Mind Your Language (Article for Fighting Fit Magazine)

It is said that “sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you”. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case. The words we use can cause all sorts of problems which can hurt your personal life, your working life and also your ability to train and fight effectively. There is a great power in the words we use to ourselves. The writer Rudyard Kipling once said “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used my mankind.” Kipling’s theory is supported by scientific research which has found that we respond emotionally to the words we hear or say to ourselves even though we are usually unaware of it. If you want to improve your performance in the ring, it may just be time to take out the dictionary and start improving your language skills.

Choose your words carefully

It has been found that we respond literally to the words that we hear. If we hear the word ‘bad’, we tend to feel worse than we did before we heard it. If we hear the word ‘good’ we tend to feel better.

An interesting study was carried out at an American university where one group was given a test to do which involved putting together a puzzle containing a lot of random words on it. Afterwards they recorded how long it took each member of the group to leave the building. They then took a second group and asked them to repeat the exercise; this time using a puzzle that contained a lot of words relating to being old such as ‘ancient’, ‘Florida’ and ‘bingo’. Significantly, it was found that those in the second group took considerably longer to leave the building because of the aging effect the words had on them.

It is therefore important to consider the kind of language you tend to use when you are training or fighting. I have demonstrated this to my clients by getting them to repeat the word ‘weak’ to themselves while they are trying to bench press a weight that they would normally be able to lift comfortably. In every case the client has struggled to lift the weight and in most cases has failed completely. I then ask them to repeat the exercise whilst repeating the word ‘power’ in their heads. In this case, each one of them has lifted the weight easily. So, if you want to feel strong, just say the word.

Say what you want (not what you don’t want)

One of the biggest problems I have found when working with fighters over the years is the language they use when they talk to themselves. This inner chat, otherwise known as self-talk or internal dialogue, is that voice we hear in our heads when we are thinking to ourselves. When we are stressed, angry, anxious or generally in a negative mindset, we tend to speak far more using negative statements. The anxious fighter, for instance, would say things such as “don’t mess up”, “don’t miss your punches”, “don’t make yourself look stupid” or “don’t drop your guard”. This becomes a problem because our brains cannot process negatives. If I was to say to you “whatever you do, do not think about a purple rhinoceros with pink spots” what do you think about? Exactly, you think about the purple rhinoceros with pink spots. When you make a negative statement to yourself you actually end up playing an internal movie of doing the thing you do not want to do. If you are a coach you can be sure that if you want your fighter to be scared the best way to go about it is to say “don’t be scared”.

Unfortunately, we do seem to spend a lot of our time using negative language. How often, when you ask a person how they are feeling do you hear them say “not bad”? “Not bad” certainly doesn’t mean “good” – it actually means “bad”.

Accentuate the positive

A fighter’s ability to perform to his best is largely dictated by the emotions he is feeling. Our emotions are the by-product of the way we think and our language can play a massive role in deciding how we feel at any given moment. A fighter will tend to perform well when he feels positive emotions and will tend to perform poorly when he feels negative emotions. However, very often there is a tendency for people to use words or phrases that make the negative emotions even worse and at best will neutralise the impact of the positive emotions.

I once worked with a boxer who was so good at using words that reinforced his negative emotions that by the time he got into the ring he always thought he was going to have a panic attack. The way he would achieve this state of near collapse before the fight had even begun was by putting great emphasis on his fears by using highly emotive negative words. When I asked him how his previous fight had gone he used phrases such as “my performance was dreadful”, “I was shocking”, “I was shitting myself” and “the result was sickening”. As he talked, I could see the emotion building up in him to a point that he was almost in tears. However, when I asked him to describe a fight that went really well for him the best he could summon up were phrases like “it was okay”, “my jab was alright”, “my movement was acceptable” and “my counter-punching was fine”. Here, the positive emotion was completely lacking.

An important thing to know about emotion is that it plays a big role in allowing us to recall memories; the stronger the emotion the easier the recall. Because my client was putting so much emotion into his bad performances, he found it far easier to remember them than his good performances. This meant he had a distorted view of himself and considered himself to be far worse than he actually was.

Interestingly, I had a client who was constantly using words like “fantastic”, “brilliant”, “excellent” and “superb”. His words were reflected by his body language, his energy, his tone of voice, his self-belief and his ability to draw on past successes. However, when I asked him to tell me about a poor performance, he struggled to find one, because he put so little emotion into them.

If in doubt change the label

I am very often working with fighters to overcome what they refer to as “nerves”. They tell me that they experience dreadful feelings which make it impossible to perform well. The problem, however, isn’t usually the feelings themselves but how they are labelled. The singer Carly Simon had to give up touring because of the immense stage fright she suffered from. She described how her heart would beat really fast, she would feel butterflies in her stomach and a buzzing in her head. She said she was terrified. Bruce Springsteen heard this description and stated that he couldn’t perform without these feelings. They had exactly the same feelings but one of them labelled them as “terror”, the other labelled them as “excitement”.

The words you use to describe how you feel about a fight will have a massive impact on you, so remember - always choose your words wisely.

Andy Barton

Fair weather sports performers

How many of you are fair weather sports performers who believe they can only perform well if the sun is shining, there is no wind and the temperature is just right? If you are one of these people ask yourself how often such conditions exist. The fair weather sports performer is almost always at a disadvantage as they see rain and wind and cold as being bad. I think it was Billy Connolly who said 'There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing'. If you want to be successful in all weathers, it is important that you learn to see the good in all weathers.

When I was a young rugby player, I used to love playing in the snow. There was something about it that brought out the kid in me and I used to especially love sliding along the ground for several metres to steal a ball that was lying out in the loose. Padraig Harrington thrives on playing in wet, windy conditions. Give him a choice between wet or dry conditions for a tournament and he would pick the former every time, because he feels this gives him a head start on the majority of his competitors.

Instead of getting down about the weather, learn to embrace it (or don't play!)

Andy Barton

Black and White Thinking

One reason that people get stuck with problems can be because they don't give themselves enough options. We have a tendency to see problems as a choice between two options, neither of which give us what we truly want. I call this "Black and White thinking". An example of this would be where people feel they should be modest, self-deprecating, reluctant to take compliments and feel they should beat themselves up when they make a mistake. The only alternative they will see to this would be to be arrogant, brash, full of themselves and egotistical. All the other options just seem to get deleted so people then think "well at least if I am modest people might like me" and they stick with the problem state that they already had.

If you have a problem, find some new options. For instance, you can be confident without being arrogant. You can learn from mistakes without beating yourself up. You can feel good about a compliment without being egotistical.

The more options you have, the more flexibility you have to deal with problems. So move away from "Black and White thinking" and look for all the other colours and shades. You'll be surprised how many choices there really are.

Andy Barton

How to win The Open

Louis Oosthuizen won the Open Golf Championship last week and also gave a fantastic demonstration of how to win a major championship. Although he had never been close to winning such a big event before, Oosterhuizen's victory was one of the most comprehensive in recent years. So what was the key to such a great performance? One word "consistency".

Throughout the whole tournament Oosterhuizen remained totally consistent. He was consistent in his approach; he was consistent with his routine; he was consistent with his play making and he was consistent with his body language. Most importantly, he was consistent with his emotional state. He stayed in the moment, took one shot at a time and remembered to enjoy himself. In fact he had a constant smile on his face throughout each of the rounds, even when he hit a poor shot (This is very reminiscent of Tom Watson, one of the greatest players of the game who always has a benign smile on his face every time he plays). Smiling plays an important role in maintaining a positive attitude as it releases the neurotransmitter serotonin into the body. This neurotransmitter is very important for regulating our emotions and has the effect of reducing anxiety and making us happy. Exactly how you want to be going down the back nine on the last day of a major.

So, if you want to win a major, remember to smile, stay in the moment and be consistent.

Andy Barton
Wider Vision Ltd - Specialists in Mental Performance Training for Sport

Penalty taking at the World Cup

Now that the World Cup is nearly upon us, the main topic I am asking to comment on from the media is the art of penalty taking. Why, for instance, are England so bad at taking penalties and Germany so good at it?

A lot of commentators will refer to penalties as being a lottery, but it is far less so than many think. Although skill plays an important role in penalty taking, mental approach seems to have a far bigger impact and, in a nutshell, we tend to get what we expect. Germany has developed a cultural belief that they are good at penalties; this then has an impact their attitude when it comes to a penalty shoot out. England, however, has developed a belief that they are no good at penalties and this is also reflected in their attitude when it comes to a shoot out. If you go back to 2006 and the penalty shoot out against Portugal, England should have been delighted to take them to penalties. It was England, after all, who had to finish out the game with only 10 men. However, each one of England's penalty takers looked petrified. They walked from the centre circle looking as if they were on their way to their own execution. At the same time, their team mates were looking down at the ground, shaking their heads. Contrast this with Ronaldo when he went to take his penalty; his head was up, his shoulders thrust backwards as he marched purposefully towards the penalty area. If you watch Fabio Grosso as he walked up to take the penalty that would win the World Cup for Italy, he has a smile on his face. For these two men, taking a penalty is seen as an opportunity not a threat.

Matthew Le Tissier, who had a record of scoring 48 out 49 penalties during his career, believes that his main reason for success was that he loved taking penalties. When you love doing something you tend to focus on what you can do. When you hate doing something, you tend to focus on what you fear may happen. As we tend to get more of what we focus on, it makes sense that a positive penalty taker is far more likely to score.

All the England players need to do, therefore, is learn to love taking penalties. Simple!

Andy Barton
Wider Vision Ltd - Specialists in Mental Performance Training for Sport

Craig Bellamy Foundation

When you think of Craig Bellamy, some of you may consider him in less than glowing terms. What some of you may not know is that he has invested a huge amount of his own time and money (over £1 million) into introducing football to the children of Sierra Leone. He is single-handedly the biggest funder of sport in this country. He has now got over 1600 kids playing football and he is funding the training of coaches, with a view of having more trained coaches in Sierra Leone than any other African country. One of the rules of playing is that the children must attend school and for those involved, school attendance has risen from an average 30% to over 80%. Not only that, children can increase the goal difference of the team by answering correctly questions about such issues as HIV after a match.

This is a fantastic illustration of an individual who thrives on having a sense of purpose. It has made him a more rounded individual (albeit still a vociferous one on the pitch) and getting a perspective that there are more important things than football (apologies to Bill Shankly!), I believe, has made him an even better player.

You can find out more at http://www.craigbellamyfoundation.org/

Why hypnosis is beneficial to sport

Hypnosis has been widely used in sport since the 1950s. It has been widely documented that the Soviet team took no fewer than eleven hypnotherapists to the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. Since this time a many of the world's leading sports performers have used hypnosis to improve their mental approach. Tiger Woods has used hypnosis from a very early age and once stated that “hypnosis is inherent in everything I do now”.

In a sense, any sports performer who uses mental rehearsal to prepare for competition has used hypnosis as, to mentally rehearse an event, you have to take on a trance state.

It is highly significant that it has been found that there is a correlation between hypnosis and the ‘zone’ state that sports performers refer to when they are playing to their highest level. When sports performers are in the zone, their predominant brainwaves are Alpha brainwaves which are at a frequency of between 8-12Hz (cycles per second), the same brain state that most people access when they enter a state of light trance. Many sports performers describe the zone as being in a kind of bubble, where everything is easy and effortless, time seems to slow down and it is almost as if some other force has taken over their body. These are all examples of deep trance phenomena associated with hypnosis.

The ability to enter trance is therefore an extremely useful feature of peak performance and athletes need to train their ability to enter trance states to improve their mental ability in the same way that they need to train their muscles to enhance their strength and endurance. The most successful athletes are the ones who can put themselves into the most effective trance to perform.

Andy Barton
The Sporting Mind - Mental Training for Sport