Monthly Archive for February, 2015
Page 2 of 3
search for Excellence is a destructive Madness
if you are not willing to Be Happy for not reaching it.
it needs the Balance of Reason
because the Ambition to Overcome any Limit does not turn from excellent Prowess in dangerous Excess.
“We have not fallen into the shoes of the match. Draw useful at least to bring us back down to earth” (Allegri, coach Juventus).
“Before we did fear, we were more confident” (Florenzi, Roma footballer)
“The confidence of Mancini is critical to my teammates and me. Every day he gives me motivation and enthusiasm” (Guarin, Inter footballer).
Humility, confidence and motivation are the key concepts expressed in these sentences. Beyond the players’ technique and talent if in a team are lacking these mental qualities everything else is worth less than nothing.
Climbing Mt Everest with a mountain on my back. The amazing Sherpa’s story – BBC documentary 2013 Nepal.
Every year, over a thousand climbers try to reach the summit of Mount Everest, with the annual record for successful attempts currently standing at 633. But of that number, nearly half were Sherpas – themountain’s unsung heroes. Yet the Sherpa community has remained secretive about their nation, culture and experiences living in the shadow of the world’s highest mountain. Now, for the first time, they open the door into their world.
Without the expertise of the Sherpas, only the hardiest and most skilful climbers would succeed. Every day they risk their lives for the safety of others, yet they seek neither glory nor reward, preferring to stay in the background. Following the stories of four such Sherpas – Phurba, Ngima, Ngima Tenji and Gelu – this film reveals the reality of their daily lives, not just up the mountain, but with their families after they return home.
10 ultimate questions for coaches and mental coaches:
- How much are you convinced that beyond the technical/tactical and physical fitness, attitude is the basis to achieve great successes?
- How much time do you spend to change the attitude of your athletes to their mistakes?
- How do you teach that the warm-up is not only physical but also mental?
- How do you teach that the attitude towards the physical and mental fatigue is crucial for improving confidence during the events?
- How do you teach that it’s necessary to fight moment to moment without thinking about the result?
- Do you stop the training because the attitude is wrong?
- How often do you award the attitude rather than the result?
- How much time do you spend on teaching that attitudes before the competition and during the breaks are the basis of the following performance?
- How much time do you spend thinking about how your attitudes affect those of your athletes?
- How do you specifically assess and talk with athletes about their attitude in training and competition?
I am becoming convinced that for many young tennis players from which it would be realistic to expect better performances and results than they get usually, one significant improvement factor lies in improving the training quality . In large part, it consists not to do different things but to practice with higher intensity and persistency; the same they would want to show in the court. During the match at the players isasked to play steadily and suitable for their level for a long period of time, while in training this request is often absent. Coaches and psychologists should work together to help the tennis players to fill this gap. The question is: “How can we play focused for at least 90 minutes, if in training this limit is never reached or if the players accept that there are breaks in which the concentration is reduced to a minimum?”
If it’s true, as it is, that players are trained to repeat what they have learned in training in the match, repeating concerns not only the technique but also keep concentration, minimizing the mental breaks, which instead in the game often represent the main obstacle to play at the best.
“My son wanted to dance then obviously chose football.” So many questions jumped in my head when a coach- dad told me this sentence. I thought: of course, for whom? Who Has chosen? Who is happy now?
Some of these thought I also turn to this dad, unsuccessfully of course, because the narcissism has no eyes and no ears pointing to something other than his dreams and his ideas.
The parents suffering of narcissism are those who love themselves more than anything. Narcissists parents claim a certain behavior from their children because they perceive them as an extension of themselves, and they need that children represent them in the pitch as in the world, to satisfy the parents’ emotional needs. These features bring the parents to be very intrusive in some cases, and completely overlooking in others. If the unmet need is related to football, the son will play it also if no one has ever asked him. The parents meet their need and strengthen their self-image while the child is there to feel the one that inevitably never goes quite well. The child, in these cases, while the impression of belonging to a special breed, he has also the fear of being less interesting than others expect and swings from a sense of superiority, which is likely to make it unpleasant to others, to a sense of inferiority that makes other unpleasant to him.
The narcissist parents are controlling, criticals, self-centered, intolerants toward others, unaware of the chidren’s needs. The usual feeling that these children live is to never be quite well. This feeling of frustration inevitably tend to generate lack of self-confidence.
The interactive dynamic established in these cases has several outlets: either the child adapts him-self to the paretnts’ pressure without apparent disorders (which could explode later in time) or, the balance is broken and the child loudly voice the need to be accepted as a person and not as a “parents’ shadow.” This last reaction can hardly be expressed with clarity and more frequent will determine what it’s called “difficult behaviors”: rebellion, lies, aggression.
The parents’ love to their child is unquestionable, but it often happens that a positive and generous orientation it becomes a negative mechanism, because the affection is not enough respectful of the identity separate of the young. The parents to play a positive must be aware of the children needs children and committed to support and develop them during the developing years.
Probably each of us carries a physiological form of narcissism leading us to be accepted by the others, and if this does not become an obsession no one will be damaged. Here are some questions to ask yourself to assess their degree of narcissism:
- I want to always be the recognition of others in order to be satisfied?
- My daily life is too oriented to the judgment of others?
- My focus is oriented toward the others’ feedback?
- I tend to devalue my son in front of his failure?
- I asked my son what does he really like? What does he want to do? What are his dreams?
In our society, narcissism hits and influences the art of being parents, often we forget that to provide a home, clothes or the latest technology does not mean to be good parents, because the children need a long and continuous work of tuning their emotional states, desires and thoughts and that we teach them how to cope the every day life.
“There are two lasting things that we can bequeath to our children roots and wings.” (William Hodding Carter II )
(By Daniela Sepio)
A pair of Americans completed what it has been considered the world’s most difficult rock climb, using only their hands and feet to conquer a 3,000-foot vertical wall on El Capitan, the forbidding granite pedestal in Yosemite National Park that has beckoned adventurers for more than half a century.
Tennis can be regarded as a duel, in which the ultimate goal is to kill the opponent. Every player is committed to constantly put the opponent in trouble and who does it better and for more time wins the match. For these reasons, the tennis is a situation where self-control and constant pressure over the opponent are two mental skills necessary to win. It’s not a coincidence that Rod Laver said that it should be never allow the other to be at ease in playing against us. In other words, we have to understand quickly what are the opponent’s weaknesses and then take him/her to play the way for him/her more difficult and less satisfying.
To achieve this goal it’s necessary to have a high emotional control, because if you are too aggressive, you are likely to act without thought, and if instead you become too fearful, because you cannot impose tyour play, probably you will play with the famous little arm , which it’s synonymous of insecurity. In both situations you are likely to favor the opponent’s game, giving him/her the opportunity to increase/regain the confidence.
The tennis player must learn during the breaks of the match; between the points and when changing field. The player must coach this mental ability, to think, not only during the game but also in training, with exercises purpose-built to better manage these phases.
How many tennis players train themselves in this way?
