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The Power of Constraints: Lessons from Jazz and Bowie

Over the Christmas break, I re-listened to my favourite podcast episode ever. It’s called Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano (it’s linked below). It’s almost become a tradition for me, part of my Christmas break, to listen to the episode. The episode tells two stories. The first is about Keith Jarrett’s famous (though I’d never heard of it until then) Köln Concert. It’s the best-selling solo jazz album and piano album of all time. Impressive, sure—but what really grabbed me was how the concert came to be.

Picture this: Jarrett arrives in Cologne for a late-night concert organised by Vera Brandes, a 17-year-old promoter. He’s exhausted (just drove 5 hours from Zurich), in pain (battling chronic back pain), and expecting a beautiful Bösendorfer grand piano. Instead, he finds a battered rehearsal piano—thin tone, weak bass, dodgy pedals. And there’s no time to swap it out. Not great for a musician as fastidious as Jarrett.

He threatens to cancel. Honestly, who wouldn’t? But Brandes persuades him to go ahead. Technicians do what they can to get the piano in as good a state as they can, and at 11:30 pm Jarrett walks on stage wearing a back brace. What happens next? He delivers a performance that becomes legendary.

Now, as you’ve probably picked up, I’m not a jazz connoisseur, so let me quote from someone who is:

AKA…

Here’s the kicker: the sound of that concert—the moody, hypnotic flow—wasn’t a deliberate artistic choice. It was Jarrett adapting to the piano’s flaws. He later said:

That line stuck with me. The constraints—wrong piano, physical pain, fatigue—forced Jarrett into a creative corner. And that corner produced magic.

So What for Coaching?

Constraints in training can sharpen focus, highlight what matters, and spark new solutions—just like Jarrett’s piano did. But often, much like it did for Jarrett, we don’t lean in to those constraints. We actually avoid them, even though they can lead to greater performance. So for me, there are two layers here.

First: Are you using constraints in your training design?

• How are you using constraints to unlock creativity in your players?

• Are you creating scenarios that allow players to “find another way”?

• Are you deliberately designing scenarios or games within your trainings that develops players problem solving?

Second: How can constraints help us as coaches?
This is where David Bowie comes in, which is the second story from the podcast.

In the 1970’s Bowie relocated to Berlin, and began working with Brian Eno, a producer and musician in his own right. The two of them ended up working on three straight Bowie albums through his time in Berlin, and those three albums were all considered to be groundbreaking. One of Eno’s tools that Bowie credited in the creation of those albums were Oblique Strategies—a deck of cards with simple prompts that acted as instructions, like:

• Use an old idea

• Emphasise differences

• Honour thy error as a hidden intention

• Abandon normal instruments

These cards were designed to break habits and spark creativity when pressure tempted the band to play it safe. Eno has said of the cards ‘they provided an antidote in high-pressure situations in which impulse might lead one to default quickly to a proven solution rather than continue to explore untested possibilities.’ Bowie embraced the randomness and constraints that the oblique strategy cards created to reinvent his sound across those three groundbreaking albums. You may have heard this before? The intro came from an oblique strategy card:

For me, what I love about this layer of the story is that it isn’t just about players. Bowie’s approach reminds us that as coaches, we need tools to disrupt our own habits too. Constraints can help us coach with more impact, not just design better trainings. They stop us reaching for the “safe” solution and push us into new territory. They help us tune in to what we’re doing, notice our coaching habits, and spot where we can stretch ourselves to make a bigger impact

This reminds me of a conversation I had with Ross Pinder, who used to work with Australian Paralympic coaches. He told me about a coach working with an athlete who had an impairment that made it hard to process lots of verbal feedback.

That constraint forced the coach to rethink their approach. Instead of long explanations, feedback became short—one-word cues or simple hand signals. It worked. In fact, it worked so well that it’s now the norm in that programme, even for athletes without the same impairment.

What started as a limitation became a breakthrough. A constraint didn’t just solve a problem—it improved the whole interaction.

Both Jarrett and Bowie show us the same truth: constraints aren’t barriers—they’re catalysts. When we embrace them, we unlock new possibilities in our coaching. Constraints grab our attention and force us to focus on what really matters. I can guarantee Keith Jarrett was locked in during the Köln Concert—because he had to be. Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies created the same heightened awareness. As Eno put it:

So the question I’d like you to explore is, how can constraints help you unlock new possibilities in your coaching? What are your oblique strategies?

To help with some thinking, here are some for starters.

Oblique Strategies for coaches:

• Only questions, nothing else (choose the length of time)

• You can’t talk for the next 30 minutes

• To change a behaviour, change the game/activity

• Each new game/activity needs to be explained in 50 words or less

• Ask the players to create the review questions

• Wear earplugs for your next session

• Reverse your default - if you normally start a session with technical drills then move into more game related activities, then flip your next session

Which one will you try first—and what happens when you do?

“Creativity is what happens when a mind encounters an obstacle. It’s the human process of finding a way through, over, around or beneath. No obstacle, no creativity”

Ben Orlin

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