I always get asked by youth soccer players, “What’s your favorite move or skill?” It’s a fair question, because while I’m certainly not a freestyler, a lot of my training videos include some type of footwork with the ball or juggling that looks somewhat “fancy.”
Before I even give it, I can tell my answer to the question is often a letdown. And I know even before I say the answer that they’re going to find it disappointing. “Well, you might see me practicing some fancy skills, but I am actually a very simple player. My favorite skill is a crisp, accurate inside-of-the-foot pass over 20-30 yards.”
Boringggg! The truth is, while I love to challenge myself technically and physically to do nuanced skill work, I’ve trained very hard to play simply. I use both feet and am technically sound enough that my go-to way to solve pressure in a game is quite often just a matter of having the option to use either foot to make a pass or change direction.
If you watch top footballers, outside of a rare occasion for brilliance, the vast majority of their actions are doing things that all youth players learn very early on. They do them quickly, explosively, and under extreme pressure. Often, they make them look so easy that no one even notices. That is not easy to do!
The same principle of simplicity applies with experiences. Whether it’s purchasing something online, attending an event, or the user experience in a technology, it’s very likely that the smoother your experience, the more thought, planning, and preparation has gone into it.
We recently launched a new physical performance training section in the Techne app. The sessions are designed by performance coach Chris Gorres, whom I’ve worked with a lot on improving my own strength, explosiveness, and speed. It was really important to me that the Techne user experience is in line with my experience training with Chris in person.
Once Chris had prepared the sessions, drill videos, and descriptions to go in the app, we set out to create the training experience. It took us about four months!
It’s actually very difficult and complex to create a simple and intuitive training experience in an app. Our hope is that no one thinks about the fact that they’re using an app or what the “features” are, but instead all attention is on what to do to complete the training sessions properly.
It takes an enormous amount of work behind the scenes to be able to “keep it simple.” Whether it’s a high-performing athlete, a technology, experience, or even an explanation from an expert — Simplicity is a sign of well-executed preparation and should be appreciated as such.