SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Pipe the Pi. What is the Pi? P-I-A-T the psychologically informed environment. This podcast is a journey to find out what this looks like across the floor. The demands of an elite student athlete, the light-fold five minutes when you've managed to get through to someone, whether a student in school or an elite swimmer in the consulting room. This is a truly brilliant insight into two wildly different environments, and I couldn't have enjoyed this conversation more. I've maybe picked that up a little bit too much, but why don't you be the judge? So without further ado, let's get into it with Helen Davis. Helen, how are we?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, I'm very good, thank you. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, not too bad, thanks. Not too bad. How are you managing to deal with our current situation at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Well, I think like quite a lot of people really. I'm uh I'm having kind of good good days and better days and days which are harder. I have a or ordered a large pool, swimming, paddling pool, uh to go in my back garden, which um I'm really enjoying, and it's been something new and different for this period, um, which is giving me giving me quite a lot of joy every day. I go in it every day and I always feel better for doing it. So um that that's been a big plus point. But I still have days where I I you know I I find it quite difficult.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

I think that's probably a an experience a lot of us are are going through at the moment. On the paddling pool front, I think was there a video of you on social media having hoisted yourself against the the house or something, something like that. You'd created some kind of swimming training.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yes, so swimmers do train with bungee cords in the pool, actually, as part of their training program.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

It's hard work on the shoulders, and you have to be very careful because of injury. But a lot of people who are swimmers have been looking to purchase, you know, larger pools to be able to do just that. So that's what I did, and we we created a bungee cord out of two old bicycle inner tubes, which we tied together and then attached them to some wall bars that we have on the side of the house. It provides a perfect bungee, it's been great. So, as I say, I I kind of write myself bungee cord swim sets now and go in for about half an hour each day to do them.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Incredible.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

I know it's not it's not the the average uh lockdown activity for a lot of people, I appreciate, but um, it's giving me a lot of pleasure at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I don't think I'll ever stop being surprised at people's creativity and ingenuity through this this period, somehow trying to recreate what they would normally be doing within the lockdown situation. So I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Yeah, I was just gonna say, I um it it wasn't something that was the a first thought that came to my mind when this situation occurred. And I saw a famous open water swimmer in Holland who on social media showed a video of herself in this paddling pool, and that was really what gave me the idea. And I thought you thought, oh, I could do that, you know. And I spoke to a number of friends who were swimmers, and they said, Oh, what let's get some paddling pools, let's see if we can do this. And um, it's actually created quite a community um of swimmers around this. And I've set up what I call a bungee cord swimming club, and we share swimming swim sets together and bounce ideas off each other, and as I say, it it's been uh a fun way to keep connected with the swimming community.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Brilliant. The BCSD, the bungee cord swimming club.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

We'll be we'll be look be looking up for their Twitter account coming to you soon. Well, look, Helen, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. You've got some uh really, really incredible roles at Swim England. I know you've done some work with the Cambridge University Women's Boat Race. You've worked with Commonwealth medalists and Paralympic champions, but it wasn't all that long ago you were in a completely different field. Can you paint us a quick picture of where you've been in the working world and how you got to this point?

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Yes, my my uh my career has uh predominantly been in education. I did a psychology degree many years ago now at Cardiff University, and I went straight into doing a PGC at Cambridge University and trained to be a teacher. And I was then a teacher for or have been a teacher for the last 25 years in primary education. And in that time, I I mean I've I can't list the number of roles that I've had within in a primary school. I've worked in a number of different schools. I've worked in, I think, every single age group from reception all the way up to year six. I've kind of done um coordinated uh various different subjects in the primary curriculum across schools. I have yeah, had to be very flexible as a teacher in that time doing a multitude of different roles. And I did have a break from teaching to have my three children. I also had a break from teaching when we went to live in the United States for a while and I did some work there, still within education, but I placed volunteers from the corporate world into the public schools in Boston where corporate volunteers read to children in their lunch hour who were not reading at the grade level that they were supposed to be at for their age.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

So although I've had these sort of different experiences, they've all been in in education predominantly.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Okay, that's a hell of a journey, that. So you've been in Cardiff, Cambridge, Boston. That's multiple schools, multiple age groups, multiple subjects. Flexibility seems to be a big word that that's come out there. Managed to find the time to have three children amongst all of that. And so how did the the transition come about then to to sport psychology? What was the the trigger that made you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

You know, it's funny. Uh it having been in education for so long, I have enjoyed or had enjoyed teaching enormously. I felt it's been a very good career to to do and to be part of, and I've enjoyed a huge amount of it. However, I think I'd got to a point where I thought, am I always going to be a teacher forever? And I definitely felt, and I spent a lot of time thinking about my my own time in education actually, and and thinking, I I I I really don't remember being given opportunity to discuss what other careers were out there. And so I just I feel like I naturally just kind of went into teaching because I knew that there were teachers and people needed teachers and it sounded appealing to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

So so I really had got to a point where, you know, I've been doing it for a long time. I felt I knew the job um and what I was doing. And there's a lot of people who get very run down in teaching. And I began to I always used to say, you know, I don't want to become a money old teacher. That was kind of the phrase I had. And I'd said it for years. I don't want to become a money old teacher. I still want to go into work each day with a smile on my face and feel enthusiastic. And it came to a point where I thought, do you know what? I actually think I am becoming a money old teacher. I felt like things were beginning to weigh me down a bit. I've been doing it for a long time and I needed a new challenge. And I think it was the new challenge actually that that really got me thinking about, well, what else could I do? And then I got to a point thinking, well, sport has been something that's been part of my life ever since I learned to swim, age seven. I've been in swimming clubs for years and and competed uh competitively. And all throughout my teaching career and through having my children, it swimming is something that has I have kept going, I've kept going competitively with swimming and done a lot of racing over the years. And so it got to a point where I was training at Cambridge Triathlon Club with, I mean, very fortunately, with two women who at the time were in the top ten in the world for Iron Man. Which was a pr a pretty for one club to have two people uh in it in the top ten in the world was obviously uh very impressive. And they were great swimming training partners for me. I should add, not cycling or running partners. I was nowhere near their standard there. But in terms of swimming, we swam in the same lane together and we did a lot of training outside of the club as well. And after these training sessions, we would often go for a brunch afterwards and just discuss, you know, sport and our training. And I was very fascinated by conversations that we would have um in these meetings afterwards about their performance, particularly and how negative they were about swimming. And they were very down on their swimming, and it was almost like their races sort of began once they got on the bike and the swim was over. And I got really interested in this and just started, you know, as you do, Googling, you know, psychology of racing and sport. And after a bit of Googling on my part, I suddenly discovered that there was a master's in sport and exercise psychology at Saturn University. And I read the modules and I thought, that's really interesting. I think I'd really like to do something like that. And that really got the kind of the cogs in my brain whirring about could I do something outside of teaching? And well, a few months later I'd enrolled. So um it it was a pretty big transition for me.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Love the um the brunch chats with the the top 10 triathlon competitors. Yes. That's a lovely in in combination with the the the potential question over do I want to do teaching forever? And sometimes these these points where you decide to make a change, they can be a culmination of things that are happening. So it sounds like there's something happening at work, thinking, oh, am I changing here? Am I becoming the grumpy teacher? Then you're having the conversations with your your friends at the triathlon club. And sometimes it can be a combination of things that build up in order for you to make that change. Is that what happened for you?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yes, I think so. I am a kind of person who, if I get excited about something and if I'm feeling enthusiastic about it, I probably tend to not, I don't overthink it, I just kind of go with how I'm feeling. And I was very much encouraged by uh Lucy and Susie and another friend Ed to pursue it. Because I obviously on what one of these occasions I had a chat and said, I've been thinking about this, what do you think? And they very much encouraged me to pursue it. And my husband was very supportive as well. Obviously, I was still uh teaching at the time, and because it was a distance learning part-time, I thought I'd actually I think I can continue teaching part-time and do the course at the same time. So it wasn't at that stage that I was going to be giving up teaching, it was I was going to be pursuing something else alongside it so that I could give myself the opportunity to think, is this a career that I would like to potentially go into? Is it something that I can actually do, a study alongside teaching and you know, bring up a family and have children going through GCSEs at the time and all that sort of thing that was going on. So I think if I'd have thought about it too much, I probably never would have done it.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, that's interesting. Sounds like there was a kind of a point, a light bulb moment there where you almost saw the words sports psychology and something came together there for you. Actually, that that really sounds like me.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yes, and you know, it's interesting. I did not look at the career prospects of a sports psychologist at all. I very much thought, I have no idea where this career might take me, but it looked interesting. I'm feeling enthusiastic about it. Even if I don't do anything as a result of it, I think I'm gonna find it fascinating. So I kind of went with that rather than could this be something that I end up doing in the future? And I think I really went on my gut feeling of I I'm just feeling excited about this, so I'm just gonna go for it. I'm in a very fortunate position in that, you know, I have a 25-year career in teaching behind me, and alongside that, of course, come salary and benefits, and I'm married and have a husband with a secured job. And so I think I do see myself as very fortunate that I was in a position to be able to make that just those decisions and those choices.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, there's a a balance there, isn't there? There's a balance between your context that you've outlined and also a genuine interest and passion for something that you want to pursue. Now, do you now that you've made that transition, do you see the teacher in yourself sometimes? Do you catch yourself in sports psychology consultations or doing work with media and you go, oh, that's the the teacher, Helen coming out?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

All the time, Pete. All the time. Um, yes, I do. I I think, and I think it would be very surprising if I didn't actually, you know, having worked um as a professional in that environment for 25 years, of course, it's had influences over me, and it's a place where I've naturally sat for a long time. And you know, when I first started training as a sports psychologist, I was very aware of that. And I think I was at I was slightly fearful that I would be too teachery, that I would come across as talking too much, imparting too much knowledge rather than maybe guiding a client, but not being too directive, I suppose. And I think naturally I was drawn to interventions like rational emotive behaviour therapy because it was educative in its nature, it had a structure, it was a way that I could teach clients a process to go through to help them with their thinking. And I and I wrestle quite a lot actually with the whole kind of teaching practitioner, and and you know, through various conversations, you know, with my supervisor at the time and other sports psychologists, I think I've come to the conclusion that it's kind of who I am. Yes, I I definitely feel there are moments where I am possibly too teachery, um, but I actually feel I've I've become more settled with that and think I'm actually I think I'm actually a better practitioner because I'm more comfortable with who I am. I'm not trying to pretend to be somebody else. I I think I'm a better practitioner because I'm more natural. And if my natural tendency is to to be more informative on occasion and have more of an educative nature to it, then I feel happier and more subtle with that. Whereas I kind of wrestle with that when I was doing my phase two training more. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

It does make sense. What do you think? Can you pinpoint the the actual skills or the tendencies or the competencies from teaching that you think have transferred and really applied well to doing sports psychology consultancy?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

I think one of the things it goes back to that word flexibility, actually. So so one of the things as a teacher, particularly over sort of my teaching career, the the necessity to have lesson plans, objectives, being able to decide within your class that the level of content that you are giving and how you're delivering it, depending on the ability of the child, it has become more and more predominant in terms of having to have evidence of that written down on paper. And I think as a teacher, over the experience that I've gained over the period of time that I've worked with in education is that sometimes you can have your lesson plan written down on a piece of paper, but when you're actually delivering it to a class, it can go very differently to how you've kind of predicted that it might go. And I think what teaching has done is given me confidence to take a different direction, if need be, in a consultation. Well, you know, if something isn't working, I think to be able to say, okay, I'm gonna change tech here, I'm gonna do something differently, we're gonna abandon that and we're gonna do this, you know, it's something that maybe somebody's not understanding, something that somebody isn't connecting with. So I think that's something that in teaching I developed over the course of my career, particularly early on in my career. You know, it's I've got to stick to my lesson fan, you know, I've got to do do what's what's written down here. But recognising if something, you know, if if the children were not connecting to the material or the resources or whatever that you were using, then you still had half an hour left of the lesson, you could maybe try and change something and mix it up and hopefully give them something that's going to be richer and help them with their understanding more. And I think, you know, when working with clients, that kind of gauging from somebody if they're connecting with what you're talking about, or it's not going down an avenue that that they're kind of feeling emotionally connected to at the time, is is trying to think about other ways or creativity to change direction, to move on, to come back to it at another time.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

At that point, when you're looking at changing direction, when you're looking at changing direction within a session with an athlete, for example, is that intuition that you you're picking up almost through osmosis that they're not connecting with it or you need to change direction, or is there are you spotting specific things in body language?

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Do you know? I think it's a combination of those things, yes. So, for example, one of the things that I think is the kind of the teachery bit in me is that I I like to have supportive material for some of the things that I talk about with conversations with athletes and clients. So I don't know, for example, if we'd been having a conversation on building self-confidence in a session, as an example, I've now created content that I will then share with a client host session. So, and it may be something, you know, some things that I think, oh, with that came up in the conversation, I've got a resource on that that I could share with the client. Now, there are some athletes who, if you switch on the screen and show them something, I can tell immediately whether they respond to that or they don't respond to that. There are some athletes that engage with material afterwards, there are some that don't. And so I very much, you know, from those initial conversations that I have with athletes, gauge whether they're going to be the kind of athlete that that enjoys that or doesn't. I mean, I've had some athletes I've worked with and it just kind of evolved into it was pictures kind of only. Um and and they would draw things, but they found that much easier to express themselves through through artwork that than sometimes speaking to me. So I I think that's all about that relationship building in the beginning and it's body language, it's communication, it's response to what I'm talking about or what I'm showing them as to whether I then pursue that avenue with the athlete or not.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, well, I'm I'm very well aware at your of your punchant for pictures because on the Zoom call, just as we started off, I spotted a rather tasty whiteboard in in the background in your home office. So I'm I'm sure you find that a a a really useful tool when you're working with with athletes to draw things out.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

I particularly work with a lot of children in the teenage age range, and to have them sitting down for an hour sometimes is it just keeps them, they can get up on their feet, they can do things on the whiteboard, whether it be sometimes I just say, you know, just think about this, just go write some ideas down on the board. You know, it's it's just a way of again changing that dynamic. And as I say, I I think this is part of the teacher in me to kind of mix things up, to kind of try and make it creative, draw out a different learning style in somebody because it might it might be something that they connect with more than just talking sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, and I think that's part of another thing that you brought up there, which is the relationship building side of things. When you look at kind of famous education or teacher-based movies, there's always that bit where the teacher has got this very hard to get through to student, but then there's a breaking point where they they finally get through to them. Did you ever have that experience in in teaching? And have you ever had that experience in sports psychology?

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, I mean, I was in teaching, yes, I mean many times. I mean, possibly sometimes, I would say on a day on a daily basis. And I and I think that's the what I loved so much about teaching was the creativity of who who is my audience. And obviously in a classroom, you know, you you have 30 different, 30 different people, and and being able to deliver something that's going to connect with absolutely every single one of those 30 children is is is a huge challenge. So having the creativity and the imagination to to kind of just change something sometimes subtly in the way that you do something or the the way that you shave in the way that you move around the classroom, sometimes something that is up on the wall, it are all ways of of engagement. So certainly with teaching, I would say, yeah, but you know, on a daily basis. I think I think with with working with athletes, that comes over a longer period of time because you're not seeing them as much as you would do with pupils, obviously, in the classroom every single day. But I often find with athletes that when they come back to see you, and you know, you've not seen them for a week or a couple of weeks that their kind of light bulb moments often happen away from the session when they're applying what we've been working on and they suddenly say oh you know and I I you know I was in the middle of my run and I tried this or whatever and and um I suddenly I suddenly saw what that conversation that we were having was all about because they're you know they're applying it in their real life situation.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

You might not be there for the light bulb but you get to see the excitement or the the positivity on on their face when they come back for that next session and they can't wait to to share what they've learned with you.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

It's a build-up effect you know and the more athletes kind of engage and invest in the process that the the sessions hopefully are giving them, the more likely they are to see I don't like you know results, but you know maybe changes or subtleties that come with just spending some time thinking about their psychology around their sports. I mean I I think that's one of the biggest things that that athletes who have regular sessions comment on is that I'm just spending some time thinking about this and and I don't often do that and I've got a concentrated period of time where that's all I'm thinking about and it's actually really useful. Or they find it really useful because it it's just not something that they're tending to do in their day to day.

Half time reflection

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Right then, time for those halftime oranges and a quick reflection on what we've heard so far. One thing that really stood out for me was the difference in contact time in her two careers. In school Helen was doing the kids five days a week for seven hours a day versus working with athletes now which may be once per week or even once per month. This has two knock-on effects that were discussed just now. Firstly change may come over a longer period of time and I suppose this could be considered natural when your opportunity to work on stuff happens at a lower cadence. But it also maybe reflect on the importance of working within a multidisciplinary team. Yes in some instances they may have more credibility or authority with athletes. Yes it's so important to get on in and integrate with the coach in concept but there's also a reality here that coaches just have more time with athletes. It also may be why in my experience the best consultants coach, educate and facilitate the management to be effective when they are not around to drive it. In fact, I went to a conference three years ago at St Mary's University in Twinham organised by the sports chatcy UK. It was entitled Sports Psychology and Chattency Working Together for wellbeing and performance. Loads and loads of sports sites were there because working with chaplains who are in the club every single day or week meant that quality conversations and quality social support could be happening when the sports psychologist wasn't there. The second knock-on effect for Helen was around this idea of the light bulb moments of when you see it. In the world of education light bulb moments happen on a daily basis and you often physically see them in action as something quick for students. Versus working with athletes these often happen away from discussion or away from the consulting room as they work on something that you've been collaborating on. Although as we discussed that may still mean that you see that look of excitement or enthusiasm as an athlete brings that light bulb moment back into the consulting room with you to discuss it. Well speaking of light bulb moments there was certainly one for me in the second half of this conversation but I'll leave that for the full-time reflection at the end. In the meantime let's get back into the conversation with Helen David one thing that I've noticed with talking to my my mother was a head teacher for for many years and other members of my my family have worked in teaching and one thing that I've noticed is in teaching and in the context of this podcast actually teachers seem to be very very aware of how the environment the school's environment is playing a role in the ability for students to come in every day and and learn do you think that has do you think that's made you sensitive to the environment that athletes that you work with are in and how often do issues to do with the environment come up in your your conversations in one-to-one consultancy?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

It's interesting when you're working with athletes who are depending on the the environment I suppose that they're going back into a lot of the clients that I work with are you know individual. Some of them are individuals that are then part of a wider team. I would say generally speaking when I have individual consultations with athletes who are part of a team most of the conversations or what they generally want to talk about are their own individual topics and things that they want to discuss rather than them as part of a whole team. That might be as a result of I think sometimes go into those teams and talk to them collectively as a team. So they see the individual bit very much as as individual. I would say for me personally the environmental context that athletes come with that they they don't tend to discuss circumstances with within their environment as if as affecting them so much as their own individual thoughts and feelings and behaviours that it it's very much something that they they want to talk about themselves predominantly I think is what I'm trying to say there. And that the what the wider context is often not something that they want to discuss or choose to discuss.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

That's interesting. So even though you might have a a hunch that there's stuff that's going on in the environment they want to focus mainly on what's going on with them and so the focus of your work is very much within what they can control within their own individual sphere of influence?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yes I I mean I think that's just my experience so far. You know I I have worked with some athletes where actually where conversations have led to a point where maybe there are some conceptual contextual issues about how they're responding to that and that obviously influence are having influences on their performance but I think generally people are seeing it as a this is something for me. I'm investing time in me and I'm wanting to upskill myself which is fine you know I want to be guided by the athletes interesting you ask that question actually because I don't think I've actually really considered that particularly before but now that I am I do think that most people wanting to talk about themselves predominantly rather than their their their kind of environment.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah and I suppose in the context of the consultancy the one-to-one stuff if athletes have reached out to you with a problem it's probably something that they've been sat with for a while and they really need to get off their chest and and troubleshoot that with someone else and quite often those those really intense issues tend to circulate around a kind of a concept to do with the self or or me.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah I think so absolutely I I I think another thing I was going to say which I just think is an interesting question is a lot of athletes have a lot of loyalty to their their coaches or their and their coaching team. And I think particularly for young people they can be difficult conversations if they were having problems or issues with coaches and uh I think as a young person that's that's quite hard to open up about because obviously they are limited by the location where they live parents taking them to their club or or whatever it is that they're going to so it may be that they don't have other choices. So they just kind of get on with the situation that they find themselves in. So I think for young people that's quite challenging for sport psychologists to tease out anything that potentially could be a problem there because I do think it's their world for a young person they and they don't have the experience of a a wider you know club network necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

There's something there around kind of only knowing what you know yeah what was that classic English literature uh line is it if you only know England of only England knows something like I've probably butchered that.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

But um I suppose it cuts both ways as well if you've only known one environment you potentially are less aware of the elements that could be improved in that environment in order to facilitate better wellbeing or better performance. But also you you might be unaware of how amazing that environment is compared to others because you don't have a a reference point.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

No absolutely and I think um you know for some athletes who end up moving environments for various reasons if they you know they've moved house or if they've been able to have that opportunity they then have a comparison point and they then can look at previous environments and think well what did I learn from that and what am I now learning and what are the good bits and what are the bad bits and you say it's a build up of experience.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Yeah something interesting there in the the the benefit of starting to take your career in a nomadic direction. I mean you yourself mentioned the number of different schools you've worked for and the different age groups and the different subjects there was a um a blog post that I read a few years ago on the career trajectory of a a strategist in marketing and the guy that wrote the blog post was comparing it to the old very old trades like being a goldsmith there'd be three different levels there'd be your trainee your journeyman ticket and then your master so you would train in one let's say goldsmithy uh you can see that I know everything about the the goldsmith terminology there but you you get your your trainee ticket with a a master and then you can't get to master level unless you go off on this journey to start learning in different places around your town, around the county or around the country. And only once you've learnt from other masters and started to triangulate what works, what doesn't work and how you feel you can do it the best only then can you actually apply to get the master's ticket. I think there's something quite interesting in that you know these very very old trades and how that applies in modern day to you building your own skill set through being in different environments and seeing how it works in different places.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yes definitely and I think that's very true in teaching visiting other schools talking to other teachers I've learned so lot from other teachers over the years going into other schools getting ideas and I think you know use other people's ideas if they're good ones then go for it and apply them in in your setting. I feel very much the same in sport psychology you know I've been I'm very keen to talk to other sports psychologists a lot of the time just for that reason because I I found it so valuable in teaching. I want to do the same as a sports psychologist I want to learn from other people I want to hear how they're doing things how they how they feel that they best work with clients. So I I'm all for for sharing and using other people's ideas and trying them out and seeing if they work for you.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

I think that you can see that culture has come through a lot in coaching. You've seen a lot of football managers like Gareth Southgate cross pollinating his ideas by meeting up with Eddie Jones. I know Stuart Lancaster after he left England went on a bit of a a sporting coaching pilgrimage around the world went to learn from NFL coaches and I've heard of a few sports sites making the trip over to Bill Bower to learn from the sport sites over there in their academy because Bill Bower can only pick from that Basque region and yet they've been in the the Spanish top flight for for many many many years with that constraint because they're so good at developing young people. So I can kind of see this pilgrimage happening in and around elite sport within coaching.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

It'd be interesting to see whether that that becomes more prevalent and sports like to be constantly learning in whatever career that you choose to do is well worth the investment. It develops you it it means that you're being ongoing it means that you're being reflective it means that you're evolving as you move through which hopefully is is only going to make you better in whatever discipline you choose to work in.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Do you feel like the more sports and the more athletes that you've worked with you've been able to start triangulating patterns across all of those different domains?

SPEAKER_02 34:28

I do feel that I feel very fortunate to work in a really diverse set of sports which obviously is very fascinating but in terms of the issues that people have in the performance setting absolutely there are similarities across different sports yes depending on the the environment that the sports have that in itself will bring different challenges but um it certainly has helped me in terms of becoming more confident I think as a practitioner is seeing those similarities across the performance context with the athletes I've been working with and I would say as well depending on the the level of athlete there's a lot of these common issues that that athletes have whether they're you know recreational athletes or full-time professional elites.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

So going on to going on to one environment with which you've spent a bit of time in over the last couple of years which I think would be really interesting for people to to hear about obviously within the bounds of client confidentiality etc etc is is the work that you've been doing with the Cambridge Women's University boat team. Sadly the race won't be on this year but what key challenges in that environment for those student athletes because it's quite a unique situation isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Yes it is I do think it's a very unique performance context that the women's boat teams um work in. So I tend to work with them from the start of the university term in sort of end of August, beginning of September and then I work through with them to the boat race which tends to be kind of end of March, early April depend depending on when the date has been set. So I spend quite a lot of time with the athletes and the coaching team and the multidisciplinary team and you know I'm now my third year working with them and I'm always astonished by what these athletes go through on a day to day so so these are athletes who are getting up at sort of four, five o'clock in the morning and they're getting a sort of 530 train because they don't train in Cambridge. They actually train in Ely which is a 15 minute train journey away. So they then get up and they're spending two hours on the water training in the morning they then rush back get on the train get on their bikes and then they're in lectures so they're then in lectures till sort of four or five o'clock and then they go back to the boat house in the middle of in the centre of Cambridge where they have another two hour session where they're burging strength and conditioning and then at the end of all that they then have to eat you know do all their academic work and then they're back up again the next morning and and they do this pretty much seven days a week. So they have this very heavy training load balanced with heavy academic careers. Some of them are undergraduates some are masters some are PhD students so they obviously have their own challenges within that. So they're they're obviously training very hard and then really from about February onwards media attention begins in the build up to the boat race which for for athletes who who are unknowns really they're they're they're unknowns in terms of the sporting world they're very much then thrust into the limelight with a series of interviews and articles television in the lead up to the boat race and then during boat race week it's an incredible experience for the athletes it's it's I sort of describe it as a bit of a circus really I've been down to the for the boat race and I normally spend about five days down there with the athletes and it is an experience like no other for them and they really are very exposed. So those who who've experienced the boat race in Tutany it sort of slightly takes over the the area and wherever they go they're stopped by people they have tourists wanting to take their photograph um they're fortunate enough to sort of restaurant owners are coming out saying come in here we'll give you free drinks and it's something else isn't it you know it it really is some of them of course love that attention and and some of them find it very very difficult and there's a real spectrum of feelings about that but it's it's a very unique performance environment in the lead up to what is their biggest race of the year.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah very interesting you you've got the the academic challenge the sport challenge the media challenge there might be other challenges involved with the challenges that you see quite often with people moving away to university anyway by being away from their family for the first time or if they've they've come over from another country there's a lot of international athletes in the boat race isn't there coming from other countries.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

So I suppose there's kind of a big layering of challenges there to to deal with there really is and and very much my role particularly in the in the beginning is you know helping to maintain wellbeing and to and to help students kind of navigate that this change of lifestyle that they have had most of them have never done the level of training that they that they do once they arrive at the university. It's a really big step up as you say for some of them leaving home for the first time that that in itself brings challenges. You know moving into college accommodation when you've got other undergraduates living around you on the same floor who are not doing sport and who are doing lots of typical things that undergraduates do in their first term at university going out, getting drunk, coming home late at night and making a huge amount of noise and playing music is not great for athletes who are getting up at five o'clock in the morning and have the the physical and mental exertion that they have during their day. So there's there are challenges there as well. And as you say you know a number of the the athletes do come from abroad and are moving to a new country for the first time finding their feet yes in terms of the rowing but but also within their academics and the rowing takes away a huge amount of time for socializing. So that can be quite difficult to make social connections outside of rowing as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Now one of the the aims of the podcast is to make connections between different environments and I'm going to attempt to put you in a difficult position here and make a big leap of connections between your life as a teacher in the education world and the environment of the the women's boat race leading up to boat race day now you might have to use some of that famous creativity and imagination maybe start scribbling on the whiteboard but are there even some even if you have to be creative with it are there even some but even some links that you can see from those two environments?

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Yes I think in the the build up to any event whether that be at school or you know or whether that be be the boat race I think both environments have a continual ongoing kind of reflection about the process that they're going that they're going through um so and that it's actually a a kind of collective process in the school environment that would be through conversations through investment and effort from the pupils and the staff to kind of coordinate together to to to give children the best possible outcomes whether that be in a flat paper or a school play and but but in the boat race as well that time for investing in that consistency of approach means that when they get to the moment where they're going to be performing they've trusted in the process that they've gone through and that there is a confidence that they are as prepared as they can be. You know teachers are inbuilt in terms of preparing children for an exam for as even for a school play you know that there are processes that they go through and that children learn to trust that I can stand here and I can perform to my mum and dad, you know, in a school play or I can get my 20 spellings down because I've learned them at home and I've practiced them and it's the same kind of level of trust and and confidence in the process that the women have when they're walking out yes in front of the world media but they're still going out there they're still aiming to race from A to B as fast as they can with what their outcome goal is in terms of the boat race. So I think you can actually hopefully I've captured there that the the two environments and how actually they can have a similar process.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Yeah the parallels that that you've mentioned there that I've written down a kind of ongoing process ongoing process characterized by collectivity in terms of the people involved working together and being reflective as you do that. And then a parallel in terms of you've got two pools of of people in both environments there. You've got people who are supporting those who are the ones who are going to be performing. So in the education domain you've got the children who are going to be performing their tests and you've got the athletes in the boat race. There's always going to be a gray area around performance because as a support staff you're also doing a performance in how you support someone if you put that for a side for a second you've got those two pools of people and and preparation seem to be the big word there. So you've got kind of leading up to big moments so that an exam for someone doing SATs or or GCCs or A levels is a huge moment in their life and and so is a boat race. And so it's the kind of the preparation leading up to that to make to make them feel like they can meet the challenges on offer.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Absolutely you know and and talking to both pupils and and athletes about you know emotionally preparing for that moment. Yes, they're physically preparing so that they are able to feel like they can get the best out of themselves when that moment comes. To just expect people to be able to do that is unrealistic to do it as effectively as possible the more that goes into that reflection and involvement collectively Effectively, I think in the journey towards that point, hopefully gives the athlete and the people the the trust that they can perform to their best on the day.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Well, I've put you in a difficult spot there in terms of making connections between two very different environments, but I think you've done a great job there.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

I think these are the types of these are the types of insights that are hopefully gonna are going to make this podcast valuable for people to listen to. Just to finish, or just as we're getting towards the end, I just want to ask you a question I'm asking most people on the podcast with absolutely no right answer, just very interested in the different perspectives and viewpoints that people bring to the answer. But what does a what does a psychologically informed environment mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

So for me, a psychologically informed environment is creating uh the environment that allows individuals or groups to thrive. I very much believe that that's a collective process, but it also takes time and investment and effort, and it's an ongoing process. Because it's an ongoing process, you then have chances to reflect, and I believe that that reflection allows you to kind of evolve as you go through, which hopefully then develops a consistency of approach, possibly through some you know sufficient guidance and leadership that can kind of promote that what I call a kind of proactive culture.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

So the pie for you is where individuals or groups can thrive, an ongoing process characterized by reflection, which allows us as a as a team to evolve as we go through a consistency of approach from leadership and one that is proactive. Great. Okay, that's going into my that's going into my little bank of pie definitions from those that have been on. So thank you for that. Um look, thanks again, Helen, for coming on the podcast and and giving up your time. For those who want to follow more about what you're doing, so I know you've got some really interesting projects that you're working on, like the Iron Mind series of videos. Where can people follow you and keep up to date with what you're doing online?

SPEAKER_02 46:13

So my website is thinkbelieveperform.co.uk and there you'll see a number of different samples of I guess of work that I've done. And Ironmind is a tab on there that you can click through to. So Iron Mind is a series of six videos that um help mentally prepare Iron Man athletes for races. And yeah, all the information that you can see about each video and what what each video contains is is on there. There's also quite a lot of work on my website, the work that I do for Outdoor Summer magazine, which is an independent magazine celebrating open water summing achievements. And yeah, I do a lot of articles for them each month, and there's a number of them on there that you can read as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Brilliant. Well, look, thanks so much again, and well, best of luck for the rest of this very challenging period.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Well, thanks, Pete, and thanks for having me on. And I hope listeners found the viewpoint from education and performance interesting.

Full time reflection

SPEAKER_01 47:08

As always, if you are still listening, thanks for joining me for another slice of pie. And if you're an iOS listener or an Apple podcast listener and you've not done so already, if you could leave a review on iTunes, that would really help others find out and discover the Slice of Pie podcast, and that would be hugely appreciated. So, what was my light bulb in that second half worth reflecting on? Well, like Helen, most performers that I have worked with have not sought out private sports psychology consultancy because of a primarily environment issue. Most are because of issues with confidence, performance anxiety, fears about contracts, uncertainties, about the future, or not developing at the rate they would like. As Helen says, you could bucket these as primarily individual issues that they want to work on, and I suppose this suggests that a number of things might be going on. They might have issues to do with the environment, but don't bring these up because they don't think that their sports psychologist is able to help with that. They may realize that there are issues with the environment but feel an external locus of control or a lack of control, or see no need to even try to control or affect these factors. Or door number three, they may be completely unaware of how the environment is affecting what they do from a performance or well-being standpoint. In an episode I'll be putting out in a couple of weeks, I speak to a very experienced tennis coach and performance tutor for the LTA, Chris Suter, where we talk about how many athletes develop through a system or with a coach, which is the only thing they know. And this can be both positive and negative, helpful on or unhelpful, it I suppose it depends on the context. For athletes that move clubs or teachers that move schools, recruitment consultants that move agencies, once you have performed in one or two different environments, you can start to compare and contrast or triangulate what you think helps or hinders you to do your job. So this was summarised in the Ridgard Kipling quote that, as I suspected, I made a right pig's ear off. If you want to know the exact quote, it is, what do they know of England who only England know? This phrase was written by Kipling to emphasise the indifference or even contempt that Englishmen showed towards those outside of the British Empire, even whilst that other world was one that was instrumental in maintaining their lives. This phrase has even been adapted for sport famously by C. L. R. James and his cricket book, Beyond the Boundary. What do they know of cricket who only cricket know? My father only quoted this quote to me very recently, so he'll be disappointed. I fluffed my lines there, so if you're listening, Dad, sorry for that. Finally, we only dipped our toe in the water of the incredibly interesting world of the student athlete, which sounds like quite some lifestyle. Work, train, study, work, train, study, exams, compete. Now, this is right in the wheelhouse of TAS, TASS, which stands for the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme. It's funded by Sport England and they help talented athletes to balance the demands of sport and studies. And I'm hoping to speak to someone from TAS very soon in order to dig into this fascinating world where performance domains of education and sport collide. In the meantime, thanks again for listening and have a great week.