You can learn a lot from a rom-com.

 

 

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You can learn a lot from a rom-com.

via Indexed by Jessica Hagy on 10/20/10

 

 

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56. Self-Awareness, Part 2

This series has been very interesting. Too bad I'm so over the hill :)

 

 

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56. Self-Awareness, Part 2

via Sport At Its Best by duffgibson on 7/29/10

As with many sports, in skeleton we spend as much as two hours a day watching video in addition to all the other things one has to do in terms of preparation and training (not to mention eating and sleeping).  It's easy to think to yourself, "hey I've done two hours of homework here, my preparation is done."  The concern is that the athletes take a run down the track, watch a video from an external perspective and think of how they'll then make the video better the next time rather than the skill itself.  In other words you need to translate the video to an internal perspective.  You need to imagine what it looks and feels like as if you were actually doing it.

I realize this may sound a bit specific to skeleton but I believe the same concept applies to all sports (and dance – refer to comments from part 1 of this article).  The concern is, with so much video analysis (an external perspective), the athletes will fall short in terms of putting it back into an internal perspective and obviously this is the only vantage point from which an athlete can perform a skill.

An athlete's success or failure with regard to a technical skill, is based to some extent on sight but in skeleton when you have five G's preventing you from looking where you need to go, feel for the ice and body-awareness become even more critical.  It can also be more subtle than that.  For example, does the sled skid underneath you almost unnoticeably as you enter or exit a corner?  In the highest G-force situations is the sled turning and therefore grinding the ice underneath it or is the sled going parallel through the pressure?  Can you feel the pressure drop a very slight amount in the middle of a corner thereby telling you exactly where you are and making it possible to time the exit perfectly?  These are all questions that the best will be able to answer because they're aware of what they're feeling and can react to it as it happens.

The athletes I coach are probably tired of me saying it, but my catch phrase is, "there shouldn't be anything that a video or a time sheet can tell you that you didn't already know [by feel]."  This is admittedly an exaggeration, and I would never insinuate that video analysis is not a very valuable tool – it truly is.  But it has to be used in the context of gaining a better internal understanding of what's going on in the performing of a skill as it happens.

With respect to other sports the same physical rules apply.  It may seem like a fine point but athletes need to feel why a change in hip angle leads to an increased efficiency in a skating stride – it's not for the purpose of making the video look better.  Sprinters spend a lot of time looking at the angle of the torso because it affects the range of motion and therefore the strength of certain muscles integral to generating speed, not the least of which are the hip flexors.  If an athlete simply arches the back to change the angle of the torso it misses the mark, but to an untrained eye the issue may appear to be solved on video.

I've actually come across a few examples recently of what I would call poor self-awareness in very elite athletes; a swimmer who couldn't say whether he was breathing in or out or holding his breath when waiting for the gun to go off; a skeleton athlete that didn't realize that by doing certain nervous system priming drills within two minutes of a sprint could actually knock up to five hundredths of a second off a 30 meter time.  It becomes really difficult to replicate great performances if you don't know exactly how they happened.

"There shouldn't be anything that a video or a time sheet can tell you that you didn't already know [by feel]."

There are occasionally athletes that have poor self-awareness who are still successful because they have a coach that is so in tune with them that they are able to make all the correct decisions on the athlete's behalf.  The athlete does exactly what they're told, when they're told, and essentially the awareness becomes the coach's role.  This can work but the chances of success are decreased.  Certainly over years of working together, a coach is going to develop a really good understanding of an athlete's idiosyncrasies and what they need from them and when, but ideally a coach's input will only ever be supporting what the athlete already knows for themselves.  Olympic champions like Beckie Scott and Catriona LeMay-Doan have both been referred to as athletes who were extremely self-aware.

 

 

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Looking back at Vancouver

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz8tzP3oeDg&feature=player_embedded#

Wow

I could watch this over and over and over again.

Unbelievable wildlife shots

http://www.gregdutoit.com/index.php?page=ftf_blood

worth reading the story

random fitness update

Biked 30 km. Bloor to Humber, south to Lakeshore, west to Etobicoke Creek, north to Evans to Royal York and up.

Random Notes:

• Flood waters receding on Humber, Mimico and Etobicoke.
• People starting to burn off yard waste. "Spring cleaning in the city" but smells like camping
• Right hip flexor still fried
• Back is inordinately tight
• Stretch... must stretch.
  

Sport in Australia

http://www.sportpanel.org.au/internet/sportpanel/publishing.nsf/Content/758D8954C2A74E11CA257672000140A7/$File/Crawford_Report.pdf

Warning - this is 357 pages long. 

Respect mah authurity!

http://current.com/items/92210887_blackwater-in-kabul-or-eric-cartman-gets-an-ak-47.htm

For a niche audience

http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/officialgallery/miscellaneous/radio-canada/

10. Jim Peplinski

 

 

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10. Jim Peplinski

via Sport At Its Best by duffgibson on 1/12/10

What is the purpose of sport?  Is it to win Olympic medals?  Is it to prove the dominance of a political system?  Or is it ultimately about teaching life lessons and leading a healthier and happier life through physical activity?

I met Jim Peplinski, the former Flames captain almost a year ago now at the announcement of the construction of WinSport's new Athletic and Ice Complex here in Calgary.  I was asked to give a few comments at the event about the benefits of the centre in terms of generating enthusiasm for sport in the next generation and how that was a benefit to our community as a whole.  Jim approached me after the talk and asked me if I was familiar with a business concept – that your mandate was first and foremost to make your employees happy.  The offshoot of the philosophy was that you had a successful money-making business.  It's a little bit of a reversal from the usual mandate which is to simply make money.  Jim believes very much that the same philosophy applies to making someone a great athlete – that you first focus on the person and if you can make them a great person, then you are also more likely to make them a great athlete.  Either way you win.

I prodded Jim a little to write down his philosophy in terms that anyone could understand and I'm very grateful that he came up with this…

*****

What is the purpose of sport?

Sport can make people great athletes…

Or

Sport can make athletes great people.

Many people participate in a sport or get their children to participate in sport, invest countless hours and thousands of dollars with a view to becoming a great athlete or raising a great athlete.

This can work.

Is there another objective? A better objective? An objective that can cause you to play longer? An objective that increases your chances of reaching your athletic potential while improving personally through the lessons of sport?

Should we change our thinking on how we coach and approach sport?

If you approached sport with a goal to enjoy what ever sport you chose to participate in, to do your best and enjoy it, would you play longer? Would you be better rounded? Would you get more out of sport? Would you be a better person? And maybe become a great athlete too?

I believe so.

To me sport teaches character. Character is doing what you said you would do when it costs you!

To me sport teaches discipline. Get discipline. Get better. At anything !

To me sport teaches the value of fundamentals. Get great at skating, shooting, passing and you reach a high level in hockey. Get educated, you reach a high level in life.

To me sport teaches the value of health. Look after your body it looks after you.

To me sport teaches commitment.  It is rarely the most talented who succeed. It is regularly the person who does the work and hangs in longest who is rewarded.

To me sport teaches empathy. Know how you teammate feels, instead of only thinking about how you feel.

To me sport teaches performance. Keep score. Measure yourself. Get better.

To me sport teaches mental toughness. Fall down. Get up. Push yourself through discomfort.

To sport teaches responsibility. Take responsibility for your actions. Entitlement doesn't win in sport. Entitlement doesn't win in life.

So, get involved in sports. Stick with it.

Get good at a sport. Be a better athlete. You bet.

Get good at what makes you good at a sport, be a better person. You win both ways.

Best athlete, best person. Absolutely.

Jim Peplinski.

 

 

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The psychology of pace

and winning versus individual goals.

 

 

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The psychology of pace

via ESPN.com - TrueHoop on 1/11/10

Players in the D-League want to be noticed.

In the game of getting called up to the NBA, how many points, rebounds and assists you get matters. So, you can forgive players for hurting their teams at time by being selfish, for instance by taking shots when they're not open.

The coach in Idaho has assuaged player fears by playing at an insanely high pace -- faster than any NBA team. The extra possessions inflate everybody's numbers, and seem to be working nicely as a trick to get players to pass the ball when they're covered.

By building in a way for players to get the stats they need, the team has been able to inspire a certain kind of selflessness. Which has helped winning. And, in fact, the team has stats showing that call-ups are much more common from D-League teams that win.

It's like a big circle of psychological tricks, one feeding into the next. Kind of beautiful.

 

 

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