HOW TO FIX IT: BACK CHAINING


Here is an example of a gifted piano teacher preparing a 10-year-old student for his first piano recital:


Te teacher said to the student: “You


are probably going to play very well, so there will be applause when you finish. It is gracious for the performer to bow to the audience during the applause. Let’s pick where you will stand when the applause starts and practice the bow.”


Te boy went to the center of the stage,


selected his spot and bowed awkwardly. The teacher and boy discussed the placement of his arms for the bow, and the boy practiced the bow a few more times until he was satisfied.


Next, the teacher said: “You will


probably be sitting at the piano when the applause starts, so you will have to walk to your spot to bow to the audience.”


So, they went to the piano, the boy


turned to face the auditorium, walked assuredly to his spot and bowed without the awkwardness of his first few tries.


Then, the teacher back chained


another link by having the boy sit on the piano bench and play the last note of the piece, get up, walk to center stage and bow. Te next link was playing the last musical phrase of the piece and continuing through the bow. Te teacher had the boy practice adding the penultimate phrase, then additional phrases each time and continuing through the by-now-very- familiar ending through the bow.


Te boy’s steadiness increased with


each trek from the piano bench to his spot. They back chained the entire piece, one phrase or two at a time (so the music makes sense), and the boy’s confidence increased as the piece he played got longer. His confidence built as he continued to the most familiar and most practiced ending, filled with the certainty that his playing of the final note would be met with applause. If he missed a note or two along the way, that might annoy him, but it would not change his sure handedness toward the end of the piece or his composure as he approached the final note.


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Te brilliance of the teacher’s lesson


was adding a few steps beyond the conclusion of the piece to the end of the chain, the walk and bow to applause — easy steps that reinforced the student’s expectations of success. Tat addition shifted the halfway point into the second half of the piece and imbued the performer with a sense of increasing success as he approached the ending.


Amelia Liston


HOW TO TEACH A BACK- CHAINED SKATING PROGRAM


First, ask your student to play the music a number of times to become familiar with it. On the ice, start the music at the beginning and skate around with your student moving with the rhythm of the music. Point out a couple of key things — a fast part for footwork, a drum beat for a jump landing and the like. End up where the skater will finish the program as the music draws to its conclusion. Play the last note again. Teach the student the final pose that accompanies the last note. Repeat this a couple of times — the student should add a bit of aplomb to show mastery. Ten teach the final spin and its entrance (or however else the program ends) and have the skater do that and the final pose. Back chain a segment at a time, perhaps over three lessons if the program has a typical ABA (fast, slow, fast) form.


Your student may or may not miss the most difficult moves at the beginning of the program but will surely concentrate and perform confidently throughout the remainder of the program. Finishing successfully builds confidence and counterbalances


tendency in forward-chained programs for the skater to stop after a major error, forward chaining also does not build stamina or concentration. Finishing well is a rarity, so confidence is compromised by anxiety as the skater approaches an undertrained ending.


With back-chained programs, skaters


go from weakness to strength, to the always completed ending. Teir attention span and stamina have been trained to the duration of the full program. Tis impetus to end well carries the skater past an opening error — the skater loses one point for the fall — unfortunate but not the end of the world. Te fall is not catastrophic, because the rest of the program is not compromised as a result of the one-point fall. Instead, the skater puts the error in perspective and continues through the program to its well-rehearsed ending note and concomitant applause.


the disappointment


of a missed opening move. Te skater’s mindset will match the mathematical realities, a point or two lost along the way of a respectable performance.


WHY BACK CHAINING IS SO EFFECTIVE


Forward chaining focuses on the first steps, where choreographers put the hardest moves, the ones the skater is most likely to miss. Tis means that forward-chaining programs concentrate on errors rather than on success, and thus do not develop confidence. Because of the


An ISI member since 1985, Lynn Loar is a skating instructor at Winter Lodge in Palo Alto, Calif. She teaches beginning through advanced-level skills


to skaters of all ages and abilities, as recreation, recreational therapy and as part of physical and occupational therapy treatment plans. She is the president of the Pryor Foundation, a multidisciplinary research and educ- ational group devoted to developing and disseminating innovative applications of techniques to change behaviors exclusively through positive reinforcement. Visit thepryorfoundation. org for more information.


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