Competitive Wellness Series - New Skills and Repetition

For the student-athletes out there, there is no greater time than Summer. The dedicated will wake up early, maybe attend some camps at a local school, and then your day is over. Often the dedication of time to your specific sport, or specific school, is only one month of two. It’s a time to relax, not think about school, and be outside (weather permitting). 

However, this time is the ultimate decider of improvement and/or success the following year. To be given time-off, with varying degrees of responsibilities, but a good deal of flexibility, is a gift that not many people receive. Even if you are working a summer job as a student, rarely is it going to demand from you after-hours the way school does. (If there is a case where it does, it is probably the aim and focus of your improvement anyway). Now is the time to maximize growth!

Ideally, you leave the summer with one less weakness...at minimum. Can’t kick with your left foot? Summer. Can’t finish around the rim? Summer. Inconsistent when back-setting? Summer. If there is something your coach has told you to work on, or part of your game that you know holds you back from the next level of achievement, Summer is the time to eliminate this blemish from your scouting report. If you return to season with the same holes in your game that you ended the season with, there is no one to blame but yourself. 

Sometimes these improvements are going to require new motor memory. Think of our neural pathways as hiking trails. When the same route is taken over and over, a groove is created in the earth. The same is true in your brain. There can be a lot of initial frustration in learning an “old skill” a new way. “Why should I change my shot now?”, “I do alright the way I’ve been doing it until now”, etc. But what you are asking of yourself is not to go back and cover that path with dirt, replant the grass or brush, and make it look like no one has ever gone down that path before. You are simply choosing to start a new path, often from some point along the one already there, and run over it again and again until your brain “knows” that is the way that we always take.

Another aspect of this training, and one that will be discussed more in-depth in another post, is visualization. There have been numerous studies showing that when you mentally rehearse a skill, your body does not know the difference between action and thought. Therefore, those reps that you go through in bed before falling asleep may also count toward your daily total of repetition. 

Don’t waste your summer! Be honest with yourself about where your game needs improvement and set aside time to make sure you go back to school with one less weakness, a new confidence, and a peace of mind having taken a different path. 

Oh, and this doesn’t apply just to sports. Though many of us don’t have “summers off” to devote to our training, it doesn’t take much to recognize weaknesses and address them for a few moments a day. Simple mental rehearsal and repetition may make us all a little bit better. 

Suggested searches: Motor memory, muscle memory, motor sequencing, imagining exercise, visualization muscle growth

Preparing Your Child for College: Not as far away as you think

This past weekend I drove up to Atlanta for my 10-year undergraduate reunion at Emory University. First, I'll admit it was good to see that all the money I paid to go there is being put to great use: campus looks amazing and continues to grow, but it maintains the same feel as it did when I attended.

Second, I want to acknowledge that incredible feeling of a place long-since visited. Every step I retraced around campus left me in the exact same heart-space as I'd left it in. It was a humbling experience and immediately sparked a mental time-travel and all the "what ifs" that come with growth and distance. It was a spectacular emotional journey. 

Thirdly, and most importantly to you as parents, I want to share the realization that I came to upon this trip. When I decided to attend Emory, it was because I needed a challenge both academically and personally. High School required some work for me to over-achieve; had I taken it easy I would have done just fine, but that is not who I am, nor who I was, and so I worked hard. But the challenge wasn't there. I also knew that socially I needed to break out of my shell, my comfort. So, without knowing anyone else attending, and without ever visiting before my parents dropped me off, I headed south, hundreds of miles away from everything I knew, to force myself to grow up. 

Herein lies my realization. For me, college was a GROWING UP experience, not a GROWING experience. I grew up privileged. I grew up protected. I grew up with a mother that, bless her heart, wanted to do everything to make our lives easier, even at the sacrifice of her own leisure or luxury. I was the type of child at home that would weasel out of responsibilities, or give minimal effort, unaware of the benefit to myself, and thus, the reason I really needed to contribute. When I went away to college, therefore, it was time for me to "grow up". 

This was not a bad experience. This was what I recognized as a late-teen that I NEEDED to do. This decision is very difficult for a young adult to make for his/her self. My parents had prepared me as a person, but not to be a person. No fault of their own, they tried, I was a jerk. 

My point is that college should be a "growing" experience, not a "growing up". Naturally some of this intertwines into both concepts, but IF your child, now almost a young adult, has already "grown up" - accepted responsibilities, understands accountability, personal care, collective contribution, independence, confidence, how to deal with failure - college can be their opportunity to grow that person that he/she is meant to become once independent in the world. 

I also realized, I wouldn't change a single moment if it meant that today I would be someone other than the man I have grown into. Every variable led to me being in a position, and having the care to, share my experience and knowledge with children and parents in order to offer my viewpoint on what could be done to better create the next generation of citizens. 

Whether college is in the future for your child or not, your responsibility as a parent, mentor, guardian, guide, is to help them "grow up" before the world makes them. With that accomplished, they will be able to spend their time simply growing into the adult man or woman they are meant to. 

Competitive Wellness: stemming from youth sports, a prologue

In the grand scheme of things, I guess I'm still on the younger side. As a teacher, I will begin my sixth year as a lead or co-lead this year; as a coach I am entering my 13th season. And I know that it is part of generational evolution, it's a right of passage, for "elders" to complain about "kids these days". But I have strategically...well ok, a series of events, fortunes, and universal nudges have...placed myself in a position to influence children and young adults with the hope of diluting the percentage of children and young adults about whom this term is used derogatorily. 

In athletics, we are in the age of hyper-training and sport-specialization in children. The competition is incredible and the "arms race" to be able to perform at the high school and collegiate level begins at a very young age. This is giving rise to different classes of children-athletes. (This is something that I hope to develop more in the future, not the classes themselves but an understanding of how many and what they are at their foundations). 

There are two extreme classes. Those "early-gifted" who are finding success and sometimes domination in a given sport and will both enjoy the success and feel pressure to maintain that aspect of their personality. These children-athletes may find an abundance of praise which, in most early cases, does not prepare them to succeed in other arenas nor accurately represent their future. 

The opposite end of the spectrum holds those children who would have entered into sports for the friends and experience. They can be, in today's culture, discouraged at a very early age because they do not enjoy a competitive atmosphere. Now, they are also facing peers who may be spending hours a week working on their skills. 

Now, I am a coach, and I am also a competitor, and I like nothing better than to foster this in children. However, without the proper understanding and coaching of how to address competition, children may fall trap to its pitfalls. Sport offers a peek into the real world: effort, advantage, variability, deviance, struggle, success, teamwork, etc. As in the world, one scenario is seen differently from many vantage points. Our elite athlete at 11 years-old will see the game differently than our "just trying it out" athlete at the same age. But, the one thing they can both take from this shared environment is personal growth. 

This is where Competitive Wellness training comes into play. The opportunities to learn are endless: How do I become a better teammate? How do I survive in a game with better players? How do I find success in failure? How does my success fail me? Not only are these questions that can and should be addressed, even with the youngest of our children-athletes, but they are essential to the growth of the child. 

The numbers prove that your child is not going to go pro in his/her sport of choice. HOWEVER, they CAN go pro in being a good human being and being happy and successful in whatever they choose to do. This is the power that MCCWT is aiming to give its students and athletes. From on-the-court or -field to in-the-classroom, a foundation of confidence in any situation and the willingness to self-compete can immediately improve a child's experience. 

Let's use this understanding to encourage our youth to mold themselves into individuals that every generation can respect and appreciate.