RON DA COSTA
Lecturer and speaker on Sports and Behavior, in several political conferences, Collequium talks, invited addresses, and debates. A master in sports behavioral intervention strategies, presented a paper on the strategies at the world congress in France in 1999, co-wrote a paper for the Journal Of Physical Education Recreation and Dance in the USA. Had the designer of the Dutch Masters Degree program in PE at the University of Swolle/Amsterdam rethink some of the concepts in my presentation, and apply this to their strategy. A recipient of several awards and research grants including, Her Majesty Queen Margrethes and Prince Henriks Fund in 1997.
(Thank you to: Eitan Eldar Ph.D. Applied Behavioral Analysis Center, at The Wingate Institute)
A WORD BY THE FOUNDER:
The traditional sports context is excellent as far as it goes. But it fails to explicitly incorporate two of its most valuable components. Namely; Increasing level of difficulty and The Practical Emotional Training/Learning Experience. What makes CFA important is that it focuses on making those explicit goals of a sports context not just “hoped for” side benefits, but fact.
There are projects springing up all over the country, some actually are great ideas, but their procedures do not have the required tailored strategy to achieve behavioral goals.
They lack the following procedural strategy:
- Increasing Level Of Difficulty. (Technical and behavioral progression)
- The Practical Emotional Level of Learning experience. (Technical and behavioral anchoring moment of a competency)
If a tailored behavioral intervention plan/strategy is not designed, then I believe that we are relying on coincidental learning, hoped for results based on logical thinking and not scientific fact.
Enough is known today to conclude that we cannot just do sports to improve condition and lose weight without a specific training plan. Besides, anything you want to achieve in life requires a plan. So why, when it comes to behavioral learning through sports, do we believe that we automatically learn confidence, motivation, respect, accountability, and other behavioral skills through sports without a plan?
You cannot just start a boxing club because the kids in the neighborhood are behaving badly and have nothing to do, any positive results coming out of that club would be a mere coincidence. Therefore the boxing club by design must have a conscious procedural strategy in place to maximize its success, and that this success has a positive and profound impact on its surroundings.
Our training program is exclusively scripted to consciously influence behavioral learning through sports. CFA is a program designed to deal with integration and the emerging problems among adolescent teenagers by combining sports through a uniquely tailored model.
That being said, I believe that all sports contexts, such as, basketball, soccer, and handball, should tailor their training to meet the behavioral development of their population. I also argue that this can be done without losing the competitive aspects of any student or player. We plan to pilot this program so that other sports contexts can study and replicate our strategy.
The most important question in sports for us at CFA is: Is there a period or comma after winning?
If something isn’t good to begin with, then you can’t expect to make it better, you will have to change it. So, if not by nature, then should we not nurture?