Laura Massaro, and Lessons from Penang by Nick-At-Will Laura Massaro won the women's world championship by beating Nour El Sherbini in Penang Laura Massaro Photo: AFP/Getty Images
April 4, 2014
- Personally observing nearly every practice session and every one of
Laura Massaro's five matches played on her way to winning the 2013
Women's World Squash Championships, we find her success not to be so
much of a surprise or mystery.
Laura's
practice sessions on the all-glass show-court at the Spice Arena in
Penang were just about as perfect as one could expect or imagine. Her
preparation, drilling sessions, technique, movement and cool-downs were
all right..."by the book!"
Even
though...in the quarter-finals with Wee Wern Low of Malaysia, the
fourth game could have gone either way, with the 105 minute match
possibly going to Wee Wern, as well with her her fifth and final game
with Nour El-Sherbini of Egypt in the finals, Laura's patience, focus
and steady play resulted in her scoring the last point in each case!
Could
the above be the result of (not only) all of her hard work, but as she
claims in her Women's Squash Association web-site biography, she is
coached by David Pearson? David doesn't (in an interview) seem to take
credit for Laura's success, as much as he does with coaching Nick
Mathew, Jenny Duncalf, Alister Walker, Peter Nicol, Paul Johnson, Simon
Park and Cassie Thomas (Campion/Jackman).
Could
the real secret of Laura's success be that she is also coached by her
husband Danny Massaro!? He was the one accompanying and coaching
her at the recently held Women's World Squash Championships in Penang,
where she became the first female squash-player from England in 15
years to capture the prestigious title. Danny Massaro coaching his wife Laura
It's
basically understood and agreed upon that all other things considered,
i.e. fitness, technique, experience, etc., that squash, in its final
analysis, is mainly a "mental" game. Is this what turned the tide for
Laura, leading to her success as the new women's world squash champion!?
Let's
look at Danny Massaro's background. Danny...39 years old, has been a
lecturer for 15 years in sports coaching and performance. For the past
seven years, he's worked at the University of Central Lancashire in
England, lecturing mainly to post-graduate students in sports,
coaching, performance psychology and neuro-linguistic programming,
which is used as an approach to communication, personal development and
psychotherapy.
The
claim is that using this methodology results in an effective connection
between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic")
and behavioral patterns learned through experience ("programming") and
that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life - and that
the skills of exceptional athletes can be "modeled" using NLP
methodology - and that those skills can be acquired by anyone!
From
Wikpedia: "Sport psychology is an interdisciplinary science that
draws on knowledge from the fields of Kinesiology and Psychology. It
involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and
how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and
physical factors. In addition to instruction and training of
psychological skills for performance improvement, applied sport
psychology may include work with athletes, coaches, and parents
regarding injury, rehabilitation, communication, team building and
career transitions."
