Professionals register now to create your own content and profile, and gain other potential financial, networking and marketing benefits.
Consumers (athletes, enthusiasts) use our quick registration to enhance your experience of the site
Strictly Speaking, is it Sport? Who Cares? Come Dancing Proves Great Competition
As this year’s Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars
for our American chums) season progressed, so it became quite a family ritual, a
weekly treat that we let the kids stay up for. If nothing else I enjoyed
watching my five-year-old daughter (and if truth be told my two-year-old son)
create their own interpretation in front of the screen. You see I’m neither a
huge dance fan nor a celebrity watcher, but the
sport psychologist in me was drawn in by the skill, commitment, drama and the genuine
excellence shown as the competition developed in the final rounds. I have to admit that on these criteria 'Strictly' matched just about any sporting event that I’d seen in some time.
Alesha Dixon, this year’s champion (who had been in a pop group that I’d just about heard of), wasn’t just a good dancer (and I’m not referring to her looks here either). She simply produced performance after performance. Every time she went out she was spot on. As the pressure increased, so she kept on producing. She clearly cared about winning the competition, but went out and danced in the moment, just like a true sporting champion. She also carried herself with humility, grace and a sense of humour.
Matt Di Angelo (from Eastenders), on the other hand, appeared to choke completely in the quarter finals, forgetting his steps and sitting down before the end of his routine. Most unsporting, I must say. That’s like walking off the pitch because the game is beyond you. Yes, his nerves got the better of him, but anyone in sport would tell you that you just don’t do that. You keep trying to the end.
The other thing that bothered me about Matt was that he didn’t seem to like taking negative feedback from the judges. While Alesha appeared to take the minimal criticism on board, it looked to me like he (or his ego) took umbrage each time the judges response was less than glowing.
Yet somehow, the Great British public saved him, and having been given a second chance he took it well. He was the equal of Blue Peter’s Gethin Jones, who had put in some consistently strong performances, and the judges put him through to the final. They seemed to like him, for in past weeks they had saved the person who had been the better performer overall, and not just on the night.
So there they were. Saturday’s final was a tad drawn out, but a ding-dong contest nonetheless. Each dance was incredibly close, but Dixon just had that edge – and had the benefit of being clearly the best performer over the entire series having broken the record for the number of tens scored – and was the deserved winner.
Alesha Dixon will now go on and earn a reputed ₤5 million after winning 'Strictly'. Unlike most reality show contestants, she deserves everything that comes to her.
The final word, however, goes to good old Brucey who was just brilliant as the host, and to the judges: Arlene Phillips and her Absurdly Awful Alliteration; and Bruno Tolioni, whom I suggest should never, ever take up poker!
Rob Robson
Sport and Business Psychologist, WarwickshireEnglish Cricket & Capitulation: Worrying Bedfellows
I am amazed to see that England's cricketers have capitulated once again, this time in Sri Lanka.We've talked about this on iStadia before and I honestly have no insider knowledge about the people involved or what they are doing, but it concerns me deeply that the ECB - to my understanding - have widely used sport psychologists but we keep seeing the same problems reocurring.
What's the ROI (Return on Investment) on sport psychology in English cricket to date? Probably hard to isolate it as a variable, but I'm guessing not great....
What can we deduce from this about practice in sport psychology? We can't say that sport psychology is not helping, but it is a concern that the English senior team appears to be so mentally fragile.
My guess might be that the problems may be systemic and caused at an organisational level, while a sport psychologist may only be considered to be part of the team that works with the players and may have little influence. I don't know, I can only speculate that something isn't right, at some level in the ECB.
There certainly seems to be something wrong, rather similar to the football, that successive coaching regimes are struggling to overcome. It is easy to say that we don't have a winning culture in this country, but some sports, such as cycling and rowing, seem to be doing better than others.....
Rob Robson
Sport and Business Psychologist, WarwickshireReally cool website!
Believe it or not I'm not talking about iStadia, but picnik.com.Not only does it allow you to edit photos online, it has a really easy-to-use interface and is beautifully designed.
Look at my handywork ! ------->
All you need to do to edit photos and put them in blogs and articles, is:
1) Create your picnik account
2) Edit the image (e.g. touch up, resize, crop, add text, add Xmas hat (!))
3) Create a flickr account
4) Save your image to flickr
5) Copy the image location (you can get this by right clicking on it and choosing 'properties')
6) Insert into your blog or article (icon with the tree in it)
Rob Robson
Sport and Business Psychologist, WarwickshireLiverpool highlight the need to play in the present!
Liverpool FC have been on great form of late, scoring for fun and keeping it tight at the back, but on Saturday they lost 3-1 at Reading and were really quite poor. Rafa Benitez, the manager, rather than trying to fight back for a draw or win, took key players Gerrard, Carragher and Torres off before the end of the game - signalling his willingness to drop 3 points to have a fully fit team on the field for tuesday's must-win Champions League game against Marseille.That decision, as much as anything, showed just where Liverpool's minds were on Saturday - Marseille, Tuesday night. The fact is, that the best performances simply do not occur when a team's collective minds are on a more important game in the future, nor even when focused on the final outcome of the current game. The best performances occur when players' minds are focused on the present.
That isn't to say that you have to forget you have a big game coming, but as soon as you hit your match preparation, and when you walk out onto the pitch, the only game that matters is the one you are playing right here, right now.
It isn't also just that Liverpool had an off-day, or were outplayed by a better Reading. They lacked the spark of creativity and energy required to win the game (even though they had some bad luck too), and despite the talent on array opted for long balls up to Peter Crouch. Creativity and energy are found in the here and now, not something that you get a lot of when your mind is on the outcome of a game a few days later.
In my view, that's the missing component in the Liverpool side under Benitez - the ability to compete on many fronts at once. They've been brilliant in the league, and in Europe, but rarely at the same time. They are good enough, on their day, to win the Premier League or the Champions League, but they need to be able to handle the demands of the fixture list to win either (or at least the former) - let alone both.
