Tag Archives: emotional and focus development

Specific Match Chart Purpose- Part 1

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, INNOVATIVE TENNIS CHARTING.

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SPECIFIC MATCH CHART PURPOSE:

 

CAUSE OF ERROR CHART:

Tennis is a game of errors.  The first most critical step in error reduction is to spot the actual cause of the error. This chart will require you to identify the cause of the error. Once the most common cause of errors are identified, customized development begins. Note: Not all errors are caused by improper form!

COURT POSITIONING MATCH CHART:

This chart will differentiate whether playing “reactive” tennis from behind the baseline earns the best winning percentages or whether playing “proactive” tennis from inside the court increases winning percentages.  The comfortable court position the athlete prefers to play may not be the position that earns them the most points.

BETWEEN-POINT RITUALS CHART:

This chart will identify the player’s ability to stay focused and execute their critical between-point rituals. Players who do not keep their brain focused on the task at hand have to defeat two opponents-the opposition and their wandering mind. Between-point routines could be considered a second performance critical to the software development of an athlete.

 

Tennis Emotional Toughness- Part 2

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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The Real Talent Is Emotional Toughness

Sadly, emotionally weak competitors often ignore the development of such skills.  Cultivating these character traits is what propels the few into the winners’ circle. If you believe that your emotions are holding you, hostage, on game day and keeping you from the success you deserve, I suggest focusing your attention on the below list of solutions

 

SOLUTION #20: Fifteen Solutions to Foster Emotional Strength

  1. Nurture the Love of Competition
    Studies show that experiences bring more joy than possessions. The energy of the event is contagious. Athletes should enjoy competing against their past, fatigue, opponents, and against time.
  2.  Commit to Improving
    Being the best of the best (even in your town) doesn’t come without extreme effort. Improve your performance by understanding emotional aptitude.
  3. Recognize That You Can’t Be Normal …and a Champion
    Champions lead very different lives than normal people. Being an athletic champion is a daily lifestyle.
  4. Customize Your Training
    Realize that diligent customized training trumps social, group learning. Research shows, on average, group training takes up to six times longer than quality private training.
  5. Adopt a Growth Mind-Set
    Great skills are cultivated through continuous effort more so than initial talent or IQ. Without effort…you fail by default. Understand that success starts with the effort of optimism and a growth mindset.

 

The Real Talent Is Emotional Toughness- Part 3

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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After reading this book, it is my hope that you, the athlete, understand a simple concept- to strengthen emotional aptitude, you must take deliberate customized action and set aside time to focus on improving yourself each and every day. Not just improving your game …Not just improving your swing… But improving yourself, which is the essence of emotional stability.

 

Simply improve yourself… And your game will improve.

 

Most athletes live in their “Comfort Zone” –  doing what everyone else appears to be doing, playing it safe, not taking risks or sticking to the road of least resistance. I urge you to leave that false belief system and venture into the “Learning Zone” – doing what’s uncomfortable, choosing the unknown and often more difficult path, trying methods that are new to you or exploring new ideas. If you read this book and then return only to your old, comfortable training methods, it is unlikely your will get the results you are capable of achieving.

Each section of this book, from the solutions to the story telling, is essentially assisting you in doing something extremely difficult … and that something is change. I’m not talking about changing your equipment, your environment or your coaches, I’m talking about changing your routines and rituals. Many athletes may say they want to improve but their words do not match their actions.

To improve you must be WILLING to acquire new routines and rituals and to be DISCIPLINED with their implementation.

 

Any great coach knows that an athlete’s rituals predicts their success or failure.

 

In storytelling, it is my intention to invoke an emotional response which leads to resourcefulness.

That’s why the experiences of the twins; Evan and Jarrod, resonate. Their opinions connect because their stories are all too familiar. Even though their comments represent both positive and negative points of view, their voices are a call to action.

I’d like to offer a warning for those not quite ready to commit to self-improvement. Please don’t expect your results to dramatically change without transforming your emotional aptitude.

 

Self-discipline is doing what needs to be done, even if you don’t want to do it.

 

For those of you who are ready to make emotional aptitude improvements a priority, congratulations, you are on the road to making your dreams a reality. Commit to the process and begin organizing your customized action plan. Each day specify the time needed to begin your metamorphosis.

 

Dabbling here and there in the developmental process is procrastination and is not a proactive life skill. Maximizing potential begins with maximum commitment.

Recognize that change can be uncomfortable and painful in the beginning. It may even be chaotic and stressful in the thick of it.  But change is incredibly rewarding and oh so sweet in the end.

Stop Worrying About What Others Think -Part 3

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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Focus On Improving Yourself Versus Proving Yourself

 

  • Stop Wasting Energy Worrying About What Others Think. Others’ perception of you isn’t based on you. It’s more likely based on their fears of you overtaking them.

 

  • Realize That Rivals Are Probably Not Thinking About You Anyway. Here’s a shocker… Rivals are most likely worrying about what you’re thinking of them and not the other way around. Imaginary scenarios of what your opponent is thinking is basically a figment of your imagination and shows a lack of emotional maturity and childlike insecurities.

 

  • Remember That Strangers Don’t Really Know You. Even if your rivals form a “superficial hatred” of you, it is most likely a result of fear and jealousy rather than facts. They’re actually complicating their life by wasting energy on non-productive dramas.

 

  • Enjoy Being You. Strive to be the individual others secretly emulate and/or gossip about. The National Enquirer and other gossip magazines generate millions of dollars monthly in this practice. Be grateful that you’re viewed as a threat and that is why they’re on the attack.

 

  • Flip Your Focus From How Your Rivals Feel, To How You Should Be Feeling. Emotional aptitude requires prioritizing one’s thoughts to the moment at hand. Thinking less often trumps over-thinking about inappropriate contaminants. Letting go of judgment is an important choice that will enable athletes to perform free.

 

  • Trust Your Positive Moral Code. Do the right thing. Make the right choices. By having a solid moral code it allows you to trust your decisions. A positive strong moral code upsets rivals because it raises you above them and takes the emotional power away from them.

 

  • There’s Always Another Naysayer. Even if you cater to a naysayer and put your needs behind theirs…guess what? There is always going to be another one to take their place. Honestly, the better the athlete gets, the more the critics want their say…

 

Worrying Is a Choice

My neighbor’s golden retriever, Lacy, got out the other night. Sadly she was struck by a car. My other neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, was taking out the trash and witnessed the incident. Without hesitation, she ran into her garage, grabbed towels and immediately took charge. She called 911, then like a well-trained athlete, she went to work calming Lacy down, cleaning her cuts and broken leg until help arrived.

During her heroic mission, Mrs. Johnson didn’t worry about what others were thinking. She didn’t wonder if the bystanders thought she was doing it right. She didn’t worry about what they thought about the worn out old towels she was using. She didn’t give her old tattered housecoat or her messy hair a second thought…

The intensity of the situation motivated her to choose not to care what others might think. The story of Mr. Johnson and Lacy demonstrate that thinking about what others are thinking about … is only a choice.

 

 

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THE SOFT SCIENCE OF TENNIS

Release Date: July 7, 2018! 

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Importance of Emotional Development

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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Importance of Emotional Development

 

In competitive sports, our emotions need to be trained as much as our techniques. Why? Because being “clutch” at crunch time is all about confidence, and confidence is an emotional element. In life, research has shown that emotional skills are more important than the memorization of facts, more important than past experience, and even more important than I.Q. Champions understand that managing emotions opens the door to thinking on your feet.

 

Unsuccessful athletes often have a lack of emotional aptitude that limits their ability to adapt, to manage themselves, to manage their teammates or to manage their opponents and to control their athletic environment.

 

Stress is Often Nurtured

Jenny Constantine is a student of mine. She is a tall, lanky 15-year-old elegant athlete from San Diego. She has the appearance of a 1960’s hippie child but with a very short fuse.

Jenny’s dad, Pat, firmly believes that Jenny’s the best athlete in every event, yet is baffled and furious when she loses to less talented opponents most weekends. The ride home after Jenny’s losses resemble a prisoner transport vehicle with Jenny in the back seat getting an abusive interrogation. Pat doesn’t realize that these post-event tirades are just one of the causes of Jenny’s poor performances. (Not only does Jenny suffer the devastating loss on the court, she has to relive the trauma on the drive home from each event.)

Sadly, Pat’s unmet expectations have no basis in reality. These losses don’t stem from poor athleticism, they stem from her underdeveloped emotional aptitude. Jenny’s negative emotional state is a result of Pat’s pessimistic view of the world, which he has successfully nurtured into Jenny.

Pat’s an old school, college athlete. Basketball in fact. He was the kind of athlete that handled his negative emotions the old fashion way, by ignoring and suppressing them.  Pat doesn’t call for any coaching assistance before Jenny’s sectional or national events. He believes that his division 3 college basketball experience is enough to successfully coach his daughter onto the WTA Pro Tour. Pat only contacts me during Jenny’s meltdowns.

A few weeks later at the Super National, Pat’s texts start rolling in as Jenny is mid-match and going down in flames. I texted back, “Obviously it’s too late to preset her protocols and to provide preventative medicine for this event, so let’s just meet for lunch when you get back. Try to enjoy the weekend and the fact that you have such a cool kid!”

A few days later our lunch meeting went like this:

Pat: Thanks for meeting, I’m about to give up. She doesn’t listen to me … She just chokes under pressure. Maybe she’s not cut out for this. She should just quit and be a normal kid.

Frank: Pat, I know you don’t believe in emotional training but what if your old belief system is wrong? What if there was a new approach? Is it possible that there’s another way to look at Jenny’s situation?

Pat: Look, if you have other options…you’ve got my attention. I love my little girl but watching her kick butt in practice sessions and then routinely meltdown in competition is too much for me to handle.

Frank: First of all, thanks for being open enough to hear another person’s point of view. What I’m going to explain to you is what I’m going to teach Jenny. Remember, this isn’t an overnight cure. Jenny’s been stumbling down the same negative pathway in competition for years. It’ll take time to re-route her programming. Does that make sense?

Pat: Yes… I’m all ears.

Frank: Negative emotions, like anger; don’t have to be seen as negative. These emotions are a call for a response. Jenny has preset a pessimistic protocol when angry. She chooses, and I mean chooses, to respond with a self-defeatist attitude. This may sound crazy but anger can have a positive call to action. Anger can start an upward spiral as the new call of duty. Positive verbal triggers might include: I’m not losing to her! Wake up! Let’s go! Right now! You see, we need to link a new response system to Jenny’s negative emotions.

Pat: Oh…I get it. So you’re saying that anger is kinda like fire. It can burn the house down or simply heat the home and help cook the meals… Right?

Frank: Exactly!  Jenny has to be educated to acknowledge her feelings but then change her perception of the feelings. This changes her action plan from her pessimistic downward spiral to her new optimistic upward spiral of actions.

Pat: So her old emotional state doesn’t have to be her future emotional state? I’m embarrassed to say that she gets that from me and I got it from my old man. He was especially stern and very negative … impossible to please! When do we start to fix Jenny? I want to reset her training priorities and set new emotional protocols. Is there anything I can do to help prep her for these sessions?

Frank: Absolutely!  Begin by asking her to jot down five positive memories of her overcoming anger, fear, and/or nervousness in competition. We’ll need to have her choose to systematically manage her competitive memories better. These are the resources needed to flip her pessimistic thought such as: “Here we go again, I always blow it.” “I’m going to choke another one away.” To new optimistic protocols such as:  “I’ve done it before… I’m doing it again.” “I’m trusting myself and playing to win!” These memories are the emotional tools used by successful athletes.  Have her bring her top 5 list next week.

Pat: Got it! Is there anything else I can do to help make this right?

Frank: Yes, apologize to Jenny. Own up to it. Explain to her your history with her grandfather. Realize that these solutions have deeper implications- you are stopping the abuse cycle. You’re not just helping Jenny, you’re helping your future grandkids by stopping this pessimistic cycle. Optimism leads to the growth, confidence and the happiness you seek.

 

Emotional aptitude is not just important for Jenny, it is an essential component to all aspiring high-performance athletes. How important is emotional aptitude in the heat of battle? In my research, I’ve estimated that approximately 80% of winnable competitions were lost for reasons related to emotional inadequacies. Examples include:

  • Weakness in handling fear, pressure or stress.
  • Failure to stay on script (Pre-set plays and patterns.)
  • Powerlessness to control emotions and/or train of thought.
  • Lack of personal leadership qualities in times of conflict.
  • Inabilities to problem solve and adapt.
  • Inability to call up the adrenaline at crunch time.
  • Frailty in handling gamesmanship and intimidation.

 

If any of the above emotional inadequacies resonate with you, proper, customized action needs to be taken. Simply identifying the problem is not the solution, it is just the beginning.

EMOTIONAL SKILL SETS- Replacement Theory

The following post is an excerpt from Raising Athletic Royalty NOW available through most online retailers!
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EMOTIONAL SKILL SETS

LESSON: The Replacement Theory

Zoe is a gifted basketball player. She’s wired with great hands. Sports scientists call her body type: fine motor skill dominate. Her father John played NCAA D-3 ball 25 years ago and is her personal coach. He had thrown in the towel on her basketball career because he felt she didn’t have what it took. John said, “I point out to her everything that she’s doing wrong but she never fixes it!” John demanded Zoe do everything his way, despite the fact that they had opposing personality profiles and body types.

At the eleventh hour, Zoe’s mom brought her to see me,

After completing our initial evaluation session it was clear to me that her weakest component was stamina, not just physical, but mental and emotional stamina.

When Zoe got winded, her movement and spacing got sloppy and she went off script with her low percentage shot and passing selections because she was too winded to stay in the moment. More importantly, her emotions went volatile. Zoe confided in me that her parents tell her each day that she has to lose weight. Several coaches told her the same thing. So why didn’t she? Unfortunately, she was told the problem multiple times but never the solution to the problem.

After I watched a video clip of her game day performance, we went to the clubhouse. I grabbed two ice teas and we sat on the couch and customized a plan.  I helped Zoe understand that she didn’t need another coach to teach her fundamentals. She actually needed to replace the outdated training regimens and poor eating habits with a customized developmental plan and new healthy eating habits.

The solution lies in understanding that just saying STOP to most problems simply doesn’t work. The key is to replace the bad habits with powerful new good habits.

Zoe proceeded to make a detailed list of everything she ate for the past week. We systematically swapped those meals and snacks with healthier choices. Within 6 weeks Zoe dropped her initial 20 lbs. Along with that, her new deliberate training cleaned up her flaws and her attitude improved as well. She worked her brand new customized developmental plan weekly. Six months later, Zoe was about 40 lbs. lighter and honored with the teams most improved player award.

This replacement theory works wonders for the emotional components found in high-performance sports. Just telling your youngster to stop being negative without replacing the situation with a new positive approach simply doesn’t work. Negatives don’t just stop cold turkey because we spot them; negatives must be systematically replaced by positive new habits. Successful athletes are solution oriented and not problem oriented.

 

“THE CURE USED TO DEFEAT REOCCURRING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS IS TO REPLACE THE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS WITH OPTIMISTIC THOUGHTS. JUST SAYING STOP DOES NOT WORK IN THE LONG RUN.”

 

Foster Emotional Strength- Part 3

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

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Following are Five More Solutions to Foster Emotional Strength:

  1. Apply Positive Visualization
    Winners use positive visualization by imagining themselves executing their best patterns and plays without hesitation. Less successful athletes are overcome with negative visualization, which of course overwhelms their thought processes with visions of failure.
  2. Train Under Game Day Stress
    Athletes need to train much more than just their physical techniques and athleticism in practice. They have to get comfortable… being uncomfortable.
  3. Rehearse Tolerance
    Overcome hardships and pain in practice. Simulating stress in practice provides you with the opportunity to conquer your emotional demons. By doing so, reoccurring game day negative thoughts are replaced by positive thoughts such as: “I’ve done this before, I’ve conquered this several times and I know I can overcome this again because I have done it often.”
  4. Learn to Compartmentalize Emotions
    Great athletes stay in their optimal performance frame of mind during discomfort by staying on script (pre-set protocol). This entails choosing to mentally focus on the job at hand by overriding the emotional contaminants, thus not letting emotions control the show.
  5. Stop Feeding Negative Emotions
    Flip constantly feeding the problems, worries, and fears with customized protocols which feeds optimism, courage, resiliency, and fortitude. Athletes should have pre-set triggers (words and actions) that help them focus on positive plays and patterns.

Neuro Priming -Mental and Emotional Training

Coming Fall 2017
Frank Giampaolo’s Newest Release:

Neuro Priming for Peak PerformanceNEURO PRIMING FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE_3D

Until now, athletes routinely warmed up their hardware (strokes and athleticism) but rarely bothered to prime their software (mental and emotional) components for battle. All too often this resulted in their poor software highjacking their grooved hardware.

Neuroscientists report that mental rehearsal activates a network of neural coded motor programs in the brain that when primed activate the athlete’s correct physiological responses.

Neuro Priming for Peak Performance assists athletes by creating customized audio recordings. When listened to, the athlete actually strengthens the physical, mental and emotional neural pathways required for competition.

The Team at Frank Giampaolo Books

Coming Soon Neuro Priming for Peak Performance

Coming Fall 2017
Frank Giampaolo’s Newest Release:

Neuro Priming for Peak Performance

KATIE AUDIO

What is Neuro Priming and why is it an essential addition to an athlete’s preparation?

Neuro Priming is simply a fancy way of describing visualization or mental rehearsals. Customizing and listening to one’s audio tapes increases tennis IQ, reprograms old pessimistic beliefs, changes negative behaviors, speeds up the learning process, increases focus, assist the athletes in quickly fixing stroke flaws, staying on their script of patterns, and coping with stress, nervousness and the fear of failure.

Neuro priming isn’t reserved for the professional tennis players, it will truly assist any athlete serious about consistently performing at their potential.

The Team at Frank Giampaolo Books