We seem to live in a world where everyone is distracted in some way shape or form. How many of us have laughed at seeing a person walk into something whilst absorbed by their phone screen – the irony being that we have more than likely viewed it on our phone screen! There is also […]
About the Sport Principle Top athletes spend most of their time worrying about things they have no control over: the weather, the referee, the crowd’s reaction, etc. We must learn from this. There is now lots of scientific evidence to suggest that the old saying is true: Whether you believe that you can, or you […]
About the Sport Principle Judo: “The gentle art of folding people’s clothes, with the people still in them.” Judo hurts. At the end of a hard night’s training, literally shedding blood, sweat and tears, covered in bruises, dripping with sweat, and nursing countless aches and pains it’s hard to see it as the ‘gentle way’. […]
About the Sport Principle The British Olympic sailing team’s sports psychologist attributes the British Sailing Team’s considerable success over the last two to three decades, to their deliberate policy of generating a team spirit among the sailors over the Olympic cycle, even though many of them are going out on the water on their own […]
About the Sport Principle The mat area, the pitch, the court, it needs to be owned. The top-level sports player will take time to familiarise themselves with the playing surface before the fixture. TV cameras often show players taking a stroll on the Wembley pitch on the morning of the cup final. The stadium is […]
About the Sport Principle In any sport, it is important to control your breathing, but there is a very judo-specific dimension to this concept, which moves it beyond most sports. Patrick Roux, former GB coach explains: ‘As a young competitor, I heard this phrase from a renowned teacher who was watching, from the edge of […]
About the Sport Principle Like weightlifters, high-level rock climbers stand or fall, (often quite literally) on the strength of their grips. Grip strength is of crucial importance here, and Sports Science tests often focus on climbers’ forearms with the aim of discovering what makes good climbers uniquely effective with their grip. It’s similar with judo. […]
About the Sport Principle Social inhibition in sport is a huge area of academic study in PE and Sports Science. Put simply, the term means that some people’s performance is improved by the presence of an audience (social facilitation), but some people feel the pressure and the presence of the audience makes their performance worse […]
About the Sport Principle This principle is all about the ‘f’ word: focus, of course. Sportspeople, like all of us, sometimes get their understanding of how we focus wrong, and it costs them dearly. They may talk about their momentary loss of focus costing them the game. For example: ‘I lost my focus for a […]
I once heard a joke about a rather disreputable individual who died. The person who was asked to give the eulogy knew full well the character of the man and was suitably wracked with dread as culture dictated that he not only tells the truth about the deceased but also say something positive. Telling the […]
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