More requests for book reading this Festive Season?
How about Bounce by ex-international table tennis player with two Olympic Games behind him, & now a respected Times journalist, Matthew Syed?
He is known to be a writer of authority & clarity, and here he focuses on how natural talent requires 'purposeful' or meaningful practice to be fully realised. Syed weaves various tales through the book from across the world.
There are acknowledged nods to Malcolm Gladwell, Geoff Colvin & Dan Coyle, but in addition there is a section on belief & 'doublethink' explaining how sports' stars must have no doubt about winning to be optimally effective.
In addition to discussing the relevance of anticipation and pattern recognition in elites or novices, this power of beliefs was expanded upon recently by Syed at UKSEM in London. Effort should be encouraged other the praising of pure talent itself to facilitate appropriate 'Growth mindset'.
The synthesis of ideas based on Gladwell, Coyle & Colvin makes for fascinating reading: this is witnessed by the fact past-Clinic physio Olli Finlay & I have picked over its themes; the book was passed around players at the recent Rugby World Cup; and a number of athletes & patients have been discussing it within SPACE Clinic in Edinburgh this past year.
Perhaps that does not make it a 'must-buy' in itself, but it does demonstrate a width of literatary interest in the one text and the subject matter: is talent overrated?
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