Reducing the Importance of Winning

Thursday, 22 April 2010

The title of this post may conger up thoughts of some Liberal New Age Tree hugging commentary on competing and maybe dismissed immediately by some of you but I urge you to read on!! Thanks to the development of Sports Psychology methods for both individuals and coaches understanding how to achieve better results in your chosen discipline is having a valuable light shone on it.

Athletes cannot always control whether or not they win. A team may perform almost flawlessly and still lose a match therefore, encouraging athletes to differentiate between playing well and winning by stressing the importance of improvement and playing to the best of their ability is crucial. For example Peter is our highest ranking member of the BJJ classes. He is a brown belt under Rey Diogo and very competitive in his approach to BJJ. However, if he were to compete against someone like Roger Gracie we all know the outcome even before the match started. With the emphasis shifted from winning to performing as best you can, this match could end up being one of Peter’s best rolls ever.

If we take this idea a step closer to day to day training. When you roll with someone in BJJ, you should shift the emphasis to your own personal performance being your best, rather than that of not wanting to tap to someone or getting them to tap. The nature of the roll itself will lead to a submission/winner, therefore the emphasis should be on your performance. This shift has been found to remove the pressure of winning on the athlete and those athletes that have used this approach have achieved consistently better results. This idea is similar to what Guro Inosanto was talking about at the Instructors camp when he talked about the 70% rule.

Motivating and Guiding Your Students

I've been investigating Sports Psychology recently in an effort to help me improve my own performance and help improve my coaching/teaching skills. Below is an article I think will server any coach well even though it is aimed at new or young students. I'm beginning to realise that taking the psychology of sport more seriously and understanding how it effects performance can seriously help individuals and teams improve and develop quicker.

Motivating and Guiding Your Students
Every one wants to feel skilled and valued. The best way to motivate some one is to make them feel skilled and valued. This is especially important for young/new athletes who are just learning the skills and strategies of a sport.

The key to motivating athletes is to point out their successes, encourage them to improve, and teach them needed skills. The following are strategies coaches can use to create an ideal atmosphere to motivate athletes:
1. Monitor your feedback to athletes

• Let athletes know what they do well as well as what needs improvement (e.g., good hustle, nice effort, good catch, way to be in the right place).
•  Minimize punishment or criticism – this does not mean to ignore mistakes; rather use instruction and encouragement to help athletes improve.

2. Individualise athlete feedback

• Respond to mistakes based on the athlete’s current ability. With new students, skills may vary widely. Not all athletes should be held to the same standard. Instead, expect all athletes to show effort and improvement.
• Reward athletes when you see improvement
• Reward athletes who are trying hard and who are hustling
• When giving feedback use what is referred to as the Sandwich method:
• Provide some positive feedback about the athlete
• Highlight the area you want them to improve in
• Give the athlete a solution / method to improve in this area. i.e what you want them to do
• Then provide some further good feedback and speculation of what their performance will become should they do what you've asked of them.
• This method has been proven to work incredibly well in individual based sports such as golf, tennis, boxing and athletics, simply by starting positively and ending positively.

3. Encourage teamwork.

• Use drills where athletes have to work together to meet your goals.
• Reward athletes for encouraging and helping each other.

Benefits of using these Strategies

• Athletes will be motivated to continue improving and trying hard - particularly when the Sandwich method is used.
• Athletes will be more confident as the coach points out their improvements and successes
• Team cohesion will improve
• Athletes won’t be afraid of making mistakes (which may make them tentative or lead to making mistakes or quitting altogether)
• Practices and games will be more fun
• Athletes’ skills will improve as they get more instruction

The Lair of the Fox

Sunday, 11 April 2010

When the pupil is ready, the master will appear.

Daniel Lonero Seminar.

Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Just a quick post to say thanks to Daniel and Marie for a fantastic seminar!! We covered some great drills and training methods to teach us mobility and timing in the stand-up range. You might not fully appreciate what was taught last night but I have a feeling that it will benefit you for years to come and hopefully we can build up on it in the future.

Also it was great to see Marie show the girls the level that can be achieved. This isn't always appreciated by the guys but it's important for the girls to see high level women too. Marie checked that box brilliantly!!

Finally, I want to thank everyone who turned up and supported the seminar. I really hope you enjoyed yourselves and got a lot out of it. Without the support there is no point in doing these seminars and everyone misses out.

Last night's seminar was a huge success all round as far as I was concerned and I personally had huge fun and have a lot to practise.

Thanks