Bianca who?
That’s probably what a lot of tennis fans were saying the week after Indian Wells, when this 18-year old Canadian player of Romanian heritage seemed to bolt out of nowhere to win her first WTA tournament. First wild-card winner ever. Youngest champion since Serena in 1991. First Canadian to win the event. And what I particularly love is her ability to openly share about the power of mental training and how it’s attributed to her success.
She has practiced meditation and visualization since she was about 12 years old. Yes, I know, that’s only a whopping six years. But it is amazing how this – what some people call “stuff” – works! When asked about it she said, “Yeah, my mom introduced me to that when I was really young. I was maybe about 12. Ever since then I have been meditating. I do a lot of yoga, as well, and I think that really helps me just have a balanced life.”
Ask any coaches, any sport, any level, how many minutes or what percentage of practice time they work on the mental game. I bet it will be a very small number. In my coaching, we have 10 hours of practice time a week, and I would say it is challenging to even dedicate 1-2 hours specifically to mental practice and mindset work. So that is only 10-20%, and that is for someone who is a huge proponent of it! Even if on board with the idea, I doubt most coaches effectively integrate mental training into their practice. More on my ideas for that in upcoming posts.
But – coaches and players alike – we all know how important the mental game is to performance. “I don’t only work on my physical aspect,” Andreescu said. “I also work on the mental, because that’s also very, very important. It’s definitely showing through my matches where I’m staying in the present moment a lot of the time. I do creative visualisation techniques in the morning. It’s only 15 minutes. I used to do hours and hours of it but I found that 15 minutes has really helped me and it’s not time-consuming at all.”
As coaches, we must find the time to work on these mental skills such as breathing, meditation, visualization and imagery, focus and concentration, which are all so important for our athletes. Important for performance. Important for life.
“It basically is nothing can distract me. I’m relaxed. I trust myself. I trust my shots. I feel confident. In those moments I try to breathe as much as I can, as well, to get into the zone. That’s what I do usually before the match.
We can all learn from Bianca. As coaches let’s integrate more mental training into practice.
Mind over body. Or shall we simply say mind with body?
