In His Own Words: A Journey Through Skill Acquisition | Ian Renshaw

Hello.

It's my pleasure to, um, accept this current award from Emergence, uh, from the guys at Emergence.

Um, incredibly honored, um, and very surprised to be honest, um, to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Movement and Skill Acquisition.

Um, given that previous winners were Keith Davids, Stuart Araujo, and, um, Carl Newell, uh, I didn't ever see myself as being in that, [laughs] that league, and I know I'm not.

Um, so y- yeah, delighted to accept the award, um, and, um, and thanks to the guys for, for, for awarding it to me.

Um, the guys have asked me to, um, say a little bit about my journey to become a skill acquisition specialist, I guess, um, for anybody who's got any interest.

So, um, I've-- I'm just gonna go through a little bit of my career, and most to the point, um, that, mm, skill acquisition wasn't even a topic when I started out on my career.

Um, skill acquisition was, um, covered within sports psychology, at least in the UK, um, in New Zealand and, um, for a while in Australia.

And now, of course, it's its own, own route, so you could actually develop a career path straight through from an undergraduate degree into the, in- into the field of skill acquisition.

But I think there's far more to it than that.

Um, and I'm just gonna take you through my journey, hopefully, um, as, as quickly as possible, um, um, just to pique your interest about why I think, um, my background has been useful in, in, um, helping me become a skill acquisition specialist and develop some of the, the skills and, and attributes, I guess, that, that, um, skill acquisition specialists need.

So, um, I wanna start, um, by talking about my, my childhood [laughs] a little bit.

Um, mad on sport.

Loved, um, loved football, wanted to be a footballer.

Um, played lots of backyard games.

We played on the park.

Well, behind our street was a, a disused school field and, um, with friends on the street, we used to play football every single day in the, in the winter, and we played some cricket in the summer.

Um, all the other boys were older than me, so, um, when they got to thirteen, fourteen, they all disappeared, and there was nobody to play with anymore, which was, um, the sort of end of the fun part of, um, living on that street for me at that point in time.

But, um, I was quite a good footballer, um, as a-- at primary school.

Sort of good enough so there to take the corners, goal kicks, throw-ins.

But, um, realized very quickly, um, around about the age of fourteen that my dream of playing as a professional was never gonna be, never gonna be good enough.

So, um, I, I needed another route after that.

Um, loved every sport going.

Um, tried to play everything for school, um, as well as, as I said, specializing a little bit in football.

And then at fourteen, discovered, um, my-- one of my teachers sent me down to Trent Bridge in Nottingham for trials.