Don’t be…. don’t do that….

When parents tell their kids what NOT to do, it often has the opposite effect for good reasons.

Aside from coaches talking to their athletes or parents talking to their child, we often think and tell ourselves what to do and/or what NOT to do. However, just having the right intent is not good enough because ineffective choice of words can trigger resistance and may draw attention to the wrong things.

Here are a few ideas for coaching yourself or others. Do understand the person you are trying to help because no two person are exactly the same.

• NOT is a bad word – The brain does not handle the NOT word well, so when you tell yourself “Do NOT stress out” or “Do NOT be afraid”, very likely the brain will receive the message as “Do not be STRESS out” or “Do not be AFRAID”. Therefore, use “Be brave” or “Focus on your jab and footwork” instead of “Do NOT be afraid”. Always try to rephrase your intent as a positive statement instead of leaving it in its negative form.
• Use action words instead of criteria or abstract words – Avoid words that are criteria. As example, yelling “Jump higher” just meant that whatever being done is not good enough and if the person don’t know how to change their actions / focus, the goal will remain unreachable. The person will eventually get frustrated and think “I am already trying……..”.
  Similarly, saying “Be calm” or “Be brave” to a person who is already nervous will not help the situation because what he feel is real: cold sweaty hands, butterflies in the tummy and may even feel that the whole world is going out of control. You can tell the person to breath deep and slow (and maybe even provide tempo) or tell them what to focus on. Something like “focus on your jab and move your feet” gives the person something tangible to work on and take the focus away from feeling the existing chaos.

• Create a mental image or state of mind versus mechanical details – In the gymnastics world, we often hear the phrase “remember to smile”. It is certainly a good intent because who want to watch a purely mechanical routine when someone else shows that they are happy to be there. However, having to remember to smile almost make it a mechanical process. Smile is suppose to show a mood. Therefore we should generate a specific state of mind. We can remind ourselves of something funny, visualize the judges in some ridiculous costumes or whatever or simply reminding yourself how far you have come and then the smile will be natural.
• Engage feeling or sensation – Some examples are:
  • A joke or a totally silly analogy (or whatever works for you or your athlete) can help memorization.
  • Triggering muscle relaxation / tension by relating to movement / ideas that they are already familiar with, Similar responses can also be triggered through pokes, squeezes or tickles as appropriate.
  • Say that this is a race (versus a drill) can get people to try harder.
  • Use of contrast so that the sensation is amplified.
  • Excited tone of voice can gain attention and excitement level.
  • Trigger ownership so that there is direct satisfaction from being able to reach the goal.
  • Create small interim goals and progressions so that one can chart interim successes.

Exercise:
– How is the above discussion related to martial arts?
– There is an aggressor coming close to you, you said “Do not come any closer or I will….”. Can you improve on that?