Several Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to watch some junior squash
matches. It was the last day of one of the JCT (Junior
Championship Tour) events, and so nerves were high. I stationed
myself at one court, which allowed me to watch matches progress upwards
from U11 girls all the way to the U19 boys’ final. Since that
day, the phenomenon of off-court encouragement has been very much on my
mind. It struck me that how parents, coaches, and even friends
communicated their encouragement might be doing the exact opposite from
the intent of their message. Of course, the entourage means well,
but their words, the tone of their words, and even the intrusion that
their words represent might actually pose an unwelcome distraction for
the athlete. Here are a few observations and thoughts from that
day:
The first is that, particularly with the younger
athletes, parents gave certain vocalizations, such as “c’mon!” Or,
“this point right here!” Or, “c’mon! Bear down!”
Often, they uttered these comments when the young athlete looked out of
court after losing a point, or string of points, and had a somewhat
stricken look on their face. Now, while none of these comments
are, on their surface, bad things to say, it is unclear what purpose
they served. I had the thought that if you stopped the action,
and asked the young athlete what their parent or coach meant, the young
athlete would be stumped. Not that there was ill intention, but
that the very thing the athlete needed or might have wanted in that
moment was not served by such encouragements. What if the words
were a big distraction, rather than a useful tool for focus and
motivation? What if the athlete took their parents’ comments as
scolding? Sometimes, the tone in the parents’ voice did take on a
scolding tone. In that case, the young athlete was concerned
about having angered their parent instead of managing whatever anxiety
they were facing on the court. Even the comment, “you can do it!”
might contribute additional stress for a child wrestling with the very
idea of whether or not he or she could, in fact, do it. Given
these thoughts, you will not be surprised to hear that there was little
correlation between whether the young athlete lost or won the next
point after the exhortation from the crowd. Mostly, I noticed
that such comments didn’t help reverse a negative spiral, if an athlete
were in one.
The other thing that stood out to me was that as the
matches went up the age range, and the players got more skilled, and
the matches became more intense, the noise from the parents and coaches
tapered off. There was almost a reverential silence between
points, apart from clapping and “nice point!,” after particularly good
efforts. The difference was striking. The main thing that
it suggested to me, is something that I have written about at other
times, which is that if you want an athlete to improve their focus or
their play, one of the worst things you can do is to yell “focus,”
“bear down,” “this point,” or “right now.” Essentially, what you
are doing is complicating the athlete’s attentional challenge by
bringing their focus out of the court, over to you (and all the complex
dynamics involved in your relationship), only to require them to bring
it back into the court and onto the matter at hand. The parents
and coaches of the older athletes knew that the best way to support
their athlete was by not complicating the intense attentional demands
of the moment. So, I offer these quick points for you and your
young athlete, as you come up with a game plan for supporting your
athlete.
In conjunction with their coach, help your athlete develop some mindful
awareness of what it means to focus and what it means to lose
focus. An athlete cannot “focus!” if they don’t know what
scattered versus focused attention looks like.
In conjunction with their coach, develop some tactics that your athlete
can use to bring their attention back when it has wandered. You
will see top athletes bounce the ball several times before serving,
staring at a spot on a wall for a second, or even wiping their hands on
the wall, as if to be managing a perspiration situation.
Develop some agreements about what sorts of communications will help
and what will hinder your athlete. Some athletes might say
something like “I only want to hear my coach’s voice.” Or,
“please only say positive comments,” which is good advice under any
circumstance.
Remember that if you are nervous, you will communicate that to your
young athlete in every utterance and facial expression, even if you
don’t think you are. So, spend some time mastering your own
nerves before you attempt to help your young athlete overcome
theirs. If nerves are a problem for you, be receptive to hearing
that you should watch from a greater distance, and refrain from
vocalizations during the competition.
Viewed this way, the entourage can (maybe) help avert a total collapse
of attention and a total victory of nervy play. Also, a
well-oiled pit crew will be able to ensure that they are helping the
athlete rather than hindering optimum performance. Some athletes
may like a lot of verbal encouragement, and some might like very
little. Something tells me, though, that the top athletes on that
day knew what was going on by having very little communication between
them and their entourage, except during the 90 seconds of a game break.
Have fun watching your athlete. Engage them in the incredibly
empowering task of putting them in control of their attentional
battles. And make it a truly collaborative venture. It will
be good for their game, for their enjoyment of the game, and for the
good of your relationship.
Matt Munich:
When Matt is not torturing himself over the perfect sentence to craft
for his current work of fiction, he is a clinical social worker helping
children and adults recover from traumatic stress. He is also
starting a sport psychology consultation service for which he writes a
blog, often hosted on The Daily Squash Report, on the cognitive
challenges of sport to help athletes of all ages and skill levels
achieve their full potential. Matt has been involved in
competitive squash at all levels since middle school, and has been a
teaching pro and coached several high school squash programs. He
is still at it, harboring delusions of grandeur despite what has been
generally recognized as a modest degree of natural ability and the
wages of cruel time on his already blunted reaction time. He
lives in Jamaica Plain, MA with Melissa, his wife and muse. His
blog can be seen at:http://altiusperformanceworks.blogspot.com/
What's On My Mindis a column by rotation writers. Contact DailySquashReport@gmail.com