Happy New Year! This is a special episode to let you know about an event that Share the Air is sponsoring, the National Ultimate Training Coaches Course. We also compiled all of our Teachable Moments from Season 1 in one place, so give it a listen and we hope you're enjoying the start of 2022!
Click here to learn about NUTCC, the National Ultimate Training Coaches Course! It's an event being put on in January and February, sponsored by NUTC, VC Ultimate, and your very own Share the Air! The form to sign up is here, and you can also email nutc.information@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns. Scholarships are also available!
If you enjoy are enjoying our Teachable Moments, head to Centre for Applied Neuroscience (knowyourbrain.ca) to learn more about our awesome sponsor! The Teachable Moments began in Episode 5 of our first season, and they have continued into Season 2 as well!
Thanks as always to our other sponsor, VC Ultimate for all that they do for us and for the ultimate community.
Share the Air wishes you a happy and healthy new year!
[00:00:08] Luisa: Hey everyone. Welcome to a special episode of share the air. Happy holidays and happy new year. We're bringing you this extra episode um to share some cool information about an event that our sponsor NUTC is putting on.
[00:00:21] Tulsa: Yes. So NUTC is hosting a coach's course series beginning in January talking about a whole bunch of different topics. And the three of us are all presenting.
[00:00:32] Tim: Yeah. And I'm one of those three people. If you don't know me or haven't heard me on a bonus pod, my name is Tim and I am the producer for Share the Air. So even though you haven't heard me, I'm there on all the podcasts.
[00:00:48] Luisa: Always watching, waiting.
[00:00:51] Tim: Yeah, this course is something that, NUTC has been working on for a long time and we're really excited for. And, we're also partnering with VC, which is another share their sponsor. And, there's a bunch of different courses that we're going to be doing a bunch of different classes that different presenters are going to be putting on.
[00:01:09] Tim: And we're going to talk a little bit about some of those courses now.
[00:01:13] Tulsa: Yeah, mine, I'm going to be presenting with Tiina, and ours is called training your team to be mentally resilient. And Tiina and I have taught this a number of times, and it's really fun. We kind of go through a bunch of different typical things that team struggle with and strategies to help work through common problems to help your team both as a team and individuals perform consistently and perform the way you want to.
[00:01:41] Tim: I'm going to be doing one with my friend and co-coach Angela Zhu. And we're going to be talking about how to build an effective and a successful practice and how you can sort of plan out practices throughout a whole season up from one practice going.
[00:01:59] Luisa: And I will be leading a course with Annie Shriver called Building a Team Culture of Growth and collaboration. Kind of as a little bit of a fun fact. I coached Annie her senior year of college. She was the one who brought me into the college team that I currently coach, which is the Vassar Boxing Nuns.
[00:02:15] Luisa: And we're going to talk a little bit about what Annie and other leaders from her years at Vassar did to create the team that exists even today, years after her graduation. And we'll talk about it from both the perspective of college teams and club teams, what culture can look like and how you can intentionally create.
[00:02:37] Tim: And then the last course is going to be taught also by Tiina and by Russell Wallack. They'll be going over how to compete at all different levels. So this course isn't just for elite club coaches or for high school coaches it's for any coach at any level. And we want to talk about how there's sort of a framework for getting your team to compete at their highest potential level, whatever level that is.
[00:03:02] Tulsa: So the course will be over the course of January for Tuesday evenings. And then there will be three followup sessions in the spring as you're working with your team and kind of coming back with questions and problem solving things and working together. So registration is open. We already are 25% full and we have people registered from all over the world and all over the U.S. And we have scholarships available, so if you want to help paying for the course, then you can just get in contact with NUTC and they can help you out.
[00:03:37] Tim: Yeah, I believe that email is nutc.information@gmail.com and that email will go to me so, and yeah, Tulsa said across January, but those courses are actually
[00:03:49] Tulsa: Oh yeah, they start January. Should I say that again?
[00:03:53] Tim: Now it's fine.
[00:03:54] Tulsa: Okay.
[00:03:55] Tim: just an another final note is that, as we've said, this is. put on mainly by the National Ultimate Training Camp, we're also a sponsor for it, Share the Air is. But sort of a heads up that the camp itself will be happening this summer, which is pretty exciting. So get ready for that. You can see me there too.
[00:04:17] Tim: It's gotta be sweet. We hope you sign up email us or email NUTC if you have any questions.
[00:04:21] Tulsa: Oh yeah. And you can register at NUTC.net.
[00:04:24] Tim: That's an important
[00:04:25] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Tim: Good to, good to have that info.
[00:04:27] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:04:30] Tulsa: So you can register@NUTC.net and you can also follow NUTC on Instagram and on Twitter at NUTC_Amherst.
[00:04:38] Tulsa: We also have a compilation of Teachable Moments from season one to share with you. So you can listen and learn from the Centre for Applied Neuroscience and Dr. Mandy Wintink, all of the things that she taught us in one place.
[00:04:51] Tim: Yeah, super exciting. If you're looking for some, some holiday learning and some holiday cheer for the new year, this is a podcast for you.
[00:05:00] Tulsa: Yeah, some New Year's resolutions or something.
[00:05:02] Tim: That's actually a
[00:05:03] Tulsa: We should ask her the neuroscience behind that. Well, I guess her goal setting or something.
[00:05:08] Tim: Yeah. One of them is about goal-setting. I was listening back to them today while I was going through them. And it was pretty exciting because I had forgotten a lot of them and they're all unsurprisingly, really cool.
[00:05:17] Luisa: And applicable.
[00:05:22] Mandy Wintink: Hi, I'm Mandy Wintink, a former competitive ultimate player, and the owner and founder of the Centre for Applied Neuroscience. What we do at my company is we use science and mindfulness to teach people about their brains. So today I have a nugget of applied neuroscience for you that has to do with errors. Imagine that you're learning a new throw and you nail it the first time. Now imagine you're learning a new throw and you miss your target. Which scenario do you think is more likely to result in success later? Well, the science around errors suggests that the scenario where you miss would actually be better for success. Why? Because our brain has an error detection and adjustment system. So for example, learning that new throw, the goal might be hitting our teammate. And if our throw is off, then certain brain regions will detect that and then signal other regions to pay attention. Basically, the brain goes into hyper-focus mode and that involves more brain power, more attention to detail, and greater chance of success later on. What's also really amazing is that accuracy goes up later the more off our throw is at the beginning. So if your throw early on is good enough, then your brain doesn't have to really work that hard. It doesn't have to focus the same way, but if you're off quite a bit, then all the attention that you recruited will actually help improve your throw. So from a brain's perspective, mistakes are good.
[00:06:59] Tulsa: This week's teachable moment is about visualization. Visualization is a powerful mental skill that the brain can use to enhance performance. a practice that you and your brain can do off the field, and it's known to improve a variety of in-the-game skills, like basketball free-throws, soccer penalty kicks, routines, and likely many elements of ultimate.
[00:07:19] Luisa: Basic visualization involves closing your eyes and imagining yourself doing a specific skill, like running an offensive play, laying out with good form or practicing a throw. When you're visualizing, you're activating many of the same areas of the brain that you would activate, if you were actually doing that thing in real life.
[00:07:36] Tulsa: The reason that visualization is so powerful is that from your brain's perspective, you are doing a skill, and the more the brain practices something, the more automatic it becomes. Just like practicing a play or a throw over and over again on the field, it gets easier. The same thing happens when you practice in your brain using visualization.
[00:07:53] Luisa: Tulsa, I know you've done stuff with visualization before. What's your personal experience with it?
[00:07:59] Tulsa: I use visualization for a bunch of different reasons, but one specifically, I like to visualize I have a specific throw that I'm working on. Last season, I was struggling with a specific forehand in a certain situation. And was using visualization to help picture myself doing the throw and executing it in the way that I wanted it to happen. Because I was having trouble doing it physically, I was able to picture it in my brain and run through it, how I wanted it to come out and that helped me be able to do it in real life. So visualization is legitimate practice time for a brain and it can be used for all kinds of performances.
[00:08:48] Tulsa: This week's teachable moment is about arousal regulation. We all know what it's like to pump ourselves up for a big game. Being able to get into our optimal zone can make a huge difference to our performance. Pumping ourselves up is a neurological experience led by our brain. It consists of activating adrenaline and the stress hormone cortisol through the fight or flight system, adrenaline and cortisol, engage our muscles, change our oxygen intake, focus our brain on the goal and strengthen our memory.
[00:09:13] Tulsa: All good things to help us succeed at defeating our threat or in this case, our opponent. Self-talk music and team cheers all do this.
[00:09:20] Luisa: This kind of arousal is an intense experience for our nervous system too much can cause us to perform poorly. Over aroused muscles become tense, hands become jittery, which can lead to dropping a disc or being less nimble in a cut or throw our brain becomes too narrowly focused and we can lose spontaneity and creativity in our play. Our stomach might feel nauseous and we might have to go to the bathroom. We could even start to panic.
[00:09:44] Tulsa: Knowing how to manage this arousal can improve how we perform. Dr. Wintink offers two ways. First, we need to notice when we are over aroused. Checking in regularly with our body on and off the field is a good way to develop the kind of body awareness needed for optimal performance. If we realize we're over aroused, then we can envoke a second strategy, deep breathing, which will activate the parts of the nervous system that is in charge of relaxing us. Elite athletes and performers of all kinds learn how to manage the system so they can be properly engaged and play at their peak performance.
[00:10:21] Tulsa: This week's Teachable Moment is about team bonding. Team bonding is such an interesting concept. The psychology research shows that some things make it more possible, like having a common goal, dealing with adversity and sharing positive feedback, but what's actually going on in the brain during team bonding?
[00:10:37] Tulsa: Well, that's a bit more complicated and not well-studied. One thing worth noting is that connectedness is important to bonding and to success. Our brains feel connected when we feel similar to other brains.
[00:10:47] Luisa: One of the neuroscience ways we refer to this is coherence. Coherence is a synchrony between two brains and can be a way one brain predicts what the other brain is going to do.
[00:10:56] Luisa: Imagine having greater coherence with your teammates. In other words, imagine your brain being able to predict what your teammates brain is planning or thinking. Well, that happens when we spend lots of time together on the field and getting to know our teammates at meals and while socializing. All of these things synchronize our brains.
[00:11:13] Tulsa: The by-product of that synchrony is that we might then react quicker to our teammates actions, which most certainly will result in higher performance. There are many other elements of team bonding and many other elements of neuroscience that likely make this complex experience happen. But being in sync with others is certainly part of it.
[00:11:29] Tulsa: this week's teachable moment is about routines. When we establish a routine, whether it's a warmup routine, the superstitious way we put on cleats or the foods we eat the night before a tournament, our brains work more efficiently and calmly.
[00:11:47] Luisa: Efficiencies are important for the brain because they can serve energy and free up space for our brain to do more complex thinking when faced with uncertainty, like responding to the flow that evolves after playing a play in ultimate. Routines are also calming and soothing for us in our brains because they give us predictability and reduce the stress and adrenaline neurochemicals associated with uncertainty.
[00:12:07] Tulsa: An applied neuroscience tip is to establish routines that you can later rely on to calm your nerves before a big game, like the rituals of cleaning up and all of the parts of a warmup. Also getting the routine of our plays down is good and efficient way to make brain space for in the moment actions needed to respond to the emerging play.
[00:12:24] Tulsa: Routines may be superstitious, but regardless the brain likes them.
[00:12:28] Tulsa: This week's Teachable Moment is about positive feedback. We often hear that positive feedback is better than negative feedback. To teach someone to do something. With positive feedback, the brain's reinforcement system is activated, which produces rewarding neurochemicals and rewarding feelings, and in turn leads to a motivation to do that thing more. This is known as positive reinforcement. With negative feedback, the brain's punishment system is activated, which involves stress and can often involve defeat and even shame. Positive reinforcement results in quicker and more stable learning, whereas punishment and especially too much of it, is less effective in getting the change we want out of someone. Imagine being the captain or coach, and you're trying to get your team to play harder defense. Yelling at them to play harder D would be punishment and is going to be less effective than using the positive reinforcement model where you point out the player who is playing hard D and then explain exactly what that player is doing. Using positive reinforcement will not only keep the player playing hard deep, but that player will also serve as a proxy for what all the other players should now be motivated to mimic. Essentially, the others can feel the rewards of that positive feedback offered vicariously. So yes, the applied neuroscience approach would say it's good practice to use more positive feedback than negative.
[00:13:45] Tulsa: Thanks to Dr. Mandy Wintink and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience for this Teachable Moment. Head to www.knowyourbrain.ca and see what courses they have to teach you more about your brain. If you mentioned you heard about them here, you will get a 5% discount off course fees and they will also donate 5% back to Share the Air.