is voluntary which means that naturally I am not born seeking to do it and being able to do it on my own. Therefore, I had a choice when it came to picking and doing this sport. Also adaptive is very important when it comes to passing and kicking a ball because
in soccer there are many and multiple ways to kick a ball. For example, passing is a way I can kick the ball, which is the skill in soccer I am skillful at, it involved you trying to get the ball to your teammates without the opponent getting to it first. That is why it consists of different forces so you have to adapt to kicking the ball with the right force so it can get to where you would like it to go. Another example of kicking a ball is when it comes to shooting this allows you to adapt to the ball because you will need to see with how much force you will like to hit it. That is why passing a ball can be tricky because you need to calculate how much force you have to put on the ball so it can get where it needs to go which is to your teammate. Consistency is also very important when it comes to being skillful in sports such as passing and kicking a soccer ball.
For example, during practice if I am preforming well and showing my couch that I can pass which accuracy, it’s a better chance that I will be put on the starting 11. Also if I perform well in that game it increases the chances of me having more playing time in the upcoming games. Therefore, consistency is important because if I am not consistent then I will lose the confidence that I have with my couch and he will think twice when putting me in or not. Passing and kicking a soccer ball can be difficult to be consistent because it consists of many factors, but I can say when it comes to passing a soccer ball I am
accurate. Finally, efficiency is another trait that correlates to being skillful. When playing soccer running is a big part of it because the field is pretty big and unlike football were they get time outs soccer there are no time outs only half time which is about a 15 minute break. Therefore, that is why passing and kicking takes a lot of energy, thus I learned how to store my energy and become more efficient and not using it all at once so I can have energy for the full 90 minutes. Constraints are very important when it comes to developing and moving up the mountain, and those constraints are organism, task, and environment. An organism constraint is defined as constraints that related to a persons characteristic and can be either structural or functional. This constraint plays a role when it comes to playing soccer, structurally my height and weight affects the position I play because I am not that tall and I’m not that big either so midfield and forward were the best position for me. Therefore, when it came to guarding bigger players like defenders I had to adapt to passing them in different ways because they were taller and stronger. Functionally, motivation and fear played a role, when I was younger and growing up I was scared and feared those players who were bigger then me so I had to adapt and motivate myself to surpass the fear of bigger players. Structurally, most of the time the defenders were slow so I was faster then them so adapted to surpassing them by out pacing them. Task constraints, which can be defined as the goals of movement in the specific constraints imposed for examples, goals, rules, and implements. These constraints can be recognized in soccer because every sport has different sorts of rules. Therefore, I had to adapt to the rules of soccer and one of the most important rule of soccer is that you cannot use your hands or arms. This allows you to develop coordination with your feet in order to control and manipulate the ball. Lastly, environmental constraints, which can be defined as generally recognized as those external to the individuals body. This constraint can correspond to soccer because every soccer field and setting is different. Walking up to a field the first thing you notice is how the field is, if it’s bumpy, patchy, has holes, or if it’s flat. That is why the condition of a field is a constraint because it’s different every time whether its grass or artificial grass knows as turf. Another condition that can affect game play is weather condition if its raining it makes the field wet which increase the balls velocity when passing so the game with go faster and make it harder to control the ball as well. Therefore, I had to adapt to these weather conditions, which took some time, and practice, which involved playing in those conditions.
Skillful Period The mountain of motor development consists of six parts the reflexive period, the pre-adapted period, the fundamental motor patterns period, context specific period, the skillful period, and the compensation period.
The period I would like to start from is the skillful period, which is at the top of the mountain. This period usually is developed in those eleven and older, after mastering that skill which for me kicking and passing in soccer. I consider my self skillful in passing and kicking in soccer accurately because I have mastered and practiced the four traits that consider one to be skilled which are, efficient, consistent, adaptive, and voluntary. I am efficient when it comes to kicking and shooting because I have learned and practice the art of kicking and passing. For example, passing and crossing the ball in soccer it takes time and skill to place the ball where you would like it to go and I have mastered this by individual constraints by motivating myself to keep on practice and get better. Also kicking and passing the ball can lead to wasting a lot of energy therefore, I have also learned to conserve my energy while playing soccer which impacts my performance on the field. Also when it comes to passing and crossing a ball it takes force to get the ball were it needs to go therefore structurally I had to get my legs and lower body stronger so I can complete this task. Adaptability also plays a role in becoming skillful because I needed to adapt to the field,
which is an environmental constraint, but also there are other ways and techniques to kicking. For example, passing, crossing, and dribbling are other ways of kicking the ball therefore, I had to adapt to these different techniques because there are all very different. For example, the objectives of kicking, passing, and dribbling are very different but involve kicking. Dribbling consists of small kicks and touches that keep the ball close to your feet while you run so you wont lose the ball to an opponent. On the other hand passing you have to kick the ball with different forces so the ball can travel to your teammates. Thus, these techniques require mastering to becoming skillful in kicking in the sport of soccer. Environmental constraints play a huge role in adaption because going form field to field one has to adapt to the different surfaces in each field like holes and bumps in the field because not every field is the same all are different in there own way therefore it will impact the way the ball will bounce and the way I will be able to control and also pass and receive the ball. Task constraints also play a role in the skillful period because I need to follow the rules of the game, which include not using your hands, or arms during game play.
Context Specific Period The next period I would talk about is context specific period, which begins to apply knowledge from the fundamental motor patters period into a specific context such as a sport. During this period skills are unique to the individual that include ontogenetic skills, which means it is specific to one person and not the entire species. This is because during this period we start to change and become different from everyone else and develop skills separately. This period usually takes place around the age of seven to the age of eleven. For me this period started when I was 6 or 7 when my parents decided to sign me up in an MSI soccer team. Environmental constraints played a huge role in this period because in my family everyone played soccer therefore I grow up around soccer my whole life. My father who was born in El Salvador grow up watching and playing soccer out in the streets because that’s the sport for many Latino and Hispanic countries. Me being the youngest my dad already taught my brother and sister to play soccer so when it came to teaching me I had four family members teaching me how to play, my mother, father, sister, and brother which made me fall in love with the sport even more because it was all around me. Therefore this environment plays a big part of my life growing up which serves as a rate enhancer because my father who was also my couch at the time always pushed me to become the best player he knew I could be. He showed me drills and different techniques to improve my skills and always gave me advice during and after the games. He always told me what I did right and wrong and how to improve what I did wrong so I wont do it again in the next games in the future. He mainly focused on improving my dribbling, kicking, and passing because he knew that to score goals you will need to deliver good passes to your teammates. Therefore with all this practice I kept improving my skill, I practiced at least four times a week for at least an hour maybe more and had games on the weekend. When it came to winter I sometimes played indoor at the Sports Plex in Rockville and playing there helped me gain stamina and resistance because there are no out of bounce so the ball can never go out which means the games were non stop till half time. Also I had my older brother who was 7 years older then me so he helped me improve my passing and kicking because we used to go play on the field next to our house which was very convenient at the time because it was a one minute walk from our house. We used to