Mental Strength Or Toughness

I have written about Lee Chong Wei's lack of mental strength and generally about this problem in Malaysian sports. See Malaysian sports and Can Chong Wei Do It.

Starsports 20th Aug 2011

Now I am glad that a Malaysian psychologist is offering to help Chong Wei develop mental toughness. He said that Chong Wei is mentally strong but not mentally tough.

Although I am not a psychologist, here is where I disagree. How can you be mentally strong
without being mentally tough and vice versa? This nit picking with words must stop.

Imagine the psychologist telling Chong Wei: "Look, you are mentally strong, but you are not mentally tough. Now, these are the differences. Being mentally tough means a,b,c... blah, blah blah."

Poor Chong Wei will be thinking a.b.c blah, blah and blah every time he tries to be mentally tough and will altogether be lost not being able to see the forest from the trees.

Just get on with the job. Tell Chong Wei that he needs to have conviction in his own abilities that he can beat Lin Dan anytime, anywhere and everytime he wants to. That skill wise there is no difference and that it is mental strength that will see him through and that no matter how impossible it may appear he will beat Lin Dan.

Drill this enough times into Chong Wei's head and he will soon believe in himself and, more importantly, KNOW that he can do it.

Here, although I am not a psychologist, I can vouch safe this. Anytime that you believe you can do it whatever the odds, you can. And anytime you have doubts, you can't even with otherwise simple tasks.

This lack of mental strength is also the problem with the Arsenal football team. Last season as it was winding down and Arsenal needed to be tough, they lost their mojos and played like a wimp and went to perdition losing to teams they should have beaten easily like Birmingham in the Carling Cup final for example.

This season Arsenal have a horrendous start, playing to a lacklustre scoreless draw with Newcastle and losing 2-0 to Liverpool.

Their only bright spot is the 1-0 win over Udinese in the Champions League first-leg encounter.

A large part of the blame must be placed squarely on Arsene Wenger's shoulders. Wenger has lost his juice. When you are losing 1-0 with only about 10 minutes left of regulation time, you go all out and not play a defensive game. What is the difference between losing 1-0 and losing by a larger margin? Remember, you are not winning and trying to protect a lead. You are losing and you need to play to at least a draw or even try to steal a win. This is the mentality of a champion.

And you cannot try to justify your poor form on injuries and the unsettling situation of Cesc Fabregas just leaving the team and the impending departure of Samir Nasri to another.

Of course, Arsene Wenger's insistence on playing beautiful football by passing the ball to death is not helping. You have to try to score whichever way instead of being obsessed with bringing the ball right up to the goal-mouth!

Look at the difference between Barcelona and Arsenal! Barcelona play beautiful football too, and better, but they are not obsessed with bringing the ball right up to the goal-mouth before attempting to put it into goal. They mix up their game well with long shots, running at defenders and clever lops.

Wenger's insistence on and continuing faith in using so-so players like Van Persie are also not helping the team. Van Persie plays well only in patches when Arsenal play well as a team. Otherwise he is a lost soul. Unable to stop a ball well and often losing it when challenged. He also loses his steps easily. And when an opportunity to score comes, he wastes time trying to manoeuvre it to his better foot, the left, before he strikes.

Why some people say Persie is a world class player escapes me. Check out my other posts in this blog.

Now burdened with the team captaincy, Van Persie looks even more miserable. He is not a natural leader like Fabregas.

Wenger should consider giving the captaincy to another player, perhaps Rosicky.

And what is Wenger doing with Walcott? Wenger should not just use him as a speedy winger, running down the flank. This has become so predictable and teams are now learning to cope with him. Wenger should tell Walcott to take on and run at defenders more often. Perhaps use him as a back up striker or even the central one.

Can Chong Wei Do It?

Lee Chong Wei has promised to make amends in next year's London Olympics for his (to me, unnecessary and self-inflicted) loss to Lin Dan of China, in the recently concluded world badminton championships singles. I really hope he does so not only for the country's sake, but more importantly for himself.

Starsport (16th Aug 2011)

I have a lot of respect for Chong Wei for being the no 1 ranked world badminton player. However, as long as there is someone out there who consistently beats him, I cannot be fully convinced that Chong Wei is the best in the world.

And I think he knows it too. We cannot be satisfied of being nearly there. We either are or we aren't. Being the world no 1 ranked player because your nemesis takes part in a fewer tournaments than you is not the ideal situation be be proud of being no1.

You must be able to consistently beat all before you. Chong Wei, in my view, has not be able to positively establish that he is actually the king of the badminton world as long as Lin Dan proves otherwise.

And while Chong Wei prepares to make amends, it will surely be a good idea for his coaches to emphasize a little more on the mental aspect of being a true champion. In fact, Malaysian sports have never been strong on the mental aspect of sports.

A true champion must learn to be consistently ruthless. After winning the first set, instead of coming out with guns blazing in the second set, Chong Wei played a laid back game, making multiple errors and allowing Lin Dan to catch up and level the score at 2-2. And in the concluding rubber set, Chong Wei  let slip a 2 match points advantage to lose the game.

All this showed a lack of mental strength. Like what former badminton great Morten Frost Hansen said, if I may paraphrase him, it is not nice to be too nice.

So, can Chong Wei make it? I am not too optimistic. But I and all Malaysians want to be proven wrong.

Malaysian Sports -When Is Ever The Right Time?

I just watched the BWF badminton world championships singles final between China's Lin Dan and our own Datuk Lee Chong Wei. Chong Wei came within a whiskers of winning the world championships for the first time for himself and for Malaysia.. In fact, he had two match points but characteristically he failed to make it against his nemesis.

Sunday StarSports (14th Aug 2011)

That is the trouble with Malaysian athletes. They do not have the mental strength to see through a game or match. Whenever they are in with a chance to wrap up a game or match, they get excited, play hurriedly or freeze.

But the reason why I am writing this post is because of what a Sunday Star newspaper sports columnist wrote in her column.

She suggested that now is not the right time to break up the doubles combination of Koo Kien Kiat and Tan Boon Heong because they are still Malaysia's best prospects in the 2012 London Olympics even though they failed to shine in the just concluded badminton world championships in London.

When is ever the right time for Malaysian sports to do something meaningful? As far as I know, the right time is always too late.

And as far as I am concerned, the Koo-Tan doubles combination should have been broken up a long time ago. The trouble is that when we did briefly try it, we never stuck to it and the pair are still together.

In fact, Koo and Tan have not been performing well as a doubles pair for a number of years now. That happened since that time a few years ago when Koo Kien Kiat promised to go bald if they won a particular tournament, but Koo only went GI instead.

Just because the pair may still be Malaysia's best hope doesn't mean we should delay doing anything, even to the extent of breaking the combination now rather than later.  What is the use of persisting with the pair if they can only go so far and not all the way. Time wasted is time lost.

Koo and Tan had their heydays when they burst into the world doubles badminton scene in 2006 when they won the Asian Games badminton doubles title in Doha in grand style. They went on to conquer all before them in 2007, winning seven tournament titles.

Subsequently, they have gone from bad to worse. And they are not getting anywhere now.

The other problem with Malaysian athletes is that once they have won something and reached the top, they can't maintain their consistency and form and so fade out fast. Another example of this sad phenomenon was singles player Hafiz Hashim who won the All-England singles in 2002 when he was only 20, and promptly faded out with all the attention and hero worship heaped on him.

There is hardly a Malaysian athlete, with the possible exception of women squash player Datuk Nicol David, who does not fit this mould of success and fast fade out. Lee Chong Wei cannot be considered a real exception because even though he has been the world's no1 singles player for the recent past years, this has been achieved largely because of the absence of his nemesis Lin Dan in several past tournaments and also because Chong Wei has yet to win any big tournaments like the world championships and the Olympics.