ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of how expertise in sport is acquired, from the framework of ecological dynamics. Ecological dynamics emphasizes the study of organism-environment systems, a central theme in ecological science. Ecological science is committed to studying information-based behavioral transactions between individual organisms, and between individual organisms, relevant properties of a specific performance environment, including objects, surfaces, terrains, and niches that comprise the physical surroundings. Ecological dynamics emphasizes the mutually constraining relations between perceptual, action subsystems in humans for coordinating action. The theory of affordances was conceived by J. J. Gibson to explain how organisms detect information and perceive properties of their environment that can be used to regulate their decisions and actions. Degeneracy signifies how an individual can vary movement behavior without compromising function and is an important aspect of skilled sport performance. In seeking to become expert, athletes can exploit inherent system degeneracy to achieve their task objectives by strategically (re)stabilizing or destabilizing their coupling of movement and information.
