With special guest presenter Sarah Majid – Sports and Performance Psychologist

The Performance Zone is the term for when players are in the optimal state of mind for optimal performance at competition.  When emotion and behaviours are in sync. 

It was fantastic to see 33 coaches from across the South West in attendance, a celebration of UK Coaching Week.

100% of the coaches (who submitted an evaluation form) said they felt confident to use the methods and tools.

70% of the coaches (who submitted an evaluation form) said they would be willing to get involved in a South West Coaching Network. 30% said they would like to know more first!

(This link takes you to the TTE Learning Zone which is available to all coaches. Click on Home – My Courses – Coaching Resources and scroll down the list of videos)

If you do not have a log in contact Coaching at TTE.

Sarah Majid the inspirational and knowledgeable guest speaker took us through the build-up preparation to evaluation of competition, introducing tools for coaches to use.  She highlighted the importance of a player centric approach, as every athlete is different.

Sarah asked each coach to think about a player they coach or know.  To think about their mental qualities, social support and what kind of habits do they have leading up to competition.

Sarah introduced the concept of process goals, technical, tactical and mental skills.  The key being to encourage players to focus on these rather than the score line.  Sarah provided a useful tool to help to capture these goals.  Link to the ‘Build up – Process Goals Template’

Sarah raised the importance of post competition evaluation against the process goals and provided a template for capturing progress, feelings and external factors.  The ‘traffic light’ format could be used over a whole season to identify trends and shape future strategies to reach the Performance Zone consistently.  ‘Link to the evaluation tool’

Sarah summarised

• Always ASK THE PLAYER how they feel they want to approach a challenge related to competition
• Fill the gaps in their knowledge by suggesting strategies they could use.  Give them the choice
• Use a consistent approach

The final part was opened up to Q&A which brought the approach and techniques to life.   The questions and points raised included:-

“What if the team members are negative?”

“How do you stop players becoming anxious over Ranking Points?”

“How do you support a player when they are competing against a BOGEY player?  When they would win on paper but talk themselves out of winning.”

“How to get the balance right between talking about positives and things the player needs to work on?”

 Special thanks to Sarah Majid  www.sarahmajid.com

I hope that you have found the workshop and supporting resources useful. Please let me know how you get on applying the techniques.

If you are interested in attending future activities or if you have ideas for future topics, please let the South West Local Organising Group know.