Book 2 of 2025 already! I might be turning into a reader if I'm not careful here. Actually I choose a short book for this one that I read in about 3 hours time total. Even at 97 pages, for me to read a book in about 3 hours (over 2 days) worth of time in unheard of.
"Mental Toughness for Young Athletes" by Moses Troy Horne is another book that highly recommend to teachers and students alike. There is a "parent" version of this book as well that I will probably read at some point in time because that version talks about how to support the young athlete as an adult in their lives. The premise of the book identifies the idea of mental toughness and why you need it. Then it gives you eight "lessons" and 5-minute exercises to build your mental toughness.
Although this book is for young atheletes in title, the lessons and exercises in the book can defintely be used by young musicians. In fact there is a section of the book based on the idea of learning by watching masters of your activity. In that chapter, they talk about the Suzuki method of learning violin which was based on of watching and mimicing. In the book they call it the "engraving technique."
So what are the eight lessons in the book? Glad you asked. Here they are -
1) How to Strengthen your Subconscious Mind
2) The Visualization Workout
3) Writing Down Your Goals
4) What the Pros! Not the Joes
5) The Meditation Workout
6) Learn to Play Small
7) Practice Slower
8) Train Rough
Each of these lessons are things that most of us have heard before, at the first few are. What I like about this book is that it gives many short stories of different athletes in each chapter that are using each exercise/technique. Not only that but it gives some interesting stats and facts about each one as well. The one that stuck out to the the most what in the visualiztion chapter.
They talked about a study that involved 3 different groups. Group 1 was instructed to practice a skill, Group 2 was instructed to only visualization doing the skill, and Group 3 was instructed to not work on the skill at all. To no surprise, Group 3 show no improvement in the skill. Group 1 showed 24% improvement by physically praciting the skill. What shocked me was that Group 2 showed 23% improvement on the skill only through visualization of doing the skill. So imagine what the combination of physical practice and visualization can lead to.
There are nuggets of studies like that throughout the book. Another thing I really like is that they wrap up every chapter with a book recommendation that focuses on the lesson of that chapter. So they give you additional resources if one of the exercises/skills is of more interest to you.
They also have free downloads and videos that supplement and support everything in the book. I have not had a chance to check out the website with the freebies yet, but it is defintely on my list of things to do.
Like I said in my last book review (linked here), I am very much thinking about using this book with my students. I think they would get a lot of the here this information from another source.
I would ABSOLUTELY recommend this book to all students and teachers. As I stated early, they have a parent version and a "Part 2" version based on grit. I definitely plan on checking out both of those books in the future.
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