Psychology 26 March 2010

I’m just coming down from 2 back-to-back ultimate tournaments and I feel awesome. I feel strong, healthy, powerful, effective, and influential. I’m 33 years old and feel fortunate that I’m able to throw my body all over the field in the spirit of the game and come away with minor bruises. And I’m well aware of how ridiculous that seems to anyone who does not play ultimate, or competitive sports in general.

Myself, along with a handful of others, got a tremendous amount of playing time. Others were not so fortunate. Others stood on the sideline waiting their turn, waiting for their name to be called to the field while I just walked on, unassumingly.

 Psychology 9 February 2010

Bobo plays ultimate in Halifax and I was lucky enough to meet him this summer at the Parlee Beach Ultimate Tournament in Shediac, NB. Bobo is a young up and coming player and is super passionate about the sport. He was playing in a recent indoor tournament and after a tight point, scored and promptly spiked (well kicked the disc). He wrote an article based on that incident and more generally related it to the sport in general. That article follows below.

 Practice,Psychology,Training 27 January 2010

Brain science tells us that the brain uses different processes and different parts for gaining different types of knowledge. The type of conscious, or explicit, knowledge we learn in school is controlled by the prefrontal cortex. The logical prefrontal cortex can quickly solve rational problems and learn step by step tasks. Using the prefrontal cortex, we can analyze what we know, we can show our work in math problems, or explain to someone else how we performed a task.

 Psychology,Videos 21 January 2010

I discuss what I think the elements of Spirit of the Game are. Knowledge of the rules, willingness to discuss a call, respect for the other team/your own team and more.

Let me know what you think Spirit of the Game is all about!

Popularity: 19%

 Practice,Psychology,Throwing,Training 13 January 2010

This is part II of the summary I began last week (located here). Today’s discussion has important implications for how we instruct new players in learning to a forehand.

In case you’re just joining us, I’m reviewing an article published in Sports Biomechanics called “Biomechanical analysis of the sidearm throwing motion for distance of a flying disc: a comparison of skilled and unskilled players.” (Being a scientist, I should make it clear that my analysis of the work reported is very similar to, but not exactly the same as the conclusions arrived at by the authors of the paper. So this is not a direct summary of the paper.)