Blog # 7

Today was very exciting, I was able to have a phone call with James Schwebach, he is the Tampa Bay Rays mental Conditioning coach. I was able to ask him a few questions: How do you work with athletes that have explosive emotions? What steps do you take? How do they recenter themselves and go back to competing at a high level ? Also, what made you want to be a mental Conditioning coach. He answered my questions and gave me so great advice. He told me to look for job experience and reach to people. The worst someone could say is “No”. I really appreciated that because he showed me that opportunities are tangible for all people, no matter who you reach out to, most people are willing to help and are human enough to understand that you are in search of experience. He also hammered on the fact that experience is important. The more you work with athletes at an elite level, the more you notice patterns and behaviors that will help you nagaite working with athletes. I really appreciated his advice and look forward to following up with him with more questions.

I also had the opportunity to shadow Dr. Shinitzky in the office this evening. This particular young lady is a phenomenal tennis player, she dominates her opponents and is very successful in her sport. Her goal in working with Dr. Shinitzky is to gain the ability to focus more on competition rather than taking her foot of the gas and slow down. In order to do that we first used pennies and had to stand them up vertically. The idea beside this was to test our focus, but also our ability to leave the past in the past and control our emotions. We also did what Dr. Shinitzky calls a walk and talk. This is when he goes on a walk with the athlete and takes them to particular places such as a dinner, ice cream, outdoor band, etc. The idea beside this is to make therapy fun, because it doesn’t have to be painful or boring! We had ice cream and set up shop there. While we sat down, Dr. Shinitzky ran though the same focusing test that he had before. Since there is so much stimulation outside, the goal for the athlete is to stay 100% there.

The lists ranged from numbers, to words, to months, and even spelling. These exercises allow you to focus your brain. The goal is to tap into your working memory, pull the information you just received out, and then use it. So while all the other stimulation is going on the athlete has to hyperfocus and pay attention to what is going on. For example, I participated in hearing the list and then saying it back. Easy task, like no biggie right? Well yes and no, we jump between two lists and the brain sometimes jumbles them and you get confused. So I had decided that I was nice at it, I had only missed one word on the list and was so focused on it the I missed the list being repeated again. Now, I had really contributed to my own downfall. I was so worried about the one word that the next time around I missed two! What did I learn? Don’t celebrate until it's over, because you can still fail!