Hi I'm Michelle Zube I'm a board
Certified Behavior Analyst with Brett
DiNovi & Associates. Acceptance and
commitment therapy focuses on teaching
clients to be more psychologically
flexible people who are psychologically
flexible are more inclined to persistent
behaviors despite having or experiencing
negative thoughts feelings emotions or
sensations within their body taking on a
veteran but it was police Herrick who
got her hand mixed if we look at Ashley
it's really interesting why even the
most skilled athlete maybe doesn't make
it to the top while other athletes who
may be equally as skills or maybe even
have a lesser skill set are able to
persist and to become champions in their
in their sport one athlete that I feel
really is a great example of
psychological flexibility is Rose
namajunas who is the UFC strawweight
champion in this interview was post
fight after her defeat over former
champion
you wanna John Jay check rose no
immunised talks about what her keys to
winning the fight were yeah I mean I I
try to put her out of my head as much as
possible you know of course you know
she's a Jedi Master at mind control you
know but she can't control me and that's
that was just a the the key to this
fight was controlling myself and my own
my own thoughts and my own emotions
regardless of what's going on around me
they didn't even play my right up
walkout song or anything like that so I
was a little thrown off it I was thrown
off a little bit with that too so I just
I just kept telling myself like you know
just stay calm and
you know yeah confident condition
composed contain I'm a champion she
talks about controlling her emotions
which in terms of act really shows
acceptance accepting the fact that these
thoughts are gonna happen may be
self-deprecating thoughts some covert
verbal behavior going on there that
could be detrimental to her performance
she also talks about engaging in a
mantra something that she repeated
through her to herself throughout her
training camp and even throughout the
fight in moments where she felt like she
needed to remain calm and breathe
through the moment she also talks about
not paying attention to her feelings
which really is the quintessential
points of psychological flexibility she
acknowledges that they're there but she
doesn't allow them to govern her or to
control her behavior always controlling
my breathing you know not not paying
attention to to feelings as much you
know obviously you know feelings are
just feelings they they should guide you
but they shouldn't control you and you
know you can choose whatever thoughts
you want to that same point she also
talks about not letting her opponent
control her either a lot of Fighters and
just athletes in general really trash
talk and really try to engage in
psychological warfare so being able to
get past that and just to process that
information it's just words that I'm
hearing and being able to persist in her
committed actions her behaviors and her
skills she also talks about the mind is
a muscle and it needs to be trained
which really is at the heart of
acceptance and commitment therapy that
we can train ourselves and we can train
our minds to be more flexible
in acceptance and commitment therapy as
a therapist it's really important to
tell your clients what to do as opposed
to what not to do when we're focusing on
emotional states we're almost
exacerbating the extent to which these
private events are occurring so for
example if you tell somebody not to be
nervous
they're so focused on not being nervous
that it might actually end up making
them more nervous this is especially
true for coaches when they're coaching
their athletes in really high intensity
situations so for example in a high
intensity combat sport situation the
coach might want to tell their client to
breathe stay focused to execute a move a
certain way they also might go back and
remind them why they're there you know
you want this you want to be a champion
and remind them of what's important to
them so in this clip the coach is in the
corner athletes looking a little tired
perhaps a little defeated you can see
that just in the way that he's moving
and breathing heavy and the coach does a
really great job of reminding this
particular athlete to push forward to
accept the fact that his opponent is
coming at him but to move in such a way
move forward and to to push on Wow and
having to push you up against the stage
every time you have to go forward trust
me
you put your head down like a bowl and
you go you put your camp in you're in
your head right now put your family in
your head and you get your attitude and
you get in this he also tells him to
think about his kids which is most
likely something that this individual
values it's there's a goal in mind he
wants to win this fight he talks about
remember why you're here you made this
decision um and really just bringing him
back to the heart of why he's doing what
he's doing he also reminds him to
breathe which sounds like such a simple
thing but it's something in most
high-stress situations that people
forget to do and not focus on think your
kids take a deep breath and I mean it's
so this coach is a really nice job of
working through the act model with this
particular fighter and to really remind
him of the keys to psychological
flexibility in a high intensity
situation thanks for watching what we're
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