Notes for Mental Strength session one 2012 01/18/2012
SACS WATER POLO Mental Workshop January 2012 Pre-Game Mental State - What do you feel? - How do the opposition, crowd and different circumstances affect you? - Is it better playing at home or away? Why? Ultimately, despite all the circumstances that change around us, the game remains the same. We want to constantly bring ourselves back to this idea by normalizing our situation. We regain control by making our situation more familiar to us – routines are perfect for this process. Four times in which we can use subtle routines to regain a sense of normality are: o Arriving at the venue · _______________________________________________________ · _______________________________________________________ o Changing · _______________________________________________________ · _______________________________________________________ o Warm-up · _______________________________________________________ · _______________________________________________________ o Game time · ________________________________________________________ · ________________________________________________________ Recovery from game-time failure - First reaction? - Mindset from that point on? - Team meltdowns - Team comebacks Our primary concern after a game-time mistake must be the next play - offence or defence. We must take a MINIMUM of one play before dealing with the mistake mentally. After this time, conduct a brief analysis and commit to moving on. Often, the commitment to the next offence/defence will be enough time to recover. However, it is good to have another subtle routine to ‘cleanse’ your mind of a mistake. · ______________________________________________________________ · ______________________________________________________________ Recovery from success - What is complacency? - On what scale/time frame can it affect us? - How can we avoid it? Again, taking each play as it comes is crucial to maintaining focus. A characteristic that would emerge from players/teams that approach their training and games in this way would be ruthlessness. No matter the occasion, opposition or game situation, each play is new and can only be won once – mentally resting or ‘letting up’ is not an option. Ever. It is helpful to develop a personal and team reminder in order to cultivate and maintain the element of ruthlessness. · _______________________________________________________________ · _______________________________________________________________ Developing this mentality is a full-time job; the reward is playing your best polo! Add Comment Discipline 09/14/2011
 Discipline is the key to hard work, and hard work the key to victory. These well known facts, while being 100% true, do not tell the full story. Discipline is also the key to unlocking the feelings of adequacy and entitlement that are essential to victory. To win, we must believe that we are deserving of victory. In the tightest of moments in a game, there is no time for hesitation or doubt - even a second can throw a usually accurate shooter off his favourite shot, or cause a player to miss an opportunity. Any number of mistakes can result from just a moment’s doubt – so it is naturally of great importance that we control these moments. Discipline is more than just doing lengths or sending thousands of shots at goal. It is the sense of purpose with which you approach your training, knowing that each and every second you train will undoubtedly contribute towards making you a better player. It allows you to squeeze out every ounce of benefit from training. The current reality is that SACS players will lose concentration many times each practice, denying themselves the chance to really engage with what they are learning. Attention, contrary to many peoples’ conception, is an improvable skill. It takes intense discipline, but by drawing your attention back to your task whenever it strays (Instead of just chalking it up to having a poor attention span and having a laugh), you can greatly improve this skill and reap the rewards both in and out the pool. Discipline provides more than just the physical tools to compete. Of course, fitness can only be attained through rigorous training, for which discipline is a must. However, even strong muscles can be neutralized by doubt in the heat off the moment. What discipline in one’s endeavours creates is the sense that you’ve earned whatever good may come to you. Many athletes spend hours training only to be consumed by the feeling that they are undeserving and thus incapable of victory. The only way to reverse this feeling is to train to your potential in all facets of the game, mentally shoring up any perceived weaknesses, so that at the beginning of a game, there are no dark corners in your mind holding situations that you hope will not arise. By actively going after your weaknesses, they lose their hold on you, as well as providing the powerful sense of achievement that comes with overcoming an obstacle. This is a difficult and sometimes painful task, as it is never easy to confront your weaknesses. It is also, however, the quickest and truest route to improvement available. With the relatively small amount of time we spend on improving our water polo – only a few hours each week – it is critical that we make each minute count. Wasting time getting changed, throwing balls around, messing around in between drills or just plain lack of attention robs us of more than just the minutes we lose, it takes away our sense of purpose in training, and ultimately, the ability to think ‘I deserve this, let’s go take victory’. Discipline is the basis for victory in almost all facets of sport and life. Luckily, the only thing standing between us and discipline is a choice – either we take control of ourselves, or we remain slaves to our self-defeating thoughts. For more on self-discipline, visit this Mental Strength, one breath at a time 03/09/2011
 Reflecting on the 1st Team’s performance at the recent KES Tournament, I must say that it felt like I had failed somewhat in my aim to create a mentally strong team. Devon and I watched as our hugely talented team – which should have been at least five goals better than Paul Roos – stumbled under pressure and were unable to overcome the goal (and mental) deficit that they faced late in the game. We have all been in pressure situations, either hanging on desperately to a precarious lead, or trying to claw our way back into a match. It is then that it is most important to focus on our strengths and take the game one play at a time. It is when we get caught up in the match situation that we forget the reality that is around us – the fact that the only way to improve a lead or reduce a deficit is to score one goal at a time. So – easy enough to say, but how do we do this? Constantly reminding yourself that you must play without regard to what has happened in the match is important and saying it over and again in your mind is one way to help yourself believe and act accordingly. It is, however, an even better option to have previously created a mental state upon which you can fall in tough times, one that allows you to bypass the nerves and pressure of the situation and find the strength and resilience that is within you. Constant visualisation, throughout the week, coupled with developing calm confidence is the key to finding this state. Each morning or night, or any time of the day, visualise yourself in as many game situations as possible. Make your visualisations as detailed as possible, feeling the water, smelling the air, felling the ball against your hand and the physical contact with your opponent. The more detail, the better. Each time you visualise yourself in a situation, picture the perfect outcome – solid defence, a top-corner goal, a big save. Now capture the feeling of that perfect outcome, and breathe deeply, enjoying and engaging with that feeling. Placing your hands on your hips, opening your chest and pushing your shoulders back, let the strength from that feeling fill you with each in-breath and feel the pressure and nerves leave you with the out-breath. Picture yourself gaining strength and preparing to move confidently into the next play. Capturing this feeling of strength and confidence will allow you to call upon it in pressure situations, as well as reminding yourself just how good you really are. Practice this simple technique as often as you can while we begin to create your steel-nerved, confident ‘game-state’. You’ll be surprised at how good it leaves you feeling!  Mental strength has long been an under-practiced skill in sport at all levels, especially in schools, where the emphasis in training has been towards the physical requirements of each specific sport. Ignoring the fact that the ability to produce one's best week in week out rests on the ability to maintain the required mental focus and strength leads to the characteristically inconsistent performances seen in high school level sport. Tapping into one's athletic potential is the most difficult aspect of performance for any sportsman - so often a player will train his body to an extremely capable level, but will be let down by the fragility of his confidence or a lack of perseverance. Confidence and determination, although combining to consist of a large portion of what is considered to be mental strength, are not the only factors. The ability to handle external pressure and the physical symptoms of nervous energy such as lethargy and feelings of weakness are also important tools in reaching one's potential. It is not difficult to appreciate the effects of a player or team's mental state on their performance - even the most idle observer will notice a player's unwillingness to engage in the game after several mistakes or even the infighting amongst a struggling team. It is very rare, if not impossible (barring injury), for a player's physical talents, skills or fitness to diminish during competition, leaving the only explanation for poor performance being a problem in the mental process of accessing those attributes. Mental strength is, of course, a continuum along which we all exist. Some are further along this path than others, as is evident by certain players' fortitude and consistency. It may change from time to time or during a season, as we get older or as we become more experienced. It is, however, something that can and must be practiced and can be greatly improved, especially as so little time and effort has been put into improving it thus far. There are several techniques by which to improve one's mental state both during practice and competition, some of which i have already used with the SACS First, U15 and U14 teams. These processes include breathing exercises, relaxation and visualization, a very helpful summary of which can be found here: http://www.tampabaylightningcare.com/columns/player-development/ten-ways-to-improve-your-player’s-mental-strength/ Mental strength, as I have noted many times with the players, is something that cannot be forced upon the player or developed without their absolute commitment. Unlike physical fitness, it cannot be developed against the will or begrudgingly. It is my wish that you, the players, as well as the parents and coaches of SACS Water Polo climb on board with this endeavour and attempt to develop the tools that can help our athletes perform consistently to their best abilities. I look forward to writing future blogs which will provide the means by which we can improve mental strength through exercises and practice. For now, I encourage you to explore the world of mental toughness on your own and practice the exercises we have worked through. There is no better place to start than at the beginning, as each stride will be a giant leap toward a stronger, more consistently successful SACS Water Polo club. | Dean WD Rimmer
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