Train your mind to train your body

  You are watching your friend play and you wonder how talented he is. But there are other thoughts which also come to your mind, “I will never be able to play like him. I don’t know if I will ever make it big in my sport. Do I even belong here?” Do you have this sinking feeling when you watch someone from the same field/sport perform? This thought of feeling let down because of comparison with your peers is quite common. Most of us go through it at some point or the other. In clinical psychology, it’s called ‘IMPOSTER SYNDROME’ What is Imposter syndrome? 'Imposter syndrome is defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud'. ‘Fraud’ is a big word, but it somewhat resembles of how we may feel when we watch someone more successful from the same field. "Why am I not as good as him?" or "When will I become like him?" or "Will I ever make it big in this sport like this guy has?" or "Why am I doing this?", w e ask ourselves...

  What is visualization? How can we use this technique to produce better results? And what are the benefits? To get answers to all these questions, I had an opportunity to interview a special guest and a very dear friend of mine, Tom Ford. About Tom Ford- Tom has been the under 19 European squash number one. He has played numerous professional squash tournaments and has won many of them. He has traveled all around the world to train budding squash athletes. Tom has always been very passionate and interested about the mental side of the game, a common interest which lead us to connect with each other a few years ago. I could not have asked for a better guest to discuss on this topic, than Tom Ford. Below is the interview- Amit- Hi Tom. Tom- Hi Amit, thanks for inviting me on. Amit- today we have invited you to discuss about visualization. Thank you so much for being here with us. So my first question to you Tom- what exactly is visualization?  Tom- Sure, we need to und...

  Often we wonder how cool our favourite sports stars are. We are amazed at not only their sheer talent, but their style and that oomph factor. We love to see them play, win, we love to hear them speak about themselves. We are curious to know what they do when they are not competing. Can we try and emulate their style and habits and see what comes up for us? Will it really have any effect on us? What can we expect? Young budding athletes often think of their favourite athlete as though they have come from a different planet. Ask tennis fans about Roger Federer and most will have the opinion that he was born to be a star. We often think top ranked athletes as, “they are there, and we are here” and there is no way we can get even close to that level. No doubt, they have reached there because of hard work and talent and we can close on that gap by working hard.   But there is something more we can do to get that tiny bit closer to them. Your favourite athlete has that style, ch...

  Which came first- the chicken or the egg? The answer to whether an athlete is ready for competition, is equally tricky. Should I play tournaments when I am ready or do I play to get ready ?   This question has many amateur athletes and sport parents confused. “Am I of the level where I can enter into competition?” “Should I send my child for tournaments?” “I don’t want to put any additional pressure on my child” are common thoughts which come to an amateur athlete's or a sport parent's mind. In this blog, we will try and analyse various dimensions of playing tournaments and eventually have a clearer picture on the above question. I was recently watching a 13 year old practice while chatting with his father. The child is being coached by someone else but as I share a good relation with his father I suggested he starts playing serious tournaments. The father replied that “he is still not ready”. On this I narrated a very interesting true story to him. There was a young b...

A coach has a huge impact on an athlete’s life. If the athlete is a child, chances are that he listens more to his coach than to his own parents. Choosing the right coach with a right attitude for those early sporting days for your child is extremely important. The coach will have visible effects on not only to your child’s sporting skills, but his overall personality. He will teach your child on how to be a good human being. So, what are the qualities which we should watch out for in a coach, what are the must haves? Let me give a few pointers for parents to help them take that decision. According to me, when starting a sport there are three qualities which a good coach must possess- 1) Walks the talk Your child will look up to his coach for almost everything. The way he talks, behaves, plays, eats, drinks, everything. For the child, his coach is nothing less than a superhero. If I want my student to follow something, I do not always say it to him. I just do it myself and the child le...

Training the mind is as important as physical training. Meditation is an extremely important tool for training the mind. Why should we meditate? Where do we start? Let us find out…. Why meditation? Most of the athletes I know, especially teen athletes work very hard in physical training, but devote no  time to train their minds . Professional players have full time sports psychologists at their disposal but most of us and especially kids cannot afford that privilege. Also for kids, the coach is usually too busy training a big group so he hardly has the time to attend to every child and his problems personally. Growth spurt and hormonal changes in kids make them very vulnerable to negative influences, emotions and beliefs and hence it becomes extremely important to  channelize all the energy  in the right direction. Hence mental training is important for an athlete to becoming  calmer, stronger and tougher  on the match field. Meditation is the simplest and one o...

As the government relaxes the lock down, it seems we will finally get to play our favourite sport again. After a gap of nearly five months, how will our mind and body take to our sport again? What will be the challenges? Let us find out. Most of us have never been away from our sport for such a long period. What should we expect and what not to expect when we start?  How should we approach our practice? There are few important factors to be considered before stepping into the field again. The Fear Factor Your sporting field is where you express yourself freely. Last few months have been scary. We all have lived in fear. Many are still unsure if going to play would be a safe choice. With fear in your mind,  practice will not have quality . If you have very rarely stepped out of the house in the last few months, you should take time to start off. Being mentally comfortable, accepting the current situation is very important before starting to play. Anxiety can lead to negati...

The great Buddha had said, "Rule your mind or it will rule you" Discipline comes with understanding your mind. Read on to find out how. We all know that knowledge of something alone does not make us disciplined enough to follow it regularly. Even motivation helps us get a good start, but with time even motivation dries up and the same habit which was driven by motivation in the beginning, after few days becomes a daunting task. In our last blog we discussed "hacks" we can use to exercise regularly. Let us take the same example forward to understand discipline as without discipline, we can forget about persisting anything for a long time.  Watch my video on this topic by going to the link below- How the mind plays us? Let us first see what is common in all individuals. We all get loud inner mind chatter when we are about to begin our workouts. Let me give an example of myself. As a club level player and a coach, I always strive to improve my squash. I design my worko...