Amy Saltzman, Steve Hickman, and Lori Haase
Sunday, March 1, 2015 | 9:30 am-12:30 pm
Athletes spend endless hours training their bodies for competition. Although many highly successful athletes and coaches acknowledge that the mental aspects are equally if not more important for training and competition, few athletes and teams devote any effort to training their minds.
Examples of individuals and teams who have used mindfulness to enhance performance include Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers NBA championship teams, multi-time beach volleyball Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh-Jennings and Misty May-Treanor, the US National BMX cycling team, SF Giants world series pitcher Tim Lincecum, and recent Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks.
In this session, participants will learn how to share simple, specific mindfulness and self-compassion practices with young athletes, to give them a mental edge in training, competition and life. The practices will support athletes and coaches in
- Strengthening mental focus, physical awareness, and emotional resilience
- Providing specific ways of working with distracting or negative thoughts and feelings
- Increasing the ability to persevere during periods of plateau, set-back, and injury
- Intensifying their natural love of their sport
- Intentionally creating a positive collaborative team culture
This interactive workshop will include case studies, didactic material, experiential practices, and hot off the presses research from UCSD supporting the use of mindfulness with athletes; there will be ample time for dialogue, questions and answers.