Mistakes are the most important thing that happens during the practice, because they tell you where to focus that deliberate practice.
Monthly Archive for April, 2014
Page 2 of 3
At the end of Italian football championships, Rudi Garcia, Roma coach, continues to have the hope that, also if Juventus has 8 points more than his team, something could happen changing this ranking in favor of Roma. At this regard, which are the psychological basis of the hope thinking?
“Snyder, Irving & Anderson (1991, as cited in Snyder, 2000, p.8) define hope as “a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy) and (b) pathways (planning to meet goals)” .
Hope theory can be subdivided into four categories: goals, pathway thoughts, agency thoughts and barriers. Goals that are valuable and uncertain are described by Snyder (1994, as cited in Snyder, 2000, p.9) as the anchors of hope theory as they provide direction and an endpoint for hopeful thinking. Pathway thoughts refer to the routes we take to achieve our desired goals and the individual’s perceived ability to produce these routes (Snyder, 2000). Agency thoughts refer to the motivation we have to undertake the routes towards our goals. Barriers block the attainment of our goals and in the event of a barrier we can either give up or we can use our pathway thoughts to create new routes.” (From http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/pp-theory/hope/100-what-is-hope-and-how-can-we-measure-it.html)
This definition fits well with Roma, because the team build is confidence through the winning results and its cohesion, directing in this direction its energy and during all the season showed the road it took to reach these results greatly.
To develop and maintain during the season a good set of mental skills, the athletes must train them as they do for the physical skills. The mental skills training must be integrated into the daily sessions. Mental and physical skills have to proceed in parallel every day. The best moment to start this practice is off-season or early pre-season. For instance, to start the attentional training it’s easy at the beginning when the athletes are more calm and less tired and practice is not yet very difficult as compared to the following training periods. The worst moments to start is when the athletes have shown problems during their performances and the coaches thinks that they are mind difficulties. At those moment they ask for an intervent of the sport psychologist. Usually this happens because the coaches believe that they have done all that they can do but the athletes look de-motivated, or anxious or distracted and they do not know any other options to training them. It’s a crisis intervention that the sport psychologis can manage but the coaches and the athletes need to understand that the mental training must be integrated inside their sessions and not only used as a solution for the bad moments.
Le Mete dell’Allenatore
Flavia Sferragatta
Il libro di Flavia Sferragatta è particolarmente interessante per diverse ragioni. La prima delle quali è che permette di comprendere quali siano le implicazioni psicologiche del rugby. Chiunque voglia avvicinarsi alla conoscenza della componente mentale di questo sport, con questo libro, potrà sviluppare una conoscenza approfondita di questi aspetti. Un secondo pregio consiste nel trattarli dal punto di vista delle loro applicazioni professionali. In tal senso, allenatori e psicologi possono trovare descritti non solo gli atteggiamenti e le competenze psicologiche tipiche del rugby ma anche indicazioni operative “su cosa è meglio fare” in funzione degli obiettivi che s’intende perseguire. Un terzo aspetto centrale del libro risiede nelle molte citazioni di rugbisti e allenatori che permettono a Sferragatta di illustrare le tematiche psicologiche, con il risultato di fare emergere in che misura allenatori e giocatori di alto livello sono assolutamente convinti del ruolo giocato dalla mente e di come le competenze interpersonali della squadra siano al centro delle prestazioni sul campo. Non ultimo aspetto positivo di questo libro è che si legge con facilità e piacere. Ciò non significa che i temi esposti siano semplici ma che l’autrice oltre a dimostrare un’approfondita conoscenza di questo sport e della psicologia ha saputo esporre il suo pensiero con chiarezza.
Inside Sport Psychology
Costas I. Karageorghis and Peter C. Terry
Human Kinetics Publisher, 2011, p.235
Karageorghis and Terry provide an excellent overview of sport psychology, regarding motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, emotion, concentration, visualization and self-hypnosis. Also mood and music on performance are well treated because they are one of the main authors’ interest. All the themes are presented not only from the scientific side but many anecdotes and exercises are included. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in learning about sport psychology or people looking to improve athletic performance or even to learn general mental skills for life.
In the first chapter entitled “Sport psychology applications” the authors talk about skill acquisition that underlie top performance and about the concept that too often the athletes’ performances are not very consistent during a season and the reason is most of the time related to a reduced mental preparation. At this proposal they ask to the readers to take a moment to reflect on all the excuses they commonly use to explain their worst performances. In this way, Karageorghis and Terry introduce the readers to one of the main aspects of book, that is to propose theories and psychological techniques but also exercises to practice in order to be actively involved in the topics treated. This permit to the readers to be inside the themes of each chapter and to read it in a ease way. The second chapter is about motivation and, after some theoretical introductions, he athletes are driven to identify their main strong and weak points and how to become totally involved, in a flow experience that represents the peak of the intrinsic motivation. The authors look also to the youth coaches when they explain about the relevance of a mastery climate during the training to sustain this intrinsic motivation, de-emphasizing social comparisons. The following two chapters are about self-confidence and anxiety. Confidence is so important psychological factors that could increase or destroy the performance, starting from this suggestions the authors introduce the Bandura’s self-efficacy approach and try to propose for each of its dimensions practical strategies to improve and sustain the self-confidence using the athletes’ imagery and self-talk skills. The anxiety is treated following the best known approach to explain this phenomenon, its symptoms and responses and the main relaxation techniques to reduce it. Like for the other topics many example of great sport athletes are provided to show that to choke under pressure is something that happens also at the top performers. The book has one of the best explanation of the relation between mood and performance, the authors introduce this topic, show how to assess it and explain how they used it in the daily work with the athletes also before the most important events. Relation between food and mood are also well described in a way that I believe all the readers will find very useful. Practical suggestions are also provided to show how the self-talk can be used to change the dominant mood in specific time. The chapter about concentration as the previous describe techniques for a better use of this skill; interesting is the section where the authors provide the suggestions for future attentional training based on the use of new technologies and the web site to explore at this regards. To fulfill the athletes’ potential is necessary to practice visualization and self-hypnosis and the following chapter is devoted to these topics. The last one is about the power of sound, and it’s more related to the Karageorghis’s work in this field. It’s a very useful chapter because usually the sport psychology books talk only in general terms about the music role in training and before the beginning of sport events. We find inside the experiences of the athletes and for someone like the marathoner Paula Radcliffe the music helps her to do much harder workout, while for the double Olympic decathlon athlete, Daley Thompson, the music is not necessary because he is so immersed in his training. In any case, in the chapter the authors talk about the important relation between exercise intensity and preferred music tempo and provide a long list of popular tracks for sport and exercise and which are the useful web sites for planning music programs.
The secret of the intensity coaching session is in athletes’ the focus skills. You can practice judo or shooting your goal must be the same: Work to stay focused just before the beginning of each exercise. It’s something very easy to understand, but usually only the best athletes have a daily practice in this way. Most believe that “it’s only training” so I don’t need to have all this concentration like during the competition, but they don’t understand that if they don’t practice every day these skills, they will not have the ability to maintain the focus during the events. Deep breathing and visualizations are the actions that the athletes have to practice continuously during the sessions, They have to start they technical actions only when their mind is ready to do it, otherwise they will train in a mechanical way without mind commitment. My advise: take a deep breathing, than visualize your correct actions and do it. Than again, after a brief recovery period again and again.
Caminando, se aprende en la vida
Caminando, se sabe lo que es
Caminando, se cura la herida
Caminando, que deja el ayer
Caminando mirando una estrella
Caminando, oyendo una voz
Caminando, seguendo una huella
Caminando, que otro camina
Caminando, buscando a la vida
Caminando, buscando al amor
Caminando, curando la herida
Caminando, que deja il dolor
Ruben Blade
Decalogue of the tennis player:
Do not insult you when you make a mistake and do not rooting against yourself .
Support in a more positive your commitment, even when the ball is out or you’re down.
Don’t shout out against you, you will play worse.
Play with joy, and freely make the choices you want to do.
Do not criticize others as they play just to show you understand tennis.
Support less skilled friends of your Tennis Club, they need to feel your support.
Remember that excessive tension is harmful, you’re not playing the Wimbledon final.
Have fun, use humor to reduce the fear of making a bad impression on others.
At the end of the game, do not tell you that you are deeply disappointed and you’ll stop playing.
Accept the defeats even more than you burn more.
Do not give always blame to the racket, weather or to bad luck .
Remember that you control the technique and tactic and not vice versa.
Do not show your behavior with lack of respect for others, whether they are teammates or opponents.
Show them the respect in all your behavior on the court.
Don’t blame your mistakes to your opponent.
It is you who have not been able to respond to a stroke or you have not adapted to that type of game.
Do not make the same mistake, do not insist on a shot that today doesn’t come out .
When mistakes do something different and change how you play.
Do not play to close the game as soon as possible .
Take the time needed to build the point and think.
With the beginning of spring, longer and warmer days, many people have good intentions to lose weight and start to do movement. After this first positive moment many of them stop because they are held back from their commitments and duties that do not allow to go to the gym to follow a course, for financial problems, the mental laziness of not being accustomed to thinking of themselves as people physically active and many other justifications that everyone created to continue to do nothing. To these people I want to indicate the initiative to run or walk at least half an hour every day for one hundred days.
It’s evident that for the runners it’s also an inner journey to rediscover the pleasure to walk/run, and this challenge tests not so much the ability to train as to organize better the daily life (“I’ll make walking/running at least half an hour every day for a hundred days consecutive ? “), in fact, the unknown are the life events of every days, and the question changes to” I’ll manage to find time to walk/ run at least half an hour every day” between family , school, work , shopping , lunch, dinner and other daily tasks .
To participate and subscribe go to www.epodismo.com/100 Participation is free .
You can subscribe to:
- The 100 days of Italy – To celebrate the anniversary of the Liberation (end of 2° world war) walking/running. From 25 April to 2 August 2014.
- The 100 days of August – Walking/running during the summer holidays. From May 7 to 14 August 2014.
Are you ready to meet this challenge with yourself ?
Sunday is the day of Vivicittà 2014: The race for all. It’s the biggest race in the world because it takes place simultaneously in 45 Italian cities and 10 overseas. This is the 31th edition, which takes place about 12 km away and joining together has always been some of the fundamental human values : the need for sport, environmental protection, international solidarity and to livethe historic town centers. These themes are present up since the first edition of the event organized by UISP and Franco Fava in a 1984 article published by Espresso already presented this way:
” This first edition of Vivicittà is not just a sporting event, even if the sporting and technical certainly not lacking today … do run 30,000 people is no longer a novelty. Distribute though so many runners in twenty different cities, starting at the same time, using as a backdrop the historic town centers among the most beautiful in Italy and make sure to compensate for the run times under the different difficulty of the route is likely to leave almost in disbelief … Surely in the great day of Vivicittà, no one can say that the Italians have finally put aside the bad habits of sports fan but not actives. Certainly no one can deny, however, that a new era is coming on the horizon and a more healthy and democratic sport mentality is close to establish itself for the good of all. THe cities will rise from twenty to forty and one day, perhaps due to Vivicittà , the run made in Italy could be exported.”
Well these predictions have come true and to emphasize the value of sport as a right of all, without exception, the race will also take place in a number of Italian prisons but also in Osaka and Yokohama, in Bosnia in Tuzla and Sarajevo. In other dates will take place in Lebanon in Balbeeck and Sidon in solidarity with Syrian and Palestinian refugees. The fundraiser this year (1 € per participant) will be finalized in the project “Sport and Dignity” in collaboration with UNRWA – UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to achieve 12 gyms for gymnastics, 12 spaces for volleyball and the training of trainers for these sports.
