Dr Jim Loehr introduced the concept of IPS (Ideal Peformance State) to an international group of coaches and players. Dr Loehr claims his system will help augment an already dominant Spanish position in world tennis.
Drawn from his life's work observing and working to improve the performance of both top flight sportsmen and those aspiring to be so, Dr Loehr introduces his concept of 'Energy Management'. Managing energy is fundamental to our achieving what we ourselves set out to achieve. I hesistate to use the term 'Success' as this is somewhat contentious as it is referred to by Dr Loehr as as an 'external' motivation and can be misused with negative consequences.
Directing energy is an interesting take on the performance question. Humans, it was claimed, work far better in short bursts (aroung an holur and a half). Eneregy needs to be conserved, saved and directed to the projects that contribute to our self defined 'mission'.
Flowing from the Energy principle we have the concept of the 'voice'. We have internal voices that speak to us all the time during training, during competition and off the court. Agassi was used as a most recent and self confessed example of this phenomena. The voices tell us a 'Story'. This story can be positive or negative, but if negative will be the biggest barrier to performance and developing IPS.
This process of unblocking is approached in a new way by Dr Loehr. Tomorrow we will be looking at controlling the voice, rewrting the script and changing the story, which should be fun.
It was particularly interesting to hear the impressions of working with children in the performance sporting environment. Views from the US and UK seem to agree that we have become more child centered and Little Johnny gets what little Johnny wants. It was observed that this child centric approah can be difficult for the parent, child coach realtionship to work in harmony. The Spanish coaches where also referring to the new cultural problem of "Rey de la Casa".
We finished at 7pm and back on at 7am - Myself and the only other English person on the course took on an El-Salvador and Spanish combo in a doubles in the fading light and humidity of a Barcelona evening. Suffice to say we won in two. Good Night.
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