Pithy Quotes and Performance
Leaving mental readiness to motivational quotes and calorie-light phrases is a sure way to fail the confidence and resilience test on game day. The key to a robust mental game is the meaning making...
View ArticleForget Fun, Embrace Enjoyment
There is a problem with fun. It is the wrong word that creates the wrong idea... especially at more adult levels of competition (teenage years on). Words matter. They create cognitive schemas and shape...
View ArticleLance: I Love Him, I Love Him Not
Sport itself has exacerbated the cognitive confusion presented by Lance Armstrong, he did good and bad. There are enough complexities to the human condition. Is it too much to ask for our play and our...
View ArticleLife Balance: Gatorade for the Mind
Balance may not be a prerequisite for achieving athletic excellence, but it certainly appears critical to maximizing and sustaining it. Having interests beyond the playing field seems to serve as an...
View ArticlePriming Performance
Self-control on the playing field is over-rated. The most impressive displays of mental toughness occur rather effortlessly… or to be more precise, they are displays of automatic self-control.read more
View ArticleCoaching on the Island of Misfit Toys
Professional and collegiate sport teams spend endless hours scouting and recruiting players… youth sport teams do not. Moms, dads, and unwitting volunteers often find themselves standing in front of a...
View ArticleBenched with Fear and Confusion
Sport parenting is a thankless task. The brush of “bad sport parent” paints in broad strokes, regardless of the best intentions of most sport parents. The message is in essence, sign your kid up and...
View ArticleConsidering Caring After Head Trauma
Vast resources are being put towards understanding the neurophysiology of concussion. Sports equipment experts are readily searching for the Holy Grail – concussion preventing headgear. Yet too often...
View ArticleThe Athlete’s Temple
I get the spiritual roots of many martial arts, but the modern day padded rooms, centered by a cage, and filled with board short wearing combatants feels a long way from the well manicured grounds of...
View ArticleParental Passion Refined
Sports parenting is tough. There is a fine line between supporting and smothering. It was exciting to see a room of passionate sport parents reflect and refocus on how best to play positive roles in...
View ArticleGreat Expectations
Expectations in sport are a funny thing. They can lift you up, break your heart, and just about anything in between. The frustrated athlete can often be heard lamenting, “If I just lower my...
View ArticleFrom Sesame Street to Mean Street—Overnight
In one season, youth sport coaches seem to turn off of Sesame Street and onto Mean Street. This is really confusing to kids—and stressful.read more
View ArticleBaseball, PED’s, and Ending an Era
Rules and regulations about moral conduct are poor motivators towards fair and healthy play. The player himself makes the final choice to inject the juice or rub the cream, but the steps to the shady...
View ArticleRafa Tough
Rafael Nadal absolutely dominated the 2013 tennis hard court season. Color commentators and fans alike praise his relentless competitiveness as the foundation of his mental game. Such observations...
View ArticleThe Case Against Mental Skills
Mental imagery. Cue words. Goal setting. Centering techniques. Anecdotal reports suggest that Olympians are masters of mental skills… the scientific evidence however suggests that sometimes mental...
View ArticleSporting Experts, Parenting Amateurs
Too often society’s approach to sports is paradoxical – serious in emotional investment, yet frivolous in community educational investments. The growth and development of children at play ought to be...
View ArticleReconsidering the Coach Archetype
This seasoned and successful coach seems to understand that fussing and cussing is not much of a way to build a championship team. There is evidence that less dramatic leaders create better functioning...
View ArticlePithy Quotes and Performance
Leaving mental readiness to motivational quotes and calorie-light phrases is a sure way to fail the confidence and resilience test on game day. The key to a robust mental game is the meaning making...
View ArticleForget Fun, Embrace Enjoyment
There is a problem with fun. It is the wrong word that creates the wrong idea... especially at more adult levels of competition (teenage years on). Words matter. They create cognitive schemas and shape...
View ArticleLance: I Love Him, I Love Him Not
Sport itself has exacerbated the cognitive confusion presented by Lance Armstrong, he did good and bad. There are enough complexities to the human condition. Is it too much to ask for our play and our...
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