⚽️M U N D I AL 🌍

You lose the big points more often than the normal ones, and you've probably assumed that's a flaw in you. In professional tennis, it happens to almost everyone.This episode is about why the big point feels different (because it is different) and the one change that makes it practicable: stop rehearsing from zero-zero.Four ideas from the psychology of pressure:1. Normalizing is an intervention.Half of what a young player suffers is the belief that his reaction is abnormal. Telling him the data says otherwise isn't reassurance, it's information.2. The immune player doesn't exist.Every junior has an image of the player who doesn't feel it. That image is doing damage.3. You can't rehearse pressure at zero-zero.You practice the state, not the stroke. Most training is the opposite.4. Importance is constructed.The ball doesn't know the score. The importance is added by you, which is bad news and good news at the same time.This week: play practice sets that start at thirty-thirty, love-thirty or deuce, so almost every point is an important point.

Under pressure, your eyes go early to where the ball is *supposed to land*. To the outcome. And the contact falls apart. Looking at the outcome instead of the act.The eyes leaving early is anxiety made visible. You're already in the future, checking the result. The body is still in the present, trying to work.A fixed point stops the drift.One stable point of focus does something to the whole system. It's the same reason people stare at a candle, or a wall, or their hands when they need to come back. Certainty vs. control.You can't control where the ball lands. You can control where you look. Players get calm when you give them something that's actually theirs.After the fact.Holding the gaze after contact is the hardest part, and it's the most interesting one — because there's nothing left to see. What you're training is the refusal to rush to the verdict

In a tennis match, you're hitting the ball maybe 20 to 30 percent of the time. The rest, you're standing there. And almost nobody trains it.This episode is about the time between points: what the best players do with it, and what you're doing with yours. It ends with a simple exercise to try at practice this week.Four ideas from the psychology of the gap:1. The gap is where the story gets written.Nothing happens between points, which is exactly why something happens there. You fill it with something. The only question is what.2. Ritual is containment, not superstition.A ritual is a structure that holds you while the emotion passes. That's why every great player

Before a single point is played, your opponent has already sized you up — not your forehand, your posture. This episode covers a real study (Buscombe et al., 2006, Journal of Sports Sciences) where experienced tennis players watched footage of the same opponent, with only his body language changed — upright posture, shoulders back, head up — and rated him as far more likely to win. Same shots. Same ability. Different walk. One idea, one study, one thing to film and check this week.

“Relax.” “Stay positive.” “Come on.”You talk to yourself on court. But are those words helping you with the next point?In the first episode of this ten-part series, Dr. Santiago Dayenoff explores instructional and motivational self-talk: how they differ, what research suggests, and how to experiment with two personal cue words in practice.A starting point for understanding what you say to yourself—and making it more useful.Episode 1 of 10.Research discussed:
Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Zourbanos, N., Galanis, E., & Theodorakis, Y. (2011). Self-Talk and Sports Performance: A Meta-Analysis.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611413136For individual work, contact Dr. Santiago [email protected]

El fallecimiento del jugador sudafricano echa luz sobre una situación que se deja de lado

Referencia de tiempo, marco perfecto para El Progreso.

El carácter instantáneo (mal llamado viral) brinda la oportunidad de acompañar emocionalmente a una persona super expuesta como lo es un jugador de fútbol durante el contexto de un mundial de fútbol, especialmente tras varios errores técnicos en su juego. Del mismo modo que se intenta evitar el bullying en la escuela por las consecuencias que ya sabemos que trae, busquemos ayudar lo más rápido posible a través de compartir este episodio.Gracias,Dr.D

En el comienzo de un nuevo año suele aparecer una idea simple y poderosa: todavía es posible empezar de nuevo. No importa cuán repetidos se sientan nuestros errores ni cuán cansados estemos de nosotros mismos, algo en el cambio de calendario nos recuerda que la vida no es una línea cerrada, sino una serie de reinicios silenciosos.Muchos de nuestros problemas no nacen de la falta de voluntad, sino de búsquedas mal ubicadas. Queremos descanso, intimidad, sentido, pero lo perseguimos en lugares que nos agotan más de lo que nos nutren. Por eso nos prometemos cambiar y no lo logramos: no porque seamos débiles, sino porque todavía no entendimos qué estábamos tratando de cuidar.Tal vez este año nuevo no necesite grandes gestos heroicos. Tal vez alcance con una actitud más amable hacia nosotros mismos, con un poco de curiosidad por lo que hacemos y por lo que en verdad estamos buscando. Desde ahí, sin castigo y sin épica, puede empezar un cambio real: pequeño, posible, sostenido.Dr.D

Un tratado pseudo-científico sobre el objeto más insignificante y más poderoso del hogar del músico: la púa. Un recorrido clínico por su capacidad de desaparecer con inteligencia hostil, activar búsquedas humillantes en cuclillas y forzar la fabricación de herramientas con envases de antibióticos. No es un programa sobre música. Es un informe forense sobre cómo un pedazo de plástico puede gobernar tu dignidad, tu postura lumbar y tu relación con el caos cotidiano. Un podcast para reírse de uno mismo mientras la púa, en alguna zapatilla olvidada, escucha.