Archive for the 'Corsa' Category

Psychological preparation with athletes and coaches usually takes place with people who speak the same mother tongue, because sharing the same cultural climate promotes relationship and change.

When I was involved in this consultancy activity in non-English speaking countries such as Cyprus, India, Malta, United Arab Emirates and Iran, I have been aware that English, even as a second language, still allowed for a constructive and equally effective dialogue with athletes.

I recently spent two weeks in China, in Beijing, working with the Chinese national shooting team. In this country, I hav had to cope in a different environment, having to work with an interpreter who, although an expert, limited the relationship with athletes and coaches and consequently I run the risk to reduce the effectiveness of the psychological preparation. As a result, the work done was essentially focused on practical experiences to be carried out collectively in the gym and individually on the shooting range.

In this way, the athletes were able to immediately apply in training psychological strategies and techniques to improve: (a) their ability to be focused in conditions of competitive stress and (b) how to refocus themselves after a mistake or unexpected events.

This experience has further confirmed to me that, even with our Italian athletes, we often spend too much time describing what they should do/think/feel rather than more pragmatically allow them to make experiences of change and optimization of their psychological resources through a specific training consisting of exercises. On the other hand, the athletes know these systems very well, since the physical preparation and technical training are based on the practice repeated over time with the desired intensity.