Surfer Andy Johnston had a close call with a shark at West Beach in Perth, Western Australia on 21 September 2014, as these images show. Captured by Frits De Bruyn, tourist in the area, they have emerged only now.
Monthly Archive for October, 2014
No words are sufficient to explain my sad feeling. I cannot believe that John Salmela, and incredible concentration of energy, deep soul and humanity, is passed away. I met John at the beginning of my career and for me he has been a teacher and friend. We spent so many happy times together that I cannot think I will never stay with him again.
Luci, Patrizia, Caterina and me, we are close to you, John will be forever with us.
The photo below has been made in 1992 at International Sport Psychology Society managing council in Ottawa. This meeting was organized by John and we find from the left: me the second, Jurgen Nitsch (3), John Salmela (5), Robert Singer (6), Denis Glencross (7), Gershon Tenenbaum (8), Marit Sorensen (9) Glyn Roberts (10), Atsushi Fujita (11), Sidonio Serpa (12), Richard Magill (13), Carlos Moraes (14) and Terry Orlick (15).
When the young athletes have acquired the technical skills required by the sport they enjoy and have become skilled in the execution of specific sport actions, it becomes important to train them to compete. These are the goals of the coaching that takes place from 16 years for most of the sports and that will lead some to become world-class athletes. One should not confuse the acquired skill with the ability to provide an adequate performance at their own level. Indeed, it’s not difficult to meet young teenagers capable, good from a technical standpoint but not ready to compete. For this reason a part of the training, that with the increase of age will become more significant and wide should be dedicated to achieve the purpose of teaching the athlete to give their best in terms of comparison with other athletes. The coaches should not be afraid to acknowledge that this is an essential goal of their work and the practice must be oriented in this direction. This type of training is intended to teach the athletes to maintain the quality of their performance under the competitive pressure.
The destructive emotions are often the most frequent cause of failure of the athletes. At this regard I want to report a talk between one of the greatest scholars of emotions, Paul Ekman and the Dalai Lama. Everyone can draw their own teaching.
The Dalai Lama asked for clarification: “I think there are two things here. One is the process of the emergence of emotion, the other the feeling of emotion. You are suggesting that we become aware of both only in retrospect?”
“No,” said Paul, “we become aware when the excitement has already appeared. It focuses and directs attention once it has begun, but not during the process that generates it. For better or for worse our lives would be very different if in fact we judge knowingly, becoming responsible for the onset of emotion. But it seems that the excitement happen to us. I do not choose to have an emotion, to become frightened or angry. Suddenly I’m angry. I’m usually able to understand what someone has done to create that emotion in me, but I’m not aware of the process that assesses, for example, the action of Dan that made me angry. It’s a key issue for the Western understanding of emotions: the starting point, a crucial process, it is something we can only speculate because we do not know. We become aware only when we’re in the excitement. at the beginning it’s not us that we command. ”
“I wonder,” said the Dalai Lama “if there is perhaps a similar situation in meditation practice, where it’s grown the introspective ability to monitor our own mental states … In developing this capacity for introspection, there is an initial phase in which it does not particularly refined, so we can grasp the presence of excitement or weakness only after it’s arisen. However, penetrating deeper into this practice and cultivating with more and more attention, even when we can understand the excitement or weakness are going to occur. ”
Basically these are the useful to take home for us:
- The emotions suddenly appear and direct attention.
- Meditation develops self-awareness and allows us to react to the emotion as soon as it’s harmful to manifest.
- The focus is thus kept on the important aspects of the performance.
(The text is from the Italian version of Destructive emotions, by Dalai Lama & Daniel Goleman, Bantam Books, 2003, p.168-169)
Giovanni Pellielo adds another piece to the legend. Silver at the final of the Trap World Cup involving the 12 2014 best trap shooters, Only a month he won the bronze medal at the World Championships and Olympic quota to go to the Olympics in Rio-2016. Pellielo has been successful to maintain year-round an unbelievable shooting quality and competitivei ntensity that no one else has in the trap shooting. Just remember that the last four events he reached three times in the final with a score of 124 out of 125 clay targets hit and the latter with 123 targets. Against Pellielo his opponents, in this case the teammate Massimo Fabbrizi, they do incredible races. In fact, in this competition in the final both have done the same score with 14 targets out of 15, in the shoot-off Pellielo made a mistake only at 19° target, which his opponent instead hit. During his career Pellielo won 3 Olympic individual medals, 4 individual world championship and 6 World Cup Finals.
He loves soccer, he is 15 years old and only one leg, because he is born without. But Francesco Messori has not gave up. And on Tuesday in Guastalla, in the province of Reggio Emilia, Italy, hehas realized his dream: he played his first game in a tournament under 14, like his teammates, the Virtus Correggio, with whom he had always shared training, but he never was able to get into the pitch for a match … First case in Italy. He, on crutches, the other without. It’s the story of a dream: to have team of players with crutches, actually existing abroad. Therefore he created the Facebook group “Amputee Soccer Italy.” In 2012 the first tournament, “A kick at my way”: six teams, six boys with crutches or prostheses play the integrated soccer, one for each team. Then other tournaments, finally a national team playing in the World AmputeeFootball Federation, now ready to depart for the World Cup in Mexico. Meanwhile, the CSI embracing the project, and the president Massimo Achini said: “These are the rules that must be changed in favor of life and not viceversa.” And Francesco comes into play in a tournament. The match? It’s finished 4-3, the team of Francesco lost. But he won in life.
(From Repubblica.it by Ilaria Venturi)
I think the problem of Roma, beyond the skill of Bayern can be summarized as follows: sometimes you just need to reduce expectations to avoid unnecessary disappointments.
Gianni Mura expressed on laRepublica the same concept with other words: “But if the self-confidence grew after the good match at Manchester, perhaps grown too much, now they have to pick up together the pieces and find again the play but also the character lost “.
More and more often I am asked how to handle the difficult situation in which you find yourself being the coach of your son.
In professional football is hardly ever done, although over the years we can find some football stars like by Cesare Maldini who coached is son Paolo or De Rossi father who coached his son in Rome youth team. In the world of the football school (5-12 years old) by choice or not, it happens that often fathers coach their sons. Sometimes they are driven by an inevitable logistic choice and sometimes this choice is not just random. I would not demonize the situation, but I invite the fathers to think about this situation: ”Why am I to coach my son? Is it really a coincidence or in my thoughts there was a desire to make sure that he is followed in the right way. Do I want to have the control of him at home and outside? Do I believe that there are not others? Noboby will be able to train him as well as I am able.
I know it can happen and that it is a conscious choice or not I think is important to do some basic steps.
The first step is to reflect on the necessity of choice: is it really so inevitable? Once you have decided to go ahead it is important to have the ability to look inside and figure out which of these categories you belong inevitable:
- Avoidance: to avoid incurring the criticism of nepotism that inevitably affecting their child label of “recommended”. You treat him worse than all the others: the fault is often its less encouragement (maybe then I’ll tell at home) and less attention.
- Too demanding: demanding-father risks to challenge too much his son, never being satisfied with what this child does.
- Feel-good: let go and end up justifying behavior becoming permissive at regards of those behaviors and habits that are wrongs.
Each coach-dad is unlikely to reach the right position within his dual role, but he should work to stay as close as possible to the ideal situation in which his child is a member of the team like everyone else, he will have qualities to improve, mistakes to correct and many things to learn as his teammates. It will be visible the potential to express but also the limits to overcome or inevitably to accept.
Finally I leave all the dads in search of the Champion, who does not ask if the real desire of their child is staying on a football field, with an invitation to reflect on a passage of the famous biography by Andre Agassi:
“I have seven years old and I’m talking to myself because I’m afraid and because I am the only one who listen to me. Whisper softly: Forget it, Andre, surrender. Laying the racket and exit immediately from this field. Would not it be wonderful, Andre? Just let it go? Do not play tennis again? But I cannot. Not only my father run behind me throughout the house brandishing my racket, but something in my gut, a deep invisible muscle prevents me. I hate tennis, I hate it with all my heart, and yet I continue to play, I continue to dribble all morning, all afternoon, because I have no choice.“
(by Daniela Sepio)
Attività Motoria-Cognitiva nella Scuola Primaria
2014, p. 127
Euro Centro Studi “Gabbiano d’Argento”
I knew Carmelo Pittera more than 30 years ago, I was very young and he had already reached the 2° place in the Volley World Champioship as a coach of the Italian team. In the following years we became experts in the children movement working on his insight. Carmelo has continued to work in this direction and he is published a new program for children called SELL. In these years he started to apply this model in the North of Italy (Gorizia), in Slovenia and in Argentina. I believe that it’s a new approach well based from the theoratical side, it’s innovative and every teacher in school can easily use. I will come back on this project in the next future but for the moment I want to introduce to you, helping you share my same enthusiasm.
What it follow is the presentation by Carmelo Pittera.
My interest toward Minivolley begins at the end of the ’70, when I met the person that we can define as the inventor of Minivolley, Professor Horst Baacke, who introduced in Eastern Germany an early form of volleyball for groups of children aged ten to twelve years.
From a cultural and educational perspective, I was skeptical about the various aspects of early specialization in sports games, mainly because of the definition of Minisport. I was convinced, however, that in children from eight to ten yearsold , the physical education should be considered an asset to the service of the integral development of the children It is really important that the education at the movement help them to a global growth.
Thus it was born the first draft of “Motor Sillabarius”, which represented the starting point of the SELL system (Signal, Reading, Execution, Lateralization). At the Motor Syllabarius was followed by the publication of “The alphabet of movement,” which picked up the results obtained in research on ”analogic- expressive phase” of the movement education. Published in four volumes, the pedagogical section was written by experts in primary education and psychologists.
The SELL is an educational system that has the purpose of teaching, structuring and implementation of neural circuits that affect, starting from the motor area, the cognitive dimensio. It develops in children, not only the opportunity to interact with others (socialization), but also the chance to do better things with others (cooperation). It can be defined as:
- Intuitive activitiy , induced by the Observer, through four mediators: activities (direct experience), iconic (drawings), analogical (dramatization) and symbolic (colors and numbers and more, to represent the variables and their relationships);
- A path through which the Observer builds learning environments in which the children are brought to question rather than waiting canned responses.
- A uniform language, the same for all, which does not require specific words, easily accessible as it adapted to the children’s cognitive and motor potential.
SELL (Signal, Reading, Execution, Lateralization) is structured in four parts:
The Expressive Analogical System is a theoretical-practical path for the activation of the circuits of motor learning and cognitive development from children of 4 years old. It’s composed of various educational track by using the environmental opportunities or the body combined with the wall and the ground, or building games with figures and symbols with a stick combining them with their own body and that of the teammates; or analogies with the animal world, combined with natural colors and their body; or games with simple teaching material (balloons, cards and so on).
The optical and acoustic Symbolic Analogical System for the improvement of basic motor patterns from 8 to 12 yearsold : run, jump, throw, catch. The actions are related to the lateralization and performance oculus-manual and oculus-breech, equilibrium, systems of acceleration and deceleration of the gravity center as well as the distinct body segments. All this is achieved through symbols, simple elements and specific groups are created in a special way by the system SELL.
The lateralization System, with and without the group. This system was created to facilitate the harmonious development of the growing child’s motor and performance relating to “degrees of freedom”, with particular attention to the problems of the non-dominant body side.
The support system in the development of analogical Expressive, analogical optical and acoustic Symbolic of paper materials and computer equipment to facilitate the learning in the classroom and at home.
The materials consist of:
- The light and the puppet play.
- The directional eyes, hypothetical or actually represented on the shirt or on the tip of the shoes.
- The mental visualization: the mind’s eye.
- The activity oculus – manual / breech developed with the use of conventional elements (balls, rubber bands and so on) or non-conventional (newspapers, empty bottles and other).
The game of lights and puppets, directional eyes and mental visualization must be known and internalized by children before beginning the teaching units. Traffic lights and the “game of the puppet.”
During our on field lessons, we have verified that the imitation of children is often inaccurate. With researchers of SELL System we have tried to solve this problem, looking for solutions suited to the children characteristics.
After several attempts, we arrived at the “Game of the traffic lights.” The choice of this symbol was adopted after being tested that all knew it. We have identified the symbol of traffic lights along with the image of ‘”Vitruvian Man” by Leonardo da Vinci, that we modify using the three light colors, with the aim of relating the different parts of the human body with these colors.
The symbols used, in addition to increasing the attentional focus, has a considerable influence in the development of imagination and, consequently, in the creativity of forms. It allows children to improve the knowledge of the structure of their body, and the teacher, together with the children, to develop new kind of play, improving the stabilization of teaching content.
Golf Flow
Master you mind, master the course
Gio Valiante,
Human Kinetics, 2013, p. 228
In the title is already explained the goal the golfer has to achieve: let flow the mind and the shot will be good. The author, Gio Valiante was named one of the 40 most influential under-40 people in golf by Golf Magazine and in this book he talks about flow not only from the theoretical point of view but also from the side of the PGA golfer experiences.
Reading Golf Flow we understand the mental side of golf. It could seem obvious because every person knows that golf is a mental game but here we find explained in which way this happen; in which way the golfers use their time, practice the control, tune the effort and develop the awareness regarding the performance. Valiante provides a great deal of current research and he is never trivial when providing his advices. The amateur golfers reading this book will find many ideas to start their mental practice.
In my opinion the best part of Golf Flow is that one regarding the current top PGA pros, who talk through the author about their mental flow state, saying how much it permitted them to cope under pressure. This book may give the competitive golfers another tool to take their game to their highest level. The amateur golfers will find useful information coming from different top golfers and from these different persons and experiences they can find that one is better for them. The many professional insights about his work with the top golf are like this one:
“As it happens for many golfers, Justin’s instinct told him to go into Sunday and to be aggressive right to get-go. The details vary from golfer to golfer, but the philosophy is a cowboy version of golf that goes something like this: “Fire at every flag, go for par fives in two, be aggressive on every putt, and throw all strategy, patience, and ball placement to wind. I asked Justin to do the opposite and let patience and discipline define the round by using the first few holes to establish the rhythm of his routine.”
The book is full of these experiences and for this reason I believe that it’s very useful for the golfer of every level and for the coaches and sport psychologists who want to know better the mental side of the golf.
