Personal psychology Issue and recovery.

Ever since the last Nogiland competition where I got subbed by the Ibjjf Roma open winner, I had been planning my return patiently working on my mistakes and developing not just my physical game but my psychological game and mindset as previously It just wasn't there and my confidence was lacking.

Also just after this, I had a personal breakup and went through some difficult times with this in Barcelona as well as hearing of multiple family health issues back home in Scotland. So really my level of confidence and motivation had dropped and I needed to start rebuilding.

Luckily I was given a lifeline and my hard work had finally been noticed elsewhere and I was promoted to the Training department at my workplace. Now teaching soft skills, I was luckily able to use this material and draw on the experience of my peer's to help me control my emotions by using rational thought.

Also even though I studied Sports psychology over 2 years at college and have a keen interest and currently study Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Sports coaching, I'd never really taken a step back and tried to apply this to myself or thought I would have to.

So, in fact, I needed a coach+mentor of my own...

*Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy has a coach and was coached even though he was so exceptional at what he does winning every gold medal possible in 2008. He says your coach is there to make marginal gains. Tiny little gains that make a difference and this manifested when he went to the London Olympics and broke world records as well as took gold.  – MARGINAL GAINS

After studying coaching deeper and looking into not only the methods+techniques which top athletes are often subjected to by sports psychologists I determined what techniques worked best for my own personal development and tried working on those to overcome my internal struggle.

The top 3:

1. Imagery - Using all of my senses to visualize winning, performing certain movements and help boost confidence while lowering anxiety.
2. Attentive Focus - Focusing on specific cues and triggers while learning to block out excess noise, persons or surroundings.
3. Self Talk - Using self-talk to express motivation and specific instructions to myself.

'I was visualising a particular combination of pull closed guard, arm trap, triangle and I lived, slept and dreamt of this particular sequence.'

'I focused on only the referee and my opponent and practiced blocking out others in training and leading up to the fight I constantly tried to focus in busy areas of my life.'

'I was speaking to myself every day telling myself that I would take this, I would finish my sequence and I would implement my game on my opponent.'

No Joke that when I was focusing and using the self-talk method I remembered a scene from an old movie I loved as a kid called Cool Runnings. 

When one of the guys is in the toilet talking to himself in the mirror pumping himself up for a confrontation! haha

I would recommend using all of those 3 techniques as they helped me greatly over the past few months and I recently gave a 30-minute presentation on some of the techniques used by sports psychologists and the presentation is attached below for whoever may have an interest.

After my hard work and with help from others I can finally say I'm coming out the other side and have managed to get back what I was looking for. My determination, confidence and self-development progress is back! So I can once again say I'm back to the previous ass-kicking style of the past!

Sports Psychology Presentation by Dean Smith 18