Sports psychology game-changer
It was an exciting week for me, being invited to speak at the 3rd Annual Sports Performance and Sports Psychology Summit run by the Intelligence Transfer Centre. There is nothing more humbling than learning from the industry, great and so proud, that they are South African-born.
An interesting exercise that Theo Bezuidenhout, “sports and counselling consultant”, and consultant to Golfrsa, started off his talk was, the bad names which sports psychologists have been called. “Kopdoktor, shrink, quack, Koo Koo Doctor”, to name a few, and this highlighted one important thing in the industry … how the public perceive them in the industry. The main role of sports psychologists and sports councillors is that they help remove personal barriers from athletes to allow them to achieve personal greatness, and yet ironically, the biggest barrier they are fighting is the perception coaches and the public have of them.
Over the next few months I will share with you some mental toughness skills and techniques from the industry’s best, because I truly believe that if we show how these skills and techniques can move mental barriers, then the market perception will change. Forward-thinking schools like St Stithians have implemented educational psychologist Dr Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs who has been building, literally, champions, in rowing over the years. What is even more impressive is that at certain times of the year they include sports psychology as an actual lesson during their school day.
Professor Leon van Niekerk, who is the HOD human movement science and associate professor of sports psychology at the University of Fort Hare, has been working on player identity, and he said something amazing that if a child says, “I enjoy this!” the child is actually saying, “I can do this”. Very profound. He backed it up with an example: When a child is playing catch with you, you throw the ball at him, and he catches it, and throws it back at you. The child will then be doing it again and again and again because it is fun and exciting. The minute you throw a ball to your child and they can’t catch it, they lose interest.
Armed with this enlightening information is how this changes the game for you as a parent, because when your child comes to you and says “I don’t like tennis”, she is actually telling you “I can’t play this game well enough to like or love it”. If you don’t take action and try and get the help she needs to learn, then you will be failing your child. Opportunities for a future career in the sport might be missed!
Another fascinating speaker was Edgar Phillips, a certified neuro and performance coach. He presented an alternative way to approaching conventional teachings.
Edgar also believes there are six common influences that affect behaviour change. For instance, if anyone believes she is not good enough because she was accepted purely by default and not merit, in order for her to achieve greater personal success, the barrier holding her back needs to be realised and moved.