Author: joelcressman

How East Asian students approach learning differently: Challenging my bias

Throughout the pandemic I researched a book project that examined the culture of elite sports in Korea. One of the most interesting areas of research I came across was the process of learning for East Asian students. 

This was for a couple reasons. One, my classes at my school are almost entirely students of Korean origin. Two, the mentality towards the method of learning among Asian students seems to always be distinctly negative. 

There is a stereotype–even among educators that live and teach in Asia–that East Asian students are passive, focus little on exploration, and only rote memorize content. 

I found one refreshing book that challenged that. The Drive to Learn by Dr. Cornelius Grove is a fascinating comparison of the American approach to learning compared to the approach to learning in China, Japan, and Korea. 

Here are some thought-provoking main ideas that challenged my bias and made me a better teacher:

Hitting lines are a classic warm-up in volleyball, but quickly becoming antiquated

The Process to Mastery

I coach volleyball in the fall season. It’s a sport that I stumbled into coaching six years ago, but fell in love with. Especially at the high school level. Since I didn’t play at a high level, I’ve had to spend hours researching the best teaching and coaching practices for the sport. 

There’s always been one practice method that I’ve constantly had to battle every year: hitting lines. Every group that I’ve taught, boys and girls from the middle school to varsity level, love to practice hitting a volleyball one-by-one, with no blockers, waiting in a line. You can set your watch to it if there is a moment’s dead time at practice. 

Groups will line-up behind the attack line, toss a perfect ball to the setter, then wait for the perfect set, often catching it if it is not to their liking. 

It drives me crazy. It’s unopposed, blocked practice that will have limited transfer to the game. I’ve tried teaching alternatives. I’ve explained the skill transfer and that they need to practice hitting in a more realistic environment. I’ve tried outright banning it, but each group always defaults back to it. 

However, our conflicting opinions may just be a difference in the way my group of students and I view reaching mastery.

The process to mastery for East Asian students follows this process:

  1. Repetition
  2. Understanding
  3. Application
  4. Modification

For other subjects, this makes learning inside and outside the classroom of equal importance in the Asian context. Classrooms are typically considered the area to deliver material. It is why the “passive” stereotype exists. Students aren’t expected to be active contributors when material is delivered. 

Outside the classroom, students take time to review, practice, and personalize the learning. The belief that East Asian students only memorize is a myth: they are just taking the first step towards learning. Application and modification comes later. 

For my volleyball players, this is the process they are going through. To feel like they can apply hitting in the game, they want to repeat the proper form over and over. Skill acquisition science doesn’t support this idea, but it is one that is embedded in them. 

The best thing I can do as a coach is first acknowledge this process, but explain and show how this may not translate best to the game.

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation simplified (Source: VeryWell Mind)

Focusing on Failure

Research found that East Asian students focus less on success and more on failure. This happens for one primary reason: feedback. 

Success does not provide feedback for future learning and application. Instead, it leaves future growth more at risk. “In East Asia, an individual’s ultimate goal is self-improvement,” Grove writes. 

There are key differences with Western countries here. Research found success gets more focus than failure in America. North Americans also believe that babies are born with a fixed set of abilities. It becomes a parent’s job to discover and support the growth of those abilities. 

East Asians differ significantly in their approach to parenting. Failure is not seen as a weakness of the child. All children are believed to be flexible in their abilities and capable of learning anything. Effort is perceived as the primary factor for determining if a student effectively learns a subject, not inborn ability.

The goal for East Asian students is “high learning mastery” while the goal for Americans is “high learning performance.”

Students in the East tend to focus on self-improvement in areas they deem important, while students in the West focus on self-enhancement, or getting better at what they already are good at. 

The practical differences to these are vast. East Asian students are willing to spend much more time and resources in their studies because they feel motivated by chasing mastery. Students in North America are more likely to go through a sampling phase to try to find a match with what they are naturally good at.

Source: Andres Gallardo

Rethinking Motivation

The difference in the approach to “high learning mastery” to “high learning performance” is a clash that I now think of daily. 

As an educator, I hold the belief that motivation should ideally always be intrinsic – it should come from the student instead of any outside, possibly controlling source. When a student makes the choice themselves and is given autonomy, it is always better. 

This is on par with how American parents see themselves.

Research found that American parents believe it is their job to bring out interests and abilities that are inborn in the child. They do not feel it is appropriate to direct their children towards a task.

East Asian parents, however, see their children as changeable and capable in many areas. They believe that they should take a more active manager role and guide their children. Development of their children becomes more hands-on and supervised. 

In the West, we deride this parenting style. We refer to it as “Tiger Parenting” and see the child as the victim of control and coercion. Western parents tend to view children as more fragile and to be handled with care. 

That may not be the case with all students though. 

Chinese children were found to view this hands-on parenting style as a sign of warmth and devotion. Similar results were found with Korean children. Taking an active role in their life was how children perceived their parents loved them. 

This concept also sees a clash for intrinsic motivation. Western educators, like myself, tend to believe that motivation is always higher when the child makes the choice. 

However, a study found that East Asian American students aged 7-9 worked the hardest when their mom made a choice for them. Anglo American students worked the hardest when they made the choice. 

For East Asian students, motivation to please others can be a powerful driver. Especially when it comes from family.

Son Heung-min, the most famous athlete in Korea, was put through 7 years of the same two drills by his father. His father now runs a soccer academy that uses the same concept of repetition to reach mastery (Source: The Korea Times)

Reading The Drive to Learn has been a fascinating process for me. It has provided me with a whole new door of research to open up and to challenge my bias as I teach daily. 

Working in an international school, it’s also been interesting to see the spectrum that exists among my student population. There are Western students, students that arrive fresh from Korean public school, or those that fall somewhere in between. 

Korean students that have been there since elementary or spent years abroad can often have a more Western view of education, but still face the extrinsic pressures of family and pressure for good results. They may not even be aware that this cultural clash is happening at their age. 

For me, this is an everyday reminder to not jump to conclusions about the need to repeat and work on form. It may just be what students feel they need to improve.

A Culture of Specialists: The Cold War politics that created a nation of one sport athletes

I stumbled upon the culture of specialists years ago while working on a research project at work.  

I was researching the top 100 golfers in the world. My task was to examine the current best players in the world and find the age they made the tour, then the age they won their first event. 

The female side was particularly unusual. It was dominated by South Korea. The country was a super feeder for women’s golf talent, but had few golf courses and little history of golfing. Something different was happening there. 

I dug into books like The Talent Code and The Gold Mine Effect to see what was going on. I found that most young golfers, without any experience, were diving into the sport with intensity. It immediately became their life’s focus. They became specialized golfers. 

The books provided some answers on training, but the why was still left unanswered. Yes, these young women trained hard, but why were they dedicating their lives to golf?

A Contradiction

Source: Naeil LMC

South Korea later became a part of my life when I moved there to teach. I started to get a first hand look at the culture that created these laser-focused, highly skilled athletes. 

I was the PE teacher and Athletic Director at a small private school outside of Seoul. The first thing that blew me away was the level of motor skills of my students. 

Many young people were years behind in their skills. I was often working on basic throwing and catching. It was a struggle for some to serve a badminton birdie because their coordination was so limited. I’d have to adapt elementary focused lessons for high school. 

I also faced an odd resistance getting students involved in after-school sports. New students and parents coming from the public school system were often confused by the system. 

It was new to them that I was trying to get students to play volleyball, basketball, or soccer for just the season. There was a lot of hesitation that it would interfere with their studying. 

Why was this all happening?

My curiosity overtook me. I started diving into the history and science of skill development. All the free time of the pandemic put me into overdrive. It resulted in the manuscript of a book. 

Here’s the story of how Korea turned into one of the most specialized nations in the world.

Source: Old Tokyo

The Cold War Politics That Created Specialization

Sport specialization is year-round training in one particular sport for young athletes. The concern is not older teens and adults focusing on one area: it is children. Particularly children that have not reached adolescence yet.

Single-sport specialization began in Eastern Europe during the height of the Cold War. As the ideological battle between communism and capitalism raged, countries like the Soviet Union and East Germany used sport as a battleground for soft power in international events. 

Communist nations first targeted gymnastics, swimming and diving. They would go into elementary schools to select young talents then pull them into national programs.1

The success of these programs lead to more early identification programs across the world. One country that was a disciple was South Korea.

“Specialization in a single sport leads to success for few and physical inactivity for many.”1

Sport in South Korea – very understandably – was in shambles following the Korean War. South Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world and was in survival mode. 

Things began to shift when General Park Chung-hee seized power in the 1960s. Park, an authoritarian leader that focused on nation-building over human rights, first wanted to use sport to improve physique and public morale. However, the Park regime silently began to admire what the Soviets and East Germans were doing.2

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were the turning point. South Korea sent 165 athletes to Tokyo and brought home only two silver and one bronze medal. The Park regime considered it a national embarrassment. Regional foes in former colonizer Japan and ideological opposite North Korea were pulling ahead. Something had to change. 

Park’s regime then pulled a covert paradoxical move: The fiercely capitalist nation went to communist nations for ideas.2

The 1988 Seoul Olympics became the end goal for youth development (Source: Olympics.com)

The Athletic Specialist System

Schools became the heart of how the Korean government planned to win more medals on the international stage. 

The Athletic Specialist System was a program developed in 1972. It aimed to develop young athletes by having them focus on their sports for long and intense hours. Athletes often lived in dorms on campus and bypassed school work to focus on practicing. 

The specialist system first caused a wedge between athletes and studying. In the famously competitive academic atmosphere of Korea, it created one ingenious rule: Athletes could gain entrance to university on winning in their sport, without factoring in any academic results.

The Athletic Specialist System created a division between sports and the regular student. It now defines development.

This system went into overdrive ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The authoritarian regime, now led by President Chun Duh-hwan, wanted to use the Olympics as Korea’s arrival party to the world stage. Gold medals were key to this. 

Physical Education high schools were created to focus on less popular sports. Sports like judo, shooting, and wrestling were targeted to give athletes a realistic shot at success.2

This is how sports developed for years. They became a one-track focus that was pursued at all cost. Athletes literally lived and breathed their sports. Winning was heavily incentivized. 

A Physical Education focused middle school (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

A Preview for the World

Sport specialization is the ultimate short-term thinking. 

It is ineffective for overall motor skill development and unhealthy at its worst. Specializing in one area, like only playing golf for your entire youth, stunts your skill learning. Since you are only focusing on one movement, you don’t learn how to move efficiently in other areas. 

Even worse, specialized young athletes are at risk of more soft tissue injuries, nutritional disorders, and burnout. Specializing can even cause heart problems in young people.1 

We are faced with a worldwide conundrum now: An increased number of parents and children around the world are now specializing because they believe it is the key to success. Families are motivated by prestigious university scholarships and lucrative pro contracts. 

Why? They are concerned about falling behind. Success is a powerful driver. While Western countries are arriving at this idea now, Korea has been here for years. The result: the success of few, the inactivity of many.

Sources:

1) Mostafavifar, A.M., Best, T.M., & Myer, G.D. (2012, December 12). Early sport specialization, does it lead to long-term problems? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 0, 1-2. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/461f/1eb58d368588976206936863f615b11cc836.pdf.

2) Park, J.W. (2011, Feb.). Elite sport development in South Korea: An analysis of policy change in the sports of athletics, archery and baseball (Doctoral thesis). Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK.

Why Korea? The story of the unlikely talent hotbed

South Korea is not a country usually associated with world class athletes. It is especially not a country that is thought of as one of the world’s leading talent hotbeds. 

The nation does not develop high-end talent in a major sport. Korea does not rival the levels of game-changing stars produced by Brazil in soccer, America in basketball, Canada in hockey, or the Dominican Republic in baseball. 

Instead, Korean athletes have cornered their share of niche, specialty sports and absolutely blown the competition away. 

Within these pockets of carefully selected sports, athletes from Korea have found this peculiar level of dominance that continues generation after generation. 

Why? South Korean athletes have an unrelenting ability to focus on improving in one sport. The roots of that phenomenon all started from Cold War politics.

Source: Inside the Games

Situational Dominance

Korean athletes have an idiosyncratic level of success in very specific individual sports. 

South Korean female golfers have dominated the top 100 rankings on the LPGA for the last twenty years. At any given time, 30 of the top 100 golfers will be Korean, with women like Park Inbee, Ko Jinyoung, and Chun In-gee routinely winning major tournaments. 

Modern Olympic archery has been absolutely ruled by South Korea. Korean archers have won 27 out of 39 gold medals since 1984. Men’s archers have won every gold medal in the team event but one since the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The women have won every gold medal available but one in the last ten Olympic competitions. 

Short track speed skating is the same story. South Korea has been the medal leaders since the sport’s inception, routinely crushing larger regional rivals China and Japan. They’ve won the most medals at seven of nine Olympics that short track has been featured. Athletes routinely only get to compete at one or two Olympics games because internal competition is so high.  

The same narrative is true for sports like shooting, breakdancing, taekwondo, judo, and esports. South Korea routinely ranks in the top 10 for medals won in the Summer and Winter Olympics. 

Often success is found in individual sports and often it just takes one champion to change the landscape.

Source: The New York Times

One Spark of Inspiration

The exact moment that Korea became the mecca of women’s golf talent can be traced back to one infamous tournament. 

It was the summer of 1998. A young and upcoming golfer named Pak Se-ri was fighting for the US Open title. Pak entered the final round in first place but was battling to keep the lead against American college student Jenny Chuasiriporn. 

Disaster struck on the back nine. Pak hit an errant tee shot that landed at the edge of a pond and put her victory in doubt. Pak and her caddy walked up to a ball slightly submerged in water and debated taking a penalty stroke that would likely push her out of the lead. 

Pak instead decided to gamble. She ripped her socks off, planted her feet in the pond water, and fearlessly ripped a shot back to safety. She later won in a playoff. 

At the time of her win, Pak was the only competitive Korean golfer in the LPGA. Just five years later, there were 20 of her compatriots in the top 100 rankings. Ten years later, there were 30. 

Pak’s 1998 US Open win became an immediate media sensation back in her home country. The barefoot shot was replayed over and over for years on TV. She became a national icon and publicly carved a pathway to success for young girls to emulate. 

Every sport that is wildly successful in South Korea follows this pathway: dramatic victory, national attention, hordes of young athletes join the sport. It happened when a teenager won an international competition in archery in the 1980s. It happened when a Korean speed skater won a gold medal in the sport’s first Olympics. 

The immediate, intense response of a high-profile international victory inspires young athletes to seriously pursue a sport. But the system waiting to nurture their talent is wildly different than most others in the world.

Pak Se-ri entering the pond for the barefoot shot (Source: USGA)

Finding a Lane of Excellency

The fact that South Korean athletes find this level of excellence in sports is an anomaly. 

Children in South Korea are infamously dedicated to academics. This time spent on studying directly leads to inactivity. Of the 48 OECD countries, South Korean students spend the most time studying. A quarter of older students put in over 60 hours a week. 

The amount of time spent studying takes directly away from physical activity. Less than half of students play any form of sport before or after school, ranking at the bottom of the OECD. Korean children also play outside much less: they average 34 minutes outside a day compared to just under two hours for American children. 

So how are athletes reaching this level of success?

It is because sport is often about finding a lane for excellency, not about participation and experience. 

Much of this came from deliberate governmental decisions. Starting in the 1960s, the South Korean government began to support elite sport as a method to build their national image. The autocratic government of the era saw sport as a tool to gain an advantage during the Cold War era. Sport became a vehicle to inspire the nation and build prestige, culminating in hosting the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.1

Sport became about focusing on elite and producing results. The process became known as the ‘Athletic Specialist System.’ A series of sport-specific schools opened to allow students to train full-time. At these schools, students live in dorms under the supervision of the coach. These programs focus less on academics because the outside competition to get into good universities is just too tough. School sport focuses on winning at every level, causing what has been labelled a ‘win-at-all-costs’ culture.2

Sports like archery, short track speedskating, taekwondo, or judo all rely on this talent pipeline for future gold medal winners. 

Many young athletes pursue this specialized pathway. They fully dedicate themselves to sport while putting academics secondary. As with other countries, the results are still grim: Only 1% of athletes make it to the professional level.

Source: Ha, J.P., Lee, K., & Ok, G. (2015). From development of sport to development through sport: A paradigm shift for sport development in South Korea. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(10), 1262-1278. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2015.1062756.

The Reverse Pathway

The process of specializing in one sport is by no-means a Korea-specific issue. In fact, it is a growing issue in all developed countries around the world. 

The issue is that it has created a process of a ‘reverse pathway’ for developing athletes.  

Most nations – especially most talent hotbeds – have a large base of young athletes playing for fun. Young people play soccer or t-ball to get moving as young children. They join martial arts to learn something new. The sport becomes a passion they play informally on the street. Kids often sample different sports and play in set seasons, switching once the season is done. This has been the typical grassroots sports model, especially in North America. 

What makes South Korea unique is that this concept of grassroot sports does not exist. Young children do sample different sports, but it becomes about dedication to one venture. An athlete should get on the elite pathway or quit. There are few recreational options. 

Instead of the best amateurs and participants emerging from the crowd, early selection is done and those sports become a serious pursuit. Elite sport determines development, participation in sport does not.

“While most other countries have a large amateur base and work towards elite performance, Korea is the opposite. It has an exceptional elite performance system, but almost no grassroots at all.”

-John Stanley on Archery

The process of a ‘reverse pathway’ creates results and champions with astounding success. It is also a significant handicap to developing talent in some of the world’s biggest sports. There are also rights violations and a lack of other options for athletes along this path. 

It is a process that as a Physical Education teacher and coach in Korea, I find endlessly fascinating. Follow along here as I take a deeper dive into these topics to share stories of the athletes and the environment that nurtures their talent.

Sources:

(1) Ha, J.P., Lee, K., & Ok, G. (2015). From development of sport to development through sport: A paradigm shift for sport development in South Korea. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(10), 1262-1278. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2015.1062756.

(2) Kang, S.W., Jeon, H.S., Kwon, S.H., & Park, S.H. (2015). Parental attachment as a mediator between parental social support and self-esteem as perceived by Korean sports middle and high school athletes’. Perceptual & Motor Skills: Physical Development & Measurement, 120(1), 288-303.

Creativity wins at the World Cup: The secret is the 7th action

No victory at the 2022 World Cup has been more emphatic than when Brazil played South Korea in the round of 16. South Korea, giants in Asian soccer, were dismantled by a superiorly talented Brazilian team by a score of 4-1.

The most impressive feat of the game was how the Brazilians continued to one-up themselves with each goal they scored. Their South American trademarks of deft touch dribbling, quick precision passing, and masked shots were ferociously unleashed on the Korean defensive line. 

The marquee goal was Richarlison’s fantastical three touches with his head before he scissored through the Korean defense. 

But the more underrated sequence, that gained less media sensation afterwards, was the fourth goal. Winger Vinícius Júnior perfectly chipped a pass across the box and over a pack of players right on to the boot of Lucas Paqueta. 

It was a primary assist that was as sublime as it was silky.

The Importance of Creativity in Modern Soccer

The style of soccer that Brazil plays actually subject to rigorous scientific research. It’s referred to as tactical creativity.

Tactical creativity, according to German academic Daniel Memmert in the book Encyclopedia of Creativity, is defined as “the unusualness, innovativeness, statistical rareness, or even uniqueness of solutions to a related sport situation in team ball sports.”

Creativity in soccer is also known as divergent thinking, or finding a skill expression so unique that even the world’s best defenders are caught off guard.

In the age of information, being unpredictable with the ball is increasingly becoming more important for beating defenses. Soccer, like other major sports, is now overridden with information. Coaches will pour over formations and player tendencies to ensure their teams are prepared as possible. Divergent thinking on the spot is provides a pathway to beat sophisticated analytics.

Creativity = World Cup Success

Creative goals may not just be about aesthetics however; they may be directly related to winning games. 

In a study titled ‘”Good, better, creative”: the influence of creativity on goal scoring in elite soccer,’ Memmert and his colleague Matthias Kempe studied all the goals scored in open play in the 2010 and 2014 World Cups and the 2016 Euro Cup. Overall, there were 311 goals scored in 153 games that they analyzed. 

To assess a “creative” goal, the researchers analyzed the last 8 actions before a goal was scored. They had soccer experts rank on- and off-the-ball movements a give them a creativity score. Some interesting trends came out of the process. 

Creative actions became more important closer to the goal being scored. But it was the 7th move, or the primary assist, that was found to be the most creative. The move before a goal was the most likely to be so unexpected and unpredictable that the defense could not adapt. 

The research found that 52% of goals in the group stage were ‘highly creative.’ However, creativity was relatively rare to find in game play. Only 9.5% of the assessed moves were determined to have an above average creative rating. 

Importantly, more successful teams had a greater proportion of creative goals. Successful teams were not only scoring more beautiful goals, they were scoring them when competition was at its fiercest. The authors concluded that “teams that advanced to the later rounds of the tournament demonstrated greater creativity than teams that failed to do so.”

How does a country develop a style of creative play?

​The Korea vs. Brazil game represented a compelling dichotomy for winning and creativity. Brazil is historically the most successful national team on the World Cup stage (though they only lasted a round later than Korea until their quarter-final loss, a concerning trend in the 21st century). 

Korea is the most successful program in Asian soccer history. Qatar was the 10th straight World Cup they qualified for. In that time, they’ve only won seven games. In their 38 total games at the world’s premier tournament, they’ve only scored 39 goals. 

Developing players with world class creativity may be contributing directly to Korea’s inability to win. The second last goal they scored in the tournament came on a dazzling, legendary assist from Son Heung-min. But Son’s rise to prominence is not the typical story of development for the Taeguk Warriors. 

While the best in the world are actively promoting creativity, factors outside of soccer may be inadvertently stifling it in Korea.

The Rise of an Unlikely Creative Genius: Son Heung-min

Son Heung-min, South Korea’s masked man at the 2022 World Cup, is a rare oddity. He is the offensive talisman of a country that has made its reputation on grinding, defensive soccer. He’s not only the best player from Korea, he’s the best player to ever come out of Asia. 

Son’s rise as a generational offensive wizard was a nearly impossible journey. He did not start playing organized soccer until the age of 14, instead toiling over a ball with his father, doing the same routine day after day as a child. 

It was this choice to avoid an often rigid, results-focused system that may have allowed him to later thrive. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Unlikely Creative Genius

Son has been described as an artist with the ball. He prefers using his left foot and has a flair to finish plays that has seen him compared to player’s from South America. His skill set is unlike most players that have emerged from Asia. 

Son is lauded for his touch with the ball and ability with his left foot. He’s a versatile attacker that can be placed in a variety of positions. He is a world class option from the left wing playing along side Harry Kane at Tottenham. 

The website FourFourTwo described his unique arrival in top European soccer: “He’s certainly the most dynamic footballer the region has produced and, over time, has also proven himself to be the most destructive … he wasn’t sought out for his neat skill or his industriousness. None of those antiquated cliches applied to him.”

His offensive prowess kept growing the more he established himself in his career. He’s the prototypical late bloomer. He tied Mohamed Salah for the Premier League’s Golden Boot award, leading the league with 23 goals just before he turned 30. 

A Focus on Mastery

Son Heung-min grew up in Chuncheon, a small city in the mountains east of Seoul. His father, Woong-jung, was a former soccer player that reached as high as the Korean national B team. However, due to injury, the elder Son was forced to retire at age 28. 

It was his father’s treatment by the soccer system that would leave the largest lasting impression on the family. Woong-jung had a biting distrust in a system that prioritized winning over skill development and showed favoritism to players on more prestigious, successful teams. As a result, he largely kept his two boys away from the soccer pitch while they were young. 

Heung-min was in the third grade when he asked his father to teach him the game. In a scene explained in Son’s autobiography, Woong-jung, an intense and deeply focused man, denied his son’s request at first. He tried to warn the boy off saying it would be difficult and require a life-altering amount of effort. 

The father finally relented when it was clear Heung-min wouldn’t take no for an answer. Thus, the Son family began years of building their craft with a relentless goal of mastering ball control. 

Heung-min, his older brother, and father would follow the same routine every day. After school, the three would train together for two hours. It always followed the same format. First, they would do ball lifting, or keep-it-up. A routine that would take about 40 minutes to complete when Heung-min was a beginner. Then they moved on to a figure 8 dribbling drill. They rotated through with both feet, using the inside and outside of the sole. 

This daily practice plan was all they worked on for seven years. Seven straight years Heung-min was challenged to master these skills through boredom, sickness, and wanting for advancement. 

“There were three reasons why I was able to withstand this kind of repetitive training,” Son wrote in his autobiography. “First, soccer was so fun. Second, my father was so scary that I didn’t dare say that I was bored. Third, we had reached the point that I thought ‘I guess I’ll do it because I need it.’”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A Rebel with a Cause

The personal coaching that Woong-jung gave his son Heung-min came from a place of love. He saw it as his job as a protective parent to keep his children away from the soccer system that mistreated him as a young man. 

“Korea’s football system is obsessed with winning… so kids are exhausted from a young age,” Woong-jung told AFP. Woong-jung believed his career as a player was cut short due to overtraining as a child. 

The Korean soccer system has traditionally focused on year-round, sport-specific training that lasts hours every day. Players in sports-streamed public schools often will practice during the day instead of attending classes with their peers. The end goal is earning a sports scholarship to a university without having to compete in a fiercely academic country. 

For this reason, Woong-jung didn’t allow a talented Heung-min to join a team until he was 14 years old. He only allowed Heung-min to move to an official program when he thought he’d mastered the fundamentals. As most of his peers were playing 11-on-11 games, Son had been training his ball control under the watchful eye of a personal coach. 

Heung-min’s move to organized football was the start of a quick and prodigious ascent. He spent one year in a middle school program, then moved to Seoul FC’s academy before a visiting scout from Germany recognized his talent. 

By the age of 16, with less than a few years of club soccer under his belt, Heung-min was training in one of Europe’s great development hotbeds. 

Source: Flickr

The Seeds of Creativity

German academic Daniel Memmert is the foremost expert on studying creativity in sports. To develop creativity in a sport like soccer, Memmert describes ‘6 D’s’ that contribute to the development of an original, unpredictable player:

  • Deliberate Play
  • One-dimension games
  • Diversification
  • Deliberate Coaching
  • Deliberate Motivation
  • Deliberate Practice

Son Heung-min’s upbringing separated from organized soccer presents an interesting case for the development of his tactical creativity, or divergent thinking.

Son spent hours with his father in deliberate practice, actively trying to master the touch he had on the ball. Son is especially dangerous handling the ball from the wing in top professional play, cutting side-to-side laterally with complete control of the ball, an action that mimics the figure 8 drill perfectly. 

Though he spent his pre-practice years playing informal soccer games at school with friends, he spent little time in unstructured deliberate play, which allows players to experiment with new skills in a low stress environment. He also did not play many other sports, limiting his diversification, and had limited practice time in other drills or one-dimensional games. 

However, deliberate coaching and deliberate motivation could be what drove his creative blossoming. 

Deliberate coaching sees coaches intervene less during practicing game-like situations in training. Coaches that interfere too heavily with player decision-making unwittingly cause a phenomenon called ‘inattentional blindness,’ which causes players to find less original solutions on the field. The fact that Son didn’t play organized soccer as a child may have kept his mind more free from structured thinking and more of a blank slate when he reached Germany.   

Deliberate motivation works along the same lines. Coaches that promote creativity ensure that players are rewarded for seeking new and novel options. Woong-jung traveled to Germany with Heung-min and was known to conduct in-depth film sessions with him. The freedom of playing in a more progressive system with a private coach that constantly reinforced creative tactical solutions was a significant advantage he leveraged as a teen and young adult. 

An Original 

No matter Korea’s result at this year’s World Cup, Son has already inspired a generation of young athletes with his flair with the ball and effectiveness on the field. He represents the biggest breakthrough star that the country has produced in any sport. 

His father now operates the SON Football Academy in Chuncheon, which uses the same principles of mastery that he used with his children. Players in the academy work almost exclusively on developing touch with the ball.

The large question remains is whether the Korean soccer system can produce more players like Son without the need for rebellion. The drive to win and gain a short-term advantage may continue to be a blinding factor for years to come. 

Stay tuned for more in a series of blogs focused on creativity in soccer during the 2022 World Cup.