Coordination: combining two skills at once
Physical Education · Key Stage 2 · The School
Two things at once
COORDINATION means making two parts of the body work well together. Often while your eyes are doing a third job too. Moving a ball with your feet while looking up for a friend is coordination. So is catching a ball while you run. Dribbling a basketball while dodging a defender is another example. So is skipping while clapping a rhythm.
Why doing two things is harder
Each skill on its own can feel easy. But your brain has to run both at once. So one of them often gets worse when the other needs more thought. This is normal. It is not a sign of low skill. Even skilled athletes feel this when learning something new. The wobble is temporary, not permanent.
You have to practise the mix, not just the parts
Doing a skill on its own does not train the mix. Looking up on its own does not train the mix either. The mix itself needs its own practice. Go slow at first. Add speed once it starts to feel easy.
A pupil can move a ball with their feet while staring straight down at it. They can also look up and spot a friend, while standing still. But asked to do both at once, they lose the ball almost at once. Just from looking up for one second. So they go slow. Three touches on the ball. Then one quick look up. Then three more touches. After many short goes, the look up gets faster. And the ball barely suffers at all. The two skills are finally starting to work as one.