SOCIETY
many subscribe to a magic formula, says Moran. In reality, every
athlete and sport is different, and different approaches are
required. In Pure Sport, Moran and Kremer provide an
accessible overview of the main techniques that have been
proven to work.
The book is full of interesting anecdotes about top athletes
and their psychological techniques. Moran and Kremer also
provide plenty of cautionary tales about how the discipline can
be abused. In the 1978 World Chess Championship, for example,
Viktor Korchnoi became so obsessed with psychological
techniques that he accused his opponent of directing ‘psi’ waves
against him, and hired a team of Swiss psychologists to
intercept them. Sound sports psychology, says Moran, is a much
more practical affair.
He cites the example of Irish rugby international Ronan
O’Gara, who routinely employs two well-established tenets of
sports psychology before taking a pressure kick — an opening
routine of trigger words (his personal mantra of ‘stay tall,
follow through’) and mental imaging (imagining a loop that
the ball must go through).
Pure Sport takes the reader through the theory of sports
psychology and the practice of elite performers, providing
useful techniques any athlete can use. A key concept explored
in the book is one famously employed by golf legend Tiger
Woods. “Woods, like many athletes who reach the top and stay
there, is task motivated, rather than ego motivated,” says
Moran. “He doesn’t seek to achieve at the expense of others, as
we are often programmed to do in sport. He is always focused
on competing with himself, improving on his own past
performances. It’s something all players could apply, not only to
improve their performance but also to protect and nurture the
pure love of sport for its own sake.”
Louise Holden is studying for a Masters in Education at the UCD
School of Education & Lifelong Learning and has been writing
on education matters for 12 years. She is currently an education
correspondent with The Irish Times.
UCD CONNECTIONS PAGE FORTY NINE
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