Cross Rope Jump - Term Paper Example

 Cross Rope Jump Introduction Cross rope jump is a kind of a simple sport that probably many people played while at school. Cross rope jump involves swinging a rope so that it goes above the heads and below the feet, as the rope goes to the feet one is supposed to jump so that the rope passes below the feet. Cross rope Jump come with different techniques, some of the techniques involve three people; in this technique two of the players turn the rope while the third person jumps (Abernethy, Burgess- Limerick & Parks,1994). However, many techniques require only one player who turns the rope and jumps at the same time. The cross rope jump, apart from being a fun exercise especially for children is also a useful form of exercise. It provides hand eye coordination, cardiovascular work and help in muscle development and functionality. Some researchers have also suggested that it prevents osteoporosis. Literature review 1) Motor learning Motor learning is a set of internal process that is affiliated with practice and/ or experience which in turn leads to comparatively permanent modifications in the ability to move. Researchers have indicated that motor learning is a process that develops over time and that learners pass through distinct phases while acquiring skills. While learning motor skills a number of theoretical approaches have been formulated. According to Adams’s closed loop theory, learners acquire certain correctness as they practice and the improvement in the performance of the skill is due to the learners’ increased capability to use a reference to control movement (Adams, 1971). This theory has been used to explain control of slow deliberate movement like those of cross rope jump; together with this the employment of feedback as well as the activity of detecting errors and correction of the errors. Another important theory is the Schmidt’s schema theory which proposes that slow movements are based on feedback while rapid movements are based on programs and are structured and driven centrally. According to this theory as participants learn new skills, they are able to develop new rules that he called schemas which in turn lead to generations of the new movements being learnt. The dynamical systems on the other hand propose that human movement is controlled by highly complicated network of sub systems that depend on one another. The movements together with the different patterns result from the self organization of the sub systems. This theory stresses the role played by the knowledge of the environment in the interaction between motor control system and the sensory perceptual system and, therefore, the feedback mechanism is not of importance in this theory. The learning of motor skills follows three phases of practice; the phases include i) The cognitive stage where the participant focuses on executing a specific skill. The concentration is to discover what should be done; this stage can be accompanied by multiple errors since the learner is trying different possible ways to solve the problem. Therefore, use of instructions is of benefit at this stage. ii) Associative stage; here the learner or the participant has the ability t detect problems in performance and correct them. The participant concentrates on the dynamics of the specific skill so as to perform smooth actions that are refined. iii) The autonomous stage, this stage can be reached after extensive level of practice. Here the participant has the ability to perform the skill without paying attention to movement itself or concentrating on the skill (Eversheim, & Bock, 2001). 2) Feedback Feedback refers to information related to performance that a learner receives as he/she performs a task and after executing the task. There are two general types of feedback in reference to situations of motor learning and they include the task- intrinsic and task extrinsic or the augmented feedback. Intrinsic feedback is sensory information that can arise from the sources that are external to the body (exteroception) or could come from within the body (proprioception). Exteroception with the help of vision and audition normally provide information concerning the motility of objects surrounding the participants, while proprioception give information about the participant’s body movements together with the body position. Individuals comprehend the intrinsic feedback without any external assistance (Hinder, et al., 2008). The demonstration of extrinsic feedback or the augmented feedback has also been shown to be important for learning new skills. There are two types of extrinsic feedback that have been used in motor learning and they include the knowledge of performance and knowledge of results. Knowledge of results is normally referred to a post response that is concerned with the success of a specific performance relating to a specific goal that is environment related. Knowledge of performance on the other side is an extrinsic kinematic post response that is concerned with the aspects of the pattern of movement. The most common form of knowledge of performance to motor skill directions are the reminders that are made verbally, representation made in form of graphs and feedback association with visual abilities. The augmented feedback is normally given from the outside source which could be the instructor, from recording or kinematic information following completion of a task. This type of feedback has been shown to play a number of crucial roles in learning motor skills. It may provide descriptive information about a task that is to be done or task that has been completed. It may also serve as prescriptive by identifying errors committed and suggest mechanisms to correct them. Finally, it may motivational roles by making a task seem very simple and interesting and therefore, motivating the learner to put more effort. 3) Attention focus Attention focus and processes have been studied from a variety of perspectives and epitomes. The concept finite attention resources also known as limited attention capacity is usually regarded to be as a result of from the need for selective attention. Research on the effects of attentional focus has discovered that external focus of attention give better execution of skills and learning when contrasted with internal focus. In addition to this, a more enhanced outcome was shown to be realized when less effort is used. When defined internal focus refer to the focus that is directed by the body movements of the performer while external focus is the focus that is directed towards the effects that the performers movements have on the surrounding (Crossman1959). While training, however, it is difficult to differentiate the external focus from the internal focus mechanisms since they are interlinked. Attention focus is, however, important in learning new skills and the learners first need to focus on the body movements as well as coordination of the movements. Attention focus has been also shown to be important for both experienced and novice performers of a certain skill meaning that attention focus is not only important for learning but also for the performance of the skills (Taylor, & Thoroughman, 2007). Problem statement Learning to do all the techniques of cross rope jump is a complex process. I will, therefore, test the effect of five sessions training on learning the cross rope jump. Hypothesis Ho Learning of cross rope jump techniques is not achievable in five sessions of learning Methods a) Participant The participant that is being thought to learn the cross rope jump is a young girl of the age o 15 years. The height of the participant is 145 centimeters, and she weighs 56 kilograms. She has no history of any serious illness that need to mention here. Her weight is, however, a little bit high for her age and height and that is what called for attention and the necessity of cross rope jump as this will help her exercise and manage the weight together with other cardio vascular conditions that might accompany it. b) Equipment The equipment used to teach the participant the cross rope jump skills include a rope. The rope used had to be of appropriate size depending on the height of the participant, it should just go to the level of the feet when held by both hands. The participant was also required to dress appropriately in sport shoes which needed to be flat and comfortable. This was necessary to minimize any accidents that may accompany the training. The clothes also needed to be comfortable and should allow maximum flexibility of the body just like in another form of exercise. Video recordings were also used for demonstration of different jumping techniques that the participant needed to learn in the different sessions that were available, in some cases though, demonstrations from the instructor were sorted. A camera recorder was also used to record the performance of each session as this was used before the start of the next session as a recap of the previous session’s progress. Timer was also used to time the period that the participant could jump before stepping on the rope this was also used as an assessment mechanism and to record progress of the session. The performance progress was also measured by the number of jumps that the participant could make continuously. c) Protocol The protocol involved a short designed protocol of five sessions of 30 minutes each. In each session, the participant needed to learn a new to learn a new technique. The first session involves introducing the participant into cross jump program, here the participant after knowing what cross rope jump is, was required to learn to do the jumping. Here, she was required to learn from scratch how to jump the cross jump rope. In this session she was required to just learn to jump without providing any variation in the techniques of jumping. It started with a slow pace then improvements were made in terms of speed until she could jump more than 20 jumps per thirty seconds. The second session involved jumping with some few variations which included crossing the rope and also passing through sideways. She was required to master the technique by the end of the session. Again the pace started low and progressed until she could jump more than two jumps per 30 seconds. In the third session, the participant was required to put in more concentration and do irregular jumps which include both forward, backwards and sideways jumps. Since she already knew the forward jumps she needed to concentrate on the sideways and the backwards jumping. Again, the speed of the rope began low and as the session continued the speed or pace was required to build up progressively until she could jump more than 20 jumps per 30 seconds for each that is backwards, forward and sideways then the combination of the three. In the fourth session, the participant was required to do the jumps using one foot, the other foot was supposed to be held higher for the rest of the session. First the participant was required to jump with right foot while the left foot was held higher, then after sometime she was required to jump with the left. Again the process started at a low pace for each foot then the speed was gradually increased until the jumps per thirty seconds were more than 20. The fifth session involved bringing all the techniques together and performing them with gradual changes to each of the above mentioned from session two to session four. The transition was expected to be easy by the end of the session and the participant was not expected to reduce the speed so as to transit from one technique to the other. She was also expected to jump for longer time and ensure all the techniques learned are incorporated in every jump performed. The assessment of the session was to check the ability of the participant to perform all the techniques together without a problem and do it for a long time (Galea, Sami, Albert & Miall, 2010). d) Data As mentioned in the protocol the data for each session were collected in terms of the number of jumps that the participant could manage to do in 30 seconds. This kind of data is able to estimate the speed that the participant could use. The length of time that the participant could jump without getting exhausted was also measured using a timer. The two measurements were used for every session to manage progress in the exercise. Results The results of the whole learning progress were good with the participant being able to jump 30 jumps per 30 seconds by the end of the first session, 32 jumps by the end of the second session, 25 jumps in the third session, 27 jumps in the fourth session. In the final session she could jump 33 jumps in per 30 seconds. The time for which she could jumps increased gradually from each session. At the beginning of every session though some errors were noted but as the participant got used to the technique it become easier to do the cross rope jump skill. There was commendable improvement in performing the jumps as the days went by, this was noted during the recap process of the previous sessions. The results can be summarized as follows Period of learning start middle end Jumps per 30seconds 18 31 45 Discussion From the results above it is noted that the process was successful since the participant got to learn the cross rope jump in the sessions that were provided. This shows that the protocol that was designed was a success. The fact that the participant was able to get more than 20 jumps in 30 seconds in each session is great. Results above 30 jumps per 30 seconds mean that the participant is excellent in that specific technique. From the results above the participant was excellent in session one, two and five and only passed in session three and four implying that skills of session three and four was not well acquired. The protocol apart from the strengths mentioned had weaknesses as well; this is noted n the failure to get excellent results in the third and fourth sessions. This dictate therefore for an improvement of the session, this can be done in two ways; one would be to increase the time taken for the two sessions since the exercises required could be too much for the time presented. Another option would be to split each of the sessions into two or to create a sessions that comes in between them that will have some of the exercises done in both session three and four. Conclusion Learning a new motor skill is not an easy task as it requires concentration from both the learner and the tutor. New skill can, however, be learnt easily from commitment of the learner and the tutor. As far cross rope is concerned, it is important for the heath of the participant and therefore learning the skill is beneficial to the health of the participant (Galea, Sami, Albert & Miall, 2010). Reference List Abernethy B,Burgess- Limerick and Parks (1994) contrasting approaches to the study of motor expertise. Quest vol 46 186-198 Adams, J. 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