What makes the perfect penalty?
Expensive fakes
Celeb-obsessed?
Find out what fame is really about and what does it really take to become a celebrity. Katrina Skepper gives her insight into the world of celebrity.
"I was very surprised when I first heard about the memory aspect of taking a penalty. I’m sure most football professionals never think too deeply when it comes to the moment to take the kick.
As to whether I agreed with any of the research I was met with? In general I’d have to say no.I think players of professional ability can fool the goalkeeper into thinking they are going to shoot one way, only to fake it and shoot the other. To be honest I think confidence, holding one’s nerve, good contact on the ball, ability not to crack under pressure lies behind the perfect penalty kick.
When I was with the psychologist Peter Naish, who believes that taking the perfect penalty is all to do with practice, I was showed an experiment using a chess board and memorising chess formations. He said that penalty taking, like chess, was all to do with memory. It’s all very well on a chess board but in reality in the heat of the moment in a stadium of 80,000 screaming fans it’s easy to forget which way the penalty taker put it last time! My overall feelings about the filming were that I was really intrigued to listen to what the experts had to say but in reality I know it’s different. I know there is probably a scientific solution to every problem but football is different - ask any penalty taker."
Peter Naish, psychologist, thinks that penalty power is in the brain, not the boot:
"Mark is a typical skilled lay-person: extremely clever at what he does but not fully aware of how he does it. In fact, it is quite difficult, with skills such as Mark’s, for the practitioner to look inside himself or herself and discover what’s going on; it requires an oblique approach from someone on the outside.
Here’s an example: most of us can ride a bicycle and so can answer the question "how do you turn left"? Answer: "turn the handlebars left and lean over that way". Wrong! Research shows that, momentarily, we turn the handlebars right. That causes a leftward lean, ready for the left turn. We can all turn left, yet we don’t know how, so it’s no good asking.
Mark mentions not thinking too deeply, yet trying to fool the goalkeeper. We do many things on two levels, such as thinking where to put the ball (or where to fake it) but not thinking about what the feet, legs and body will do to achieve it. The more we practice, the more our actions become automatic skills - unconscious memories of how to react. These memories take over when thinking fails, such as in front of 80,000 fans. Whether we are skilled at chess, football or even ordinary activities, practice enables us to respond automatically to patterns in the environment. Mark couldn’t remember the pattern of the chess position too well but take a non-footballing athlete, however fit, and get him to try saving a few penalties: he won’t do too well!"
Viewer's Responses
FA Coaching
Some 45 years ago, as a fifteen year old, I received coaching from FA staff at Lilleshall and came away feeling bitterly disappointed with the total lack of vision shown by them. My experience of the game since then has always confirmed that belief and, with odd exceptions, English clubs and managers have displayed little more vision than back in the fifties. The only notable successes have been by charismatic leadership (Shanks) and seldom by intelligent studies and interpretation of either best fitness techniques or tactical structuring and balance (I exclude Cloughie). Does anyone agree that the influx of foreign managers to OUR game is our only hope of returning to world prominence as the natural commitment of the Brit is harnessed to the more skilled tactical plan and training regime. Anyone who doesn’t agree can go and do me twenty laps round the park.
18 May 2001
The Trager Approach
I am a practitioner of The Trager Approach, a relatively new complimentary therapy from America. I was wondering whether you had ever come across Trager as I believe it could be used by sportsmen and women to increase their performance ability to considerable effect. The Trager Approach is the work of Dr. Milton Trager who first developed his work as a teenager while he was a keen boxer with the encouragement of his coach Mickey Martin.
Milton originally called his work Psychophysical Integration. It uses gentle movement and stretches below the level of the client’s reflex response, to create a repertoire of new sensation that can be consciously recalled. It is almost physically hypnotic, and in this state the unconscious mind can release memories that have created residual tension in the client’s body. The overall effect is to increase circulation, free trapped nerves, create greater freedom of movement and create faster reflex responses. It centres people, brings them into the moment (instead of being dominated by fears of the past or future) and releases them from inappropriate social conditioning.
If you would like more information on The Trager Approach please see: www.trager.com. I currently work with musicians, singers and actors at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I work in conjunction with a local psychotherapist (who says I am undoing everything she can’t undo in her clients) and at Oxon Hoath, an open retreat centre near Tunbridge. If you would like a demonstration of Trager I would be delighted to hear from you.
Yours sincerely
Martin Clout
12 May 2001
