TOVO Tuesday 114

Creative Forces

Chaos is not creativity.?

I have seen so many poor players create chaos through selfishness. They play by themselves, for themselves and do so in the name of self-expression. Creativity is not hedonistic. It is not frivolous nor purposeless. It is not a rationalization for self-centeredness.?

Not in sport.?

Creativity in sport is finding useful solutions to spontaneous challenges. Creativity answers to context. It has shape, form and structure ironically. It is meaningful to the demands at hand. Creativity is an answer to a fluid question posed by an opponent.?

The creative player is an artist, mathematician, explorer?and athlete all in one.?

When you create…what you create is a culmination of everything you’ve seen and done previous to that point.?(T. Hatfield, Nike Designer)

Creativity spawns from a catalogue of solutions gained through experience.?

You do not drill it in the traditional sense as this is a reduction of possibilities void of divergent thinking. You nurture it by allowing for its emergence in context.?

A player asked to provide solutions is a player building a library of solutions. It is that player who finds one before others and executes answers in the moment required.?

If we can recognize that all great artists are architects of answers, we can train our footballers accordingly.?

Consider that all possibilities exist within the realm of possibility. Yes, there is a realm. A kingdom. In football, we know well the lines that define our kingdom. We know well the rules that define the kingdom. We understand the physical and cerebral demands within that kingdom. All we need do is to guide our athletes through a tour of that marvelous kingdom every training day so that they may celebrate the magic of creativity when it matters most.?

Chaos is not creativity. That is a kingdom of utterly useless anarchy.?

Creativity is a child answering a challenge with an idea.

Imagine the possibilities.?

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(Photo credit:?Erol Ahmed)?