What Is "Fun" (in the rugby context)
Jason posted a comment from a rugby discussion list to our email list about the principles of rugby. One expression of them:
For most, if not all, American rugby players, Fun must to be paramount. No matter how good you get at rugby, you're never going to be on the news, and probably not even in your local paper. You could be a professional player scoring the "Try of the World Cup" and playing for Biarritz, but no one in America is likely to be aware of this. So fame is right out. I guess you could play for the money, but there are few Americans who get that opportunity and if money is the goal, there are easier ways to make more of it.
In my opinion, if you're not playing for the fun of it, you're in the wrong sport.
But it is helpful to define what is meant by "fun."
I recently became aware of a definition of fun used by some psychologists to measure the fun of computer games (which is the industry I work in). Instead of simply asking players if they think a game is fun or not, they broke the definition of fun into discrete elements that are more easily measured academically, and actually help predict the financial success of a game based on how it scores.
But all that is introduction. I don't want to suggest that we can measure this as easily for a sport, but the defining of "fun" is helpful. The analysis was very eye-opening for me and I can see it's application in many elements beyond computer games, such as rugby. I think it is not only very helpful to thinking about the playing of the game, but also in thinking about how team practices are organized. Most of the rugby any rugby player has is at practice. If practice isn't fun ("fun" not meaning frivolous, easy, or unproductive), why bother?
The presentation was from Scott Rigby of Immersyve, formerly of Penn.
Much of the presentation is in article form here, which is more in-depth with a lot of specific application to computer games and may be too 'inside' if you're not familiar with modern game terminology and classifications - it is still worth a skim for more on the points I'm about to make).
The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction in Rugby
Rigby and his team call the model for measuring fun the Player Experience of Need Satisfaction ("PENS"). For something to be 'fun', the following basic psychological needs of players must be satisfied:
Competence: the need to feel effective.
It is taking satisfaction from performing a perfect pass, or winning a scrum against the head. At the extreme, it is totally dominating a weaker opponent (but that quickly becomes not fun as there is no challenge). In general, competence is the ease with which Intention is translated into Action. "Mastery in the moment-to-moment action of gameplay."
This is why I've tried to stress fundamentals amongst our players over the years. Enjoy making that perfect pass, or being in the right place for a pop pass, or setting a perfect ruck. Get those individual things right and enjoy the discrete accomplishment as an individual. Then you put those together to play your best game.
It also suggests not doing things you do not feel competent at.
A key component of this is that the player must feel that they are getting better over time. To me, that suggests changing drills at practice and adding complexity to them as players learn them.
How would you measure competence in a rugby context? Anything you can score and keep track of. In practice, timed drills or runs, pass drills where you count missed passes to a fixed target, etc. In games, tracking dropped passes, turnovers, stolen/lost scrums and lineouts, good kicks and bad kicks, proper/improper/missed tackles, etc.
Autonomy: is the feeling that your actions are freely chosen.
Rigby uses the terms "personal agency" and "sense of volition" to stress this is not simply "freedom." To maximize the sense of autonomy, you should maximize the opportunities for action.
Rugby has always had an advantage over games like American football in this regard because of the free flowing nature of the game. When you have the ball in your hands, you're free to run it, kick it, pass it, set a ruck, set a maul, etc. Compare that to the more limited option of a wide receiver or running back.
Autonomy doesn't mean the player has to be able to do all the things he can - it's about "perceived opportunities." Yes, a prop should never kick for touch. But it is still good if he knows that he can, but always chooses not to. (Your Props May Vary.)
(There's an interesting side issue here: altruistic behavior increases a player's sense of autonomy. I think that might apply to rugby too. "Giving the ball away', making the pass to the player that scores a try feels great. You can feel responsible for that even if the receiver ran 80 meters to score it - but for your pass, it wouldn't have happened. Or even just giving a teammate the opportunity to do something can make your own enjoyment of the game grow. Which I guess means all ballhogs are sad inside.)
No plan survives contact with the enemy. In American football, that's fine because no play last more than a few seconds. In rugby, it usually much longer, so there is more time for any plan to go wrong and be useless. (This isn't to say 'don't make plans', but rather to highlight how critical it is to be able to adapt to changing circumstances).
This is why teaching good decision making is critical. If you'll pardon the aside, there is a parallel here to US airborne infantry tactics on D-Day, in which the plans were out the window as soon as they landed and many soldiers were completely cut off from their command structure, dropped in the wrong place, often without much of their equipment, and had to improvise. Many historians have noted that because their training emphasized the ability to make decisions independently the paratroopers were able to almost seamlessly go to work against the Germans to achieve their overall objectives, which they all knew well. So, when your team ends up with props in your back line in the third phase, they need to be able to make good decisions to deal with that, and they all need to understand the overall game plan. ('When rugby gives you props, make prop-ade.')
Relatedness: forming meaningful connections with others and working together.
Teamwork and Socializing. This has a huge impact on sustained participation, i.e., if players experience relatedness, they'll keep coming out. This is where a good core of 'old-boys' or veterans keeps a club together because relatedness is often reinforced through many out-of-game avenues [Yes, I'm looking at you DARC/Our Gang/Blues Old Boys. Come impart some wisdom on the young'uns]. These should be fairly obvious: a pint after practice (even if only one - I'm of the opinion that everyone should go to the pub on Thursdays after practice and for 'One and Done' at a minimum - one water, one soda, one pint, whatever), the post-game parties, but also includes email discussions lists or groups, etc. We certainly saw an improvement in this when we stuffed all the young'uns in the van for the Midland and Austin road trips last season.
It is important to minimize things that 'de-motivate' players, but also to provide positive feedback in a relevant context. Relatedness feeds back into a player's sense of competence and autonomy as well, and for a team sport, it is obviously critical. It is social bonding and teamwork/collective action. And I think not just within the scrum and within the backs, but the team as a whole. So mixing things up at practice from time-to-time is probably worthwhile. And for the club as whole, including old boys, spouses, girlfriends, non-rugby playing friends, etc.
Fun is what a player experiences when his need for a sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness is satisfied.
If you read this far, congratulations! "So, thanks to all at once and to each one"
I hope find the PENS model as interesting as I do. Because Rigby's analysis is based on basic psychological needs of people, separate from any game or sport context, I think it has a much wider application to life, such as to your career.
- Enjoyment- We play Rugby to have fun
- Go Forward- On offense and Defense
- Support- Again on Offense and on Defense
- Continuity- Keep the ball moving on offense and keep our defensive structures continuous (no holes in our lines)
- Pressure- If we perform 2-5 it will result in pressure on the opponents.
For most, if not all, American rugby players, Fun must to be paramount. No matter how good you get at rugby, you're never going to be on the news, and probably not even in your local paper. You could be a professional player scoring the "Try of the World Cup" and playing for Biarritz, but no one in America is likely to be aware of this. So fame is right out. I guess you could play for the money, but there are few Americans who get that opportunity and if money is the goal, there are easier ways to make more of it.
In my opinion, if you're not playing for the fun of it, you're in the wrong sport.
But it is helpful to define what is meant by "fun."
I recently became aware of a definition of fun used by some psychologists to measure the fun of computer games (which is the industry I work in). Instead of simply asking players if they think a game is fun or not, they broke the definition of fun into discrete elements that are more easily measured academically, and actually help predict the financial success of a game based on how it scores.
But all that is introduction. I don't want to suggest that we can measure this as easily for a sport, but the defining of "fun" is helpful. The analysis was very eye-opening for me and I can see it's application in many elements beyond computer games, such as rugby. I think it is not only very helpful to thinking about the playing of the game, but also in thinking about how team practices are organized. Most of the rugby any rugby player has is at practice. If practice isn't fun ("fun" not meaning frivolous, easy, or unproductive), why bother?
The presentation was from Scott Rigby of Immersyve, formerly of Penn.
Much of the presentation is in article form here, which is more in-depth with a lot of specific application to computer games and may be too 'inside' if you're not familiar with modern game terminology and classifications - it is still worth a skim for more on the points I'm about to make).
The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction in Rugby
Rigby and his team call the model for measuring fun the Player Experience of Need Satisfaction ("PENS"). For something to be 'fun', the following basic psychological needs of players must be satisfied:
- Competence,
- Autonomy, and
- Relatedness.
Competence: the need to feel effective.
It is taking satisfaction from performing a perfect pass, or winning a scrum against the head. At the extreme, it is totally dominating a weaker opponent (but that quickly becomes not fun as there is no challenge). In general, competence is the ease with which Intention is translated into Action. "Mastery in the moment-to-moment action of gameplay."
This is why I've tried to stress fundamentals amongst our players over the years. Enjoy making that perfect pass, or being in the right place for a pop pass, or setting a perfect ruck. Get those individual things right and enjoy the discrete accomplishment as an individual. Then you put those together to play your best game.
It also suggests not doing things you do not feel competent at.
(Game Tactic Note: If you haven't mastered the 5-foot flat pass yet,
don't try the Magic-Johnson-Behind-The-Back-No-Look pass).
don't try the Magic-Johnson-Behind-The-Back-No-Look pass).
A key component of this is that the player must feel that they are getting better over time. To me, that suggests changing drills at practice and adding complexity to them as players learn them.
How would you measure competence in a rugby context? Anything you can score and keep track of. In practice, timed drills or runs, pass drills where you count missed passes to a fixed target, etc. In games, tracking dropped passes, turnovers, stolen/lost scrums and lineouts, good kicks and bad kicks, proper/improper/missed tackles, etc.
Autonomy: is the feeling that your actions are freely chosen.
Rigby uses the terms "personal agency" and "sense of volition" to stress this is not simply "freedom." To maximize the sense of autonomy, you should maximize the opportunities for action.
(Game Strategy Note: 'Where there is more space, there is more opportunity.')
Rugby has always had an advantage over games like American football in this regard because of the free flowing nature of the game. When you have the ball in your hands, you're free to run it, kick it, pass it, set a ruck, set a maul, etc. Compare that to the more limited option of a wide receiver or running back.
Autonomy doesn't mean the player has to be able to do all the things he can - it's about "perceived opportunities." Yes, a prop should never kick for touch. But it is still good if he knows that he can, but always chooses not to. (Your Props May Vary.)
(There's an interesting side issue here: altruistic behavior increases a player's sense of autonomy. I think that might apply to rugby too. "Giving the ball away', making the pass to the player that scores a try feels great. You can feel responsible for that even if the receiver ran 80 meters to score it - but for your pass, it wouldn't have happened. Or even just giving a teammate the opportunity to do something can make your own enjoyment of the game grow. Which I guess means all ballhogs are sad inside.)
No plan survives contact with the enemy. In American football, that's fine because no play last more than a few seconds. In rugby, it usually much longer, so there is more time for any plan to go wrong and be useless. (This isn't to say 'don't make plans', but rather to highlight how critical it is to be able to adapt to changing circumstances).
This is why teaching good decision making is critical. If you'll pardon the aside, there is a parallel here to US airborne infantry tactics on D-Day, in which the plans were out the window as soon as they landed and many soldiers were completely cut off from their command structure, dropped in the wrong place, often without much of their equipment, and had to improvise. Many historians have noted that because their training emphasized the ability to make decisions independently the paratroopers were able to almost seamlessly go to work against the Germans to achieve their overall objectives, which they all knew well. So, when your team ends up with props in your back line in the third phase, they need to be able to make good decisions to deal with that, and they all need to understand the overall game plan. ('When rugby gives you props, make prop-ade.')
Relatedness: forming meaningful connections with others and working together.
Teamwork and Socializing. This has a huge impact on sustained participation, i.e., if players experience relatedness, they'll keep coming out. This is where a good core of 'old-boys' or veterans keeps a club together because relatedness is often reinforced through many out-of-game avenues [Yes, I'm looking at you DARC/Our Gang/Blues Old Boys. Come impart some wisdom on the young'uns]. These should be fairly obvious: a pint after practice (even if only one - I'm of the opinion that everyone should go to the pub on Thursdays after practice and for 'One and Done' at a minimum - one water, one soda, one pint, whatever), the post-game parties, but also includes email discussions lists or groups, etc. We certainly saw an improvement in this when we stuffed all the young'uns in the van for the Midland and Austin road trips last season.
It is important to minimize things that 'de-motivate' players, but also to provide positive feedback in a relevant context. Relatedness feeds back into a player's sense of competence and autonomy as well, and for a team sport, it is obviously critical. It is social bonding and teamwork/collective action. And I think not just within the scrum and within the backs, but the team as a whole. So mixing things up at practice from time-to-time is probably worthwhile. And for the club as whole, including old boys, spouses, girlfriends, non-rugby playing friends, etc.
Fun is what a player experiences when his need for a sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness is satisfied.
If you read this far, congratulations! "So, thanks to all at once and to each one"
I hope find the PENS model as interesting as I do. Because Rigby's analysis is based on basic psychological needs of people, separate from any game or sport context, I think it has a much wider application to life, such as to your career.
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