The sun, moon, earth, and constellation of stars are aligning to set tomorrow as the most auspicious time of the year to celebrate "Deepavali"; the festival of light. This festival will be celebrated by millions of Hindus around the world.
For Hindus, this celebration marks the triumph of good over evil. And this triumph can only be achieved from an act out of love. It's an action that will touch one's heart as the saying goes "When you touch a heart, you are walking on sacred ground." It's a beautiful feeling that no words can describe.
The simplest act of love is appreciating someone for taking care of your needs. And that is the word " Thank You."What you appreciate appreciates.
Today go to your mom, dad, siblings, friends or anyone who has played a pivotal role in your life and thank them for showering you with all the love, care, and attention. Look at their eyes and you will see tears of joy and love.
Your actions in your daily life are an example for others to follow especially very observant children. They will see how you treat others and your actions will give the meaning of life to them.
Lead a life that appreciates people; thus, you have encompassed the true spirit of the festival of light perpetually.
Have a beautiful time with your family and friends.
Happy Deepavali.
Thank You.
Monday, November 5, 2018
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
The Unstoppable Drag Flickers.Are They?(Updated)
A Goalkeeper is a leader in defending a penalty corner. And his ability to read and grasp the drag-flickers movements will enable him to be in the right frame of mind to face the drag-flicker and structure his fellow four defenders with ease.
Field hockey is one of the fastest sport on earth. It's so fast that in the blink of an eye the ball have traveled to another area of the field. What else in a penalty corner situation where a direct execution will take less than 3 seconds to complete. Not an easy task for a coach to extract any information.
More the reason a coach needs to be forward-looking and having a good support team will be an impetus to him and his team. And one that is pivotal is a sports psychologist as he can prepare the players to learn to use mental skills to prepare for a specific motor skill, such as for a Goalkeeper in defending a penalty corner,drag-flickers or in a shootout. In essence, a sports psychologist does mental game coaching to guide players to improve their performance via mental training.
Does your team have a sports psychologist? If not, Why?
Let's move on to our topic, that is, "The Unstoppable Drag Flickers. Are They? They are if the goalkeeper is not able to look at the subtle patterns of movements and postural clues and extracting information from the drag-flickers approach with the ball. (more information on this in my earlier article on this subject)
At this level, most teams have a goalkeeper coach who with his yesteryear's of experience will be guiding the goalkeeper. And if he has not updated his knowledge with time and without a sports psychologist, sports biomechanics, kinesiologist, and video analyst to support him then he will be without the necessary knowledge to guide his goalkeeper.
The way forward here is, first know how the brain works. The tale of two brain systems i.e explicit and implicit system.
The explicit system is activated when you are a novice learning the various part of a complex skill step by step and after many hours of practice, you will migrate to the implicit system. Whereby you have chunk the various part of the complex skill into one fluent whole. This is called motor chunking; an ability to execute a skill without even thinking about it.
It's like a chess game. If you are a world class goalkeeper using the wrong brain system i.e the explicit system in defending a penalty corner then you would be striving to save the ball using the neural pathway of a novice. Your highly sophisticated skills encoded in your implicit part of the brain would count for nothing.(This happens when the Goalkeeper consciously monitoring the drag-flicker's footwork, arm, hockey stick with the ball moving on the shaft, hip, and trunk).
At the elite level like the World Cup, it's implicit system of the brain that's being used by players. To be the best get the best support team to guide the Goalkeeper coach in formulating a training module that will give the right input into his goalkeeper's implicit memory to defend a penalty corner.
Before I pen off, coaches, you can also collect qualitative and quantitative statistic of a drag-flicker over a certain period of time. It will help you at the crucial moment as studies as shown that they will repeat the same pattern.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the teams in the World Cup all the best and enjoy playing hockey.
Thank You
The above article is my personal view from my experience as a national player for Malaysia during the 90s', a learning coach and an avid reader.
Keeping to my dateline, I could have missed some points. Please feel free to email me for any further information at enbarajkanniah@gmail.com.
Field hockey is one of the fastest sport on earth. It's so fast that in the blink of an eye the ball have traveled to another area of the field. What else in a penalty corner situation where a direct execution will take less than 3 seconds to complete. Not an easy task for a coach to extract any information.
More the reason a coach needs to be forward-looking and having a good support team will be an impetus to him and his team. And one that is pivotal is a sports psychologist as he can prepare the players to learn to use mental skills to prepare for a specific motor skill, such as for a Goalkeeper in defending a penalty corner,drag-flickers or in a shootout. In essence, a sports psychologist does mental game coaching to guide players to improve their performance via mental training.
Does your team have a sports psychologist? If not, Why?
Let's move on to our topic, that is, "The Unstoppable Drag Flickers. Are They? They are if the goalkeeper is not able to look at the subtle patterns of movements and postural clues and extracting information from the drag-flickers approach with the ball. (more information on this in my earlier article on this subject)
At this level, most teams have a goalkeeper coach who with his yesteryear's of experience will be guiding the goalkeeper. And if he has not updated his knowledge with time and without a sports psychologist, sports biomechanics, kinesiologist, and video analyst to support him then he will be without the necessary knowledge to guide his goalkeeper.
The way forward here is, first know how the brain works. The tale of two brain systems i.e explicit and implicit system.
The explicit system is activated when you are a novice learning the various part of a complex skill step by step and after many hours of practice, you will migrate to the implicit system. Whereby you have chunk the various part of the complex skill into one fluent whole. This is called motor chunking; an ability to execute a skill without even thinking about it.
It's like a chess game. If you are a world class goalkeeper using the wrong brain system i.e the explicit system in defending a penalty corner then you would be striving to save the ball using the neural pathway of a novice. Your highly sophisticated skills encoded in your implicit part of the brain would count for nothing.(This happens when the Goalkeeper consciously monitoring the drag-flicker's footwork, arm, hockey stick with the ball moving on the shaft, hip, and trunk).
At the elite level like the World Cup, it's implicit system of the brain that's being used by players. To be the best get the best support team to guide the Goalkeeper coach in formulating a training module that will give the right input into his goalkeeper's implicit memory to defend a penalty corner.
Before I pen off, coaches, you can also collect qualitative and quantitative statistic of a drag-flicker over a certain period of time. It will help you at the crucial moment as studies as shown that they will repeat the same pattern.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the teams in the World Cup all the best and enjoy playing hockey.
Thank You
The above article is my personal view from my experience as a national player for Malaysia during the 90s', a learning coach and an avid reader.
Keeping to my dateline, I could have missed some points. Please feel free to email me for any further information at enbarajkanniah@gmail.com.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Woke Up from Hibernation
Lately my Stats Counter showed a sudden increase in the number of visitors to this particular posting i.e "The Unstoppable Drag Flickers.Are They?"
This could be because of the upcoming hockey World Cup that will be held in Odisha,India from 28 November to 16 December 2018.Nearly a month left before the biggest hockey event,and time is an essence for coaches to peruse as much material as they can to prepare their team for the World Cup.
And one area that will separate the wheat from the chaff is penalty corner defense(PCD).A well prepared goalkeeper is pivotal in defending a PCD hence I will enhance my earlier article for coaches discretion.
The article which I will be posting soon will be from a psychological perspective.
Hope it will be an interesting one that will give coaches some ideas,and in the process enlighten coaches the need of a Sports Psychologist to be incorporated
in their support team.
Till then I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate India,Pakistan and Malaysia in their recent success at the Asian Champions Trophy.
Thank You
This could be because of the upcoming hockey World Cup that will be held in Odisha,India from 28 November to 16 December 2018.Nearly a month left before the biggest hockey event,and time is an essence for coaches to peruse as much material as they can to prepare their team for the World Cup.
And one area that will separate the wheat from the chaff is penalty corner defense(PCD).A well prepared goalkeeper is pivotal in defending a PCD hence I will enhance my earlier article for coaches discretion.
The article which I will be posting soon will be from a psychological perspective.
Hope it will be an interesting one that will give coaches some ideas,and in the process enlighten coaches the need of a Sports Psychologist to be incorporated
in their support team.
Till then I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate India,Pakistan and Malaysia in their recent success at the Asian Champions Trophy.
Thank You
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Salam Aidilfitri
Like the beauty of a rainbow that lies in its many colors, the beauty of Malaysia lies in its multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual society. And in the spirit of Malaysia's multi-cultural identity, many of these cultural and religious festivities are embraced by the community as a whole and celebrated nationwide, regardless of race or belief.
Tomorrow it's time for Muslims in Malaysia and across the globe to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Fitr, known in Malaysia as Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Hari Raya Puasa. This celebration marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and begins the month of Syawal.
Truly, to commensurate this joyous celebration, flickering lights and flowers will adorn home and Malay delicacies are served -all marking of a person's triumph and success on discipline and self-resistance.In essence, the word discipline means to learn.
So as friends and families come together in celebration, let me wish you all a Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
Thank You.
Monday, March 19, 2018
The Meaning of Kindness
The "Meaning of Kindness" was written by my beautiful niece Sasmiita Segar.
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Today I am going to talk about what it really means to be kind. These days we rarely see people being kind or understanding of one another and some people may see it as a form of weakness or a bruise to their ego.
Well to start things off, what is kindness actually? To me, kindness is when you have compassion for others and treat them in a positive and sincere manner.
Now there are many ways to be kind to others. It could even be a very small and simple gesture. You could be kind by sharing your umbrella with someone during a heavy downpour, helping your teacher carry her books or even paying for someone's meal when they do not have enough money.
I would like to tell you about an incident that happened when I was in primary school. There was this one kid who was a little bit different from the others and he didn't have many friends. I was his seatmate and I always tried to strike up a conversation with him.
During Deepavali, it was customary for students to give each other Deepavali cards and I found out that no one had ever given him a card. I felt really sad for him so I got him a card the next day.
He was very happy to have received the card and he even got me one too. It felt really good to have done that for him and bring a smile to someone else's face. In general being kind also makes you feel good too.
There are many benefits to being kind. One of them is an act of kindness could light up someone's day. For example,someone could have been having a few rough and really stressful days in office. One morning when they arrive to work they find a cup of hot coffee, a meal and a note from their colleague saying that there are brighter days ahead and telling them to be strong.
I'm very sure that one gesture would've made the person feel better and more appreciated and given them the support they needed to go through their day.
Another benefit is that kindness spreads. When you are kind to someone, you make them feel more positive and they will feel like paying it forward to someone else thus creating a chain of positivity and kindness.
in conclusion, kindness is an important value that should be practiced by everyone and it is what keeps us human.
Thank You.
P/S: I think other than my niece's noble intention to share the above article, she wants me to start writing on my blog.
Hope my articles to come will be an enlightening one.
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