Monthly Archive for July, 2014

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The disaster of the Italian sedentarity

Published on July 17, 2014 in Giovani and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The sport for all in Italy is now considered to be like the air for the prisoners, toreduce a bit the frustrations that plague us. So at school there are no more than two hours a week and the physical education teacher is the least considered in the class councils. Fortunately, there are parents who are willing to pay to ensure that their children are engaged in a club sport. Not to mention the adult to whom it has never been no policy to introduce them to an active approach to physical activity. It’s an old and repetitive speech that has returned to the fore at the conference organized by the Italian Olympic Committee and Istat on the theme “Sport in Italy – Numbers and Context 2014.”  It  was found that the sedentaries are more than 24 million, or nearly 42 % of Italians. Percentage who is an Everest to the South, 56.2%, while in the North down to 31.7% and Centre to 41%. To understand the dramatic nature of these data, I just remember that in Europe, the countries with higher practitioners, according to the Eurobarometer survey on sport and physical activity, are those of Northern Europe: Sweden, where 70% of people say to do gymnastics or sports at least once a week, they are just over Denmark (68%) and Finland (66%) followed by the Netherlands (58%) and Luxembourg (54%). Negative end of the list, there are Bulgaria, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Italy. Even if the sport as a physically active lifestyle, it’s not part of the Italian political agenda, however, we must move from mere complaint to concrete proposals. I refer to some among those made in the USA from 50 scientific associations, academic and professional skills who sent a letter to Barack Obama to support the urgent need for action in this field to prevent diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular problems and bone and other chronic conditions. The letter takes into account some strategic issues such as:

  • Public education programs to ensure that all Americans understand the benefits of healthy lifestyles and how to take advantage of the range of options open to them;
  • Professional education so that health professionals consider physical activity a vital sign like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, to be monitored and tracked regularly;
  • Electronic Medical Records that include fields for physical activity. As health provider systems convert to EMRs, they can easily begin to track exercise as a vital sign;
  • Medical school curricula that give all physicians an adequate grounding in how to counsel patients on healthy lifestyles, and
  • Increased opportunities for underserved populations to enjoy exercise and physical activity, by addressing disparities in the built environment, access to equipment and other barriers.

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Make mistakes to accept to make mistakes

Published on July 17, 2014 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Stress, Tennis, Tiro a volo and Young and Football. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Do not accept the mistakes is the main obstacle to improve. Without getting around too, this is the main reason why many young today are locked in the face of difficulties, no one to guide them through this learning. Not the parents, not the teachers. And if  they do not learn then they have a psychological problem for which, in the best cases, they goe to a psychologist. Or parents blame the coaches and viceversa. It’s usually a losing battle where everyone is on his positions, with the effect that boys and girls do not change. In youth sport it should be considered the acceptance of the mistakes as the key parameter to assess if the teaching provided during training has been successful or not. Do not accept mistakes cancels any technical learning. The young in fact develop a not realistic expectations and imagines that are good only if they do not make mistakes. When they start the competition with this attitude, they are not able to etolerate the frustration of making mistakes and they will begin to get angry with themselves, with the outcome to play bad and to reduce the effort, since they consider themselves not to be capable of. At this point, if parents and coaches do not intervene immediately to change this reaction, the young turn into a usual way of being, which it will be repeated every time after a mistake. At this point, it will be difficult to take action to replace this negative belief with a positive one.

Adults should be aware that the competence is the use of all the knowledge, skills and attitudes aimed at a purpose and exercised within the context. The competence is determined by the integration:

  • Knowledge – What you know, ‘what’ and as you know, ‘how’
  • Skill – How much you are able to understand / communicate / do using knowledge learned in training
  • Attitudes – How you are and how you behave in relation to the use of the knowledge and skills learned

So the sport competence should not be confused with the technical skills and the attitude to be taken into the field to be taught as well as the sport fundamentals. Otherwise we will have young athletes technically good but with wrong attitude, consequently they will be less competent in providing sport performancea appropriate to their technical level.

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Players as a lions

Published on July 15, 2014 in Calcio and Generale. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

 

 

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The endless fascination of football

Published on July 15, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The Football World Cup is concluded and once again it was the most watched show in the world along with the Summer Olympics. The reasons for the success of this sport continue to be always the same. It’s an easy sport to understand that anyone can practice and which is played everywhere, on the beach as in a park, on a street or in any open space or courtyard. It’s played at all ages from 5 years old children as well as adults, scoring just two goals with a shirt, a backpack or a stone, and the space between these two goals immediately becomes the playing field. The other team sports to be played require more technical skills and a minimum of structure as the net for volleyball or hoops in basketball. In football it does not, just that one player have the ball and immediately the game starts . These are the reasons why football has become a universal game, because all the male children have played football and when they are adults all are coaches in the Monday morning discussing with friends. All children have played at least 20-30-40 or maybe more football  and this knowledge of the game,  they believe make theim competent assessing whether a team has played well or badly. Football in the past 15 years became diffuse also among the girls and in many countries from northern Europe to north America and Japan is really widespread. These are in my opinion the reasons why soccer will continue to fascinate all for many years.

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The youth players’ rights

Published on July 14, 2014 in Allenatori, Calcio, Giovani and Young and Football. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

We are approaching the time when sport clubs began to organize their activities. The football schools  program the new year and in September the fields will be filled with children. Statistics say that half of the children chose football. In light of this, it is important to remind all those who work in football schools that children are not little adults and that it is not enough to work with the passion for football, you need a passion for the world of children, you had to know  what they think, how they think, what they can do. Especially you had to know how to deal with them. These fundamental principles from the “Charter of children’s rights and the” Charter of the Rights of boys in sport “should always be a reference for anyone involved in football or any other youth sport:

  • The right to have fun and play
  • The right to play sports
  • The right to a healthy environment
  • The right to be surrounded by people trained and competent
  • The right to follow adequate training to its rhythms
  • The right to participate in competitive age-appropriate
  • The right to practice sports in complete safety
  • The right to have the right timing of rest
  • The RIGHT TO NOT TO BE A CHAMPION

“Charter of the Rights of the Child” (New-York Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989)

“Charter of the Rights of boys in sport” (Geneva, commission leisure UN, 1992)

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Thoughts for the football world cup finalists

Published on July 11, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , .

My greetings to the four finalists of Football world cup.

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” (Napoleone Bonaparte)

 

 

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How Argentina think

Published on July 10, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Example of Argentina modesty

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Brazil’s tragedy

Published on July 10, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The defeat of Brazil and the reactions that have occurred around the world show that it was not just a football game. If you do not start from this conviction you cannot understand the pain it has caused. I have worked with athletes who lost the Olympics when it was supposed they had to win and some of them have never come back to the success, others have lived through four successive years growing inside them just an idea, that of redemption. Apparently iBrazil-Germany was a game like many others, but what it changes in these situations is the meaning of the match. It ‘s  likethe difference between making a run in the plains and do the same at the 5000m, the distance is the same but everything is different: if you’re not prepared to deal with the difficulties involved you crash to the ground after 10m. In Brazil, the entire country has stopped, the social protests broke down and all are united in supporting the team with extreme passion. Team that has melted like snow in the sun, without knowing and willing to respond to the first German goal. The sin of which are stained lies in having thought to be what they were not, it is a sin of presumption that first made ​​the coach. The second was to believe that Neymar was the leader of the team, maybe he is a champion, he definitely is not a leader. And a team with no leader cannot function rather swerves. A team without a boss can never win, because it does not know how to deal with difficult times. All this without taking into consideration the low technical level of many players. It was a losing proposition that only the emotional excitement lived by the Brazilian had managed to hide until yesterday.

It is in fact determined to Brazil around a huge halo effect of which  also the media has been victims , which it has been manifested in continuing to say that this team, certainly was not as strong as in the past, but it was still Brazil. This team reminded me instead the movie reconstructions,  from the front they look like the real ones but going back, we realize that they are cardboard constructions, and that there is nothing behind the facade. Now Brazil need a new generation of players who have not experienced in the pitch this tragedy and who wants to play for fun and to stay together, which are the best reasons to manage the emotion to play for the Brazilian knowing that the world is expecting that you always win.

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Brazil: beyond the name nothing

Published on July 8, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments

Brazil showed what there was behind the name: nothing!

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All the Brazil will play with its team

Published on July 8, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Brazil at this moment is holding its breath, everyday life has stopped all people now are waiting and in few hours they will play as the team on the pitch the match with Germany.

A friend, sport psychologist, John Salmela from Belo Horizonte where he lived for many years wrote to me yesterday:

“It is total silence here in my world in Brazil. There was no game yesterday nor today. I seems like I am in Samuel Becketts´ play, Waiting for Godot! … But life will change tomorrow with the game between Brazil and Germany in Belo Horizonte! The city has been completely electrified, welcoming and generous, but since we are off on the coast, few foreigners know about Belo, although it has 5 million inhabitants. So, as I did in the three previous games and since we live about 3 km from the Mineirão stadium, I go out in my car and pick up 4-5 fans from different countries (Iran, Costa Rica, England), and drive the  500 m from the stadium. They cannot believe what I did, and will do so tomorrow with the Germans while trying not to bring up Hitler´s name. Enjoy the Cup if you can, but you can be certain that I will be either living or dying.”

 

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