Why Jon Beck Training?

Are you tired of looking really good in your training sessions, but then getting stuck like a deer in the headlights during games? If you’re tired of dribbling through cones, shooting lay ups on air, going through an agility ladder, spot & form shooting, learning explicit moves, repeating a “technique” and doing things with a trainer that you could just do on your own and won’t ever translate to playing basketball, then it’s time to change the way you’re training.

The Constraints Led Approach (CLA) is a tried and true method of development. I have used it to help develop hundreds of players, including all different levels of college players, in academies that I have held year-round for over 6 years in Northwest Arkansas. I strive for an environment where players can ask questions, fail, try again, make mistakes, ask more questions and actually learn the game of basketball. But even more than that, I also focus on total player development by encouraging great habits that translate to life. Showing up early, being ready on time, being prepared, giving great effort, being coachable, not being afraid to fail, fighting through adversity, etc. I want players to learn to build habits to become great people as well as great basketball players. 

The CLA method of player development is a non-traditional method of training. It looks messy and chaotic. But that’s why it works. Games are messy and chaotic. Players can execute drills perfectly every single day, but they aren’t learning anything! Managed chaos leads to dynamic problem solving and innovative solutions. Learning is about making mistakes. My training is a safe place for players to fail & learn and it allows them to have psychological safety. It doesn’t involve yelling and screaming. It’s not perfectly organized lines and neatly prescribed drills, but CLA training will lead to measurable improvement & real player development.

CLA also recognizes and takes into account that players have individual differences. Each player has their own physical attributes, abilities and decision-making tendencies. Perception-action coupling teaches decision making skills that work with player differences in real game situations. There’s never just one solution to any problem. The best solution is the one that a player can make and execute in that moment and it’s very different for every player in each and every situation. Basketball isn’t memorization, but it IS decisions and unpredictability. What better way to learn to play basketball than by playing basketball! That’s not to say 1-on-0 training doesn’t serve a purpose. It does. It can definitely help develop a player’s comfort and confidence, but it’s not effective for decision making. Once a player is comfortable and confident, it’s time to train with other players in a messy environment where finding multiple solutions for various game situations is the focus. Group sessions are the most effective way to train because they are more task representative. A lot of 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 training with varied affordances create an environment where many different things are emerging. Through an ecological approach players learn to perceive relevant information from the environment such as movements of opponents, position of teammates and location of the ball. 

The best coaches can connect skills and decisions to the game. That’s why I put players into game like scenarios, observe first and then provide and change the individual, environmental and task constraints through small sided games where the player learns through specific opportunities to develop many solutions to the same problem which might occur in any number of ways during a game. Motor learning is not memorizing any technique or solution, but learning how to solve problems. My job as a coach is creating challenging problems for players and then jumping in when I see lots of bad variability while letting the good variability be. Instead of giving players all the answers, I encourage them, through experimentation, to solve a wide range of movement problems. Through the problem-solving process players will expand their own movement solutions. 

So if you’re ready to take your game skills and confidence to an all-time incredible level, join Coach Jon Beck in his training sessions and use the CLA method to get there!