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Australian Academy of Fencing | Swashbucklers' | En-Garde! Fencing |
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The following article is taken from the Psychological Fencing Training Program of En Garde! The serious fencers' training diary.
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The following article is taken from the Psychological Fencing Training Program of En Garde! The serious fencers' training diary. |
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FENCING TRAINING |
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Maître d'Armes Gary Worsfield |
En Garde! The serious fencers' training diary |
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PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAINING FOR FENCING |
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INTRODUCTION
The secret of success is to train your brain. You must put it
through a fitness program in the same way you train your body to get in
shape.
The mind can handle a
tremendous amount of information as long as all the parts fit together
into some kind of coherent whole. The whole, in our case is how the
game is played, the fundamental concepts and principles of play. The
parts are the physical and mental components, the moves, sequences and
strategies that allow us to play the game. The most important
characteristic of each part is its relation to the whole. Learning
fencing develops familiarity with the many types of part-whole
relationships that exist among the fencing actions.
Motor-skill is the
pattern of movements that enables the performer to accomplish a task.
Motor-skill is goal oriented, that is the pattern of movement comprising
the action is directed towards the achievement of a specific goal.
Competent performers focus their attention on goals and the necessary
cues for action, not upon the action itself. Skilled performance is
largely subconscious. To access the sport-specific skills of attack and
defence your concentration must be on the distance and movement of your
opponent.
When a musician starts
thinking about the complex biomechanics involved, the music stops. The
fine-motor coordination that comprise superior skill are disrupted by
conscious efforts to regulate the action, normally subconsciously
controlled.
You have no doubt heard
top class competitors describing fencing:
“ Definitely an
extension of your mind, that de ja vous sensation .... you just know
what he/she’s going to do................ your point provokes, deceives
and touches as if it’s got a mind of it’s own - you’re an amazed
observer! “
These are not mere
comments on the mechanics of the sport but examples of controlled focus
responding perfectly in time with movement, they describe a harmonious
coming together of all of the parts.
Top athletes are performance-skill goal driven. Perfecting the
performance of the skills themselves should be the athlete’s goals.
Mental practice is
clearly seeing a definite performance in the imagination. Thinking is
an integral part of learning especially with complex motor skills. The
goals, strategies and cues must be the primary concern. The thought of
each performance must be rehearsed before - the focus and control
maintained during - and an immediate assessment, evaluating and
considering alternatives after - each performance. Mental practice is
an attempt to formalize such activity in the athlete’s mind.
You first examine and
detail the sport-specific skills in kinesthetic thought patterns by
directing your thought to the various senses. You learn to bio-mentally
feel each and every skill. Clarity of
visualization is your initial objective.
The physical sciences
have developed to a stage where it is now universally recognized that
physiological training and gains are best made through specific
programs. We develop strength programs, flexibility programs, and
specific energy system efficiency and endurance programs. We want to be
physically prepared with no limitations to our game and yet we overlook
what is equally and even possibly more important in fencing -
psychological preparedness. When we think of training in a sport we
tend to think of it as being physical. There is still the belief
that an athlete either has what it takes, or doesn’t. That mental
strength is a natural gift that you either have or you don’t have. This
leads one to believe that the mental attributes are somehow
un-trainable. On the contrary, psychological skills required in
competitive fencing are trainable! We want to be completely prepared
for competition. Perform to our maximum potential. We must therefore
develop as a whole, have no limitations physically or mentally.
To assist this process
we use mental training. As we have been learning we have been relating
the physical skills to what they feel like - kinesthetically. This in
itself naturally stimulates mental visualization.
Once you have
established clarity of visualization you develop the means to activate
and control those neuromuscular sequences in relation to the
co-ordination required for each particular skill. Mental rehearsal
used in this way reinforces the performance of the skill. PSYCHOLOGICAL FENCING TRAINING
Psychological training
for fencing incorporates:
1. Examining ones personal goals (short term, intermediate and
long) and monitoring the short-term progressions.
2. Examining ones personal ideal performance state in fencing:
3. Examining, training and developing control of the following
techniques:
4. Developing and monitoring
personal competition strategies to control the likelihood of
“inhibitors” affecting performance.
Psychological training involves programming our mind to the planned
competition strategies and learning to control all the possible
inhibitors.
This psychological
programming requires being able to relax at will and develop acute
clarity with visualization. We physically train by repetitively
repeating the actions, which we wish to develop as a natural sequence of
the game. The same methodology is used with mental training. We
mentally rehearse the technical actions and the tactical sequences until
they “feel” and become a natural part of the game. Mental rehearsal
should be used and developed concurrently with the learning of the
physical actions. Thinking and visualizing the technical and tactical
aspects of what is being learnt will accelerate the student’s rate of
learning. It is now well known that there are identical physiological
responses of a mentally rehearsed action that duplicate and parallels
the actual physical action. As a consequence, all the principles that
apply to physical learning such as the “over load” principle and the
training time it takes for the body to adapt and modify to the new
skill/s, can be equally accepted as true for mental training.
The athlete should develop these mental skills as a natural part of
learning the physical skill.
Once properly learnt,
mental rehearsal develops as the major training tool in reinforcing your
ideal performance state and competition strategies as well as
controlling “inhibitors” that surface into your game. By the time the
athlete has developed into a competitor, he/she has adequately trained
and developed the mental capacity to control and maintain optimal
performance.
The need for relaxation in developing visualization. The deeper
the state of relaxation, the more the body becomes receptive to
accepting these mental thoughts and images. The ability to control, at
will, our arousal level is a skill associated with elite performance.
There are many ways to develop relaxation (centering, controlled
breathing (3 part breathing, 5 to 1 count), progressive muscular
relaxation (P.M.R.), self-hypnosis, yoga, etc.) Primarily however,
they are based on either physiological response or mental imagery.
Physiologically, there is an inverse myotatic reflex, which is an
automatic reflex muscle relaxation activated by receptors in the tendons
as a result of stretch and muscle contraction. To utilize this reflex
muscle relaxation you simply have to contract the muscles in the area
you wish to relax, hold the contraction for a few moments, and release.
The other relaxation
techniques are based on mental imagery. Focusing thought on an object
(perhaps your own breathing) or an image (perhaps a scene or even
colours) and mentally telling your body to relax. Whatever method the
athlete chooses is completely up to their preference. Some methods are more appropriate to the competition environment than others, one of these being “centering” which appears to be quite popular by athletes across many sports. |
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The above is the Introduction to the Psychological Fencing Training Program in En Garde! The serious fencers' training diary. The training diary is in its final stages prior to publication and will be available here, online from early 2004. |
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Copyright © 2004 www.fencingonline.com and Disclaimer |
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Date Last Modified: 11 Mar 2009 |