ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of how expertise in sport is acquired, from the framework of ecological dynamics. Ecological dynamics research has shown that expert performance in sport is predicated on an athlete’s capacity to functionally adapt his/her movements to the dynamics of complex performance environments by continuously perceiving information to regulate goal-directed actions. Here we selectively focus on the contribution of three key theoretical ideas from ecological dynamics: perceptual attunement to affordances, harnessing neurobiological system degeneracy, and exploiting adaptive movement variability in a metastable system state. We relate these ideas to practical examples from sport performance throughout, discussing how they might inform the design of practice strategies.
