The danger of psycho babble

[Geek]

[K]

Rodney Eade:

"You've got to be scientific about it, really, about what you want to get out of it... Sometimes camps can be over-rated. Does it help you get a kick? Probably, no... I don't really like the camps where you get flogged and put 'em out in the bush for two days and they've got to survive..."

Did you use to do that as a coach?

"No. No. I wouldn't do that."

You wouldn't let your players out in the bush?

"Nuh."

[Jezza]

It's BS.

I'm glad the club ditched 'Leading Teams' a few years back which is a part of the broader psycho babble we've seen emerge in the AFL in the last few years.

[K]

[K]

lululemon announced as Official Yoga and Mindfulness Partner of AFLPA

http://www.aflplayers.com.au/article/lululemon-announced-as-official-yoga-and-mindfulness-partner-of-aflpa/

AFLPA CEO Paul Marsh: “With the increasing demands on modern day AFL players both on and off the field, it’s important that players develop tools and strategies to combat these pressures.

“We’re seeing more and more players engage in mindfulness activities to switch off and to also complement their physical training regimes and lululemon’s values and practices align perfectly with what we as an association encourage players to embrace.”


Paul Tinkler, lululemon: “At lululemon, our purpose is to elevate the world through the power of practice. With our roots in yoga, we’ve spent considerable time focused on understanding the mind/body connection so mindfulness and mindful performance are an intrinsic part of our culture.”


[I never knew this athletic clothing company regards itself as "yoga-inspired".
The webpage above includes a pic of Dunn & Stephenson.]

[RudeBoy]

[K]

^ I don't see harm in the AFLPA basically having a sponsorship arrangement with a sports apparel retailer. But they and the AFL really should very seriously consider league regulation to prevent things like the Adelaide Cult Camp.

[K]

On yoga...
Masha Gorodilova & Collingwood (20/12/17):

http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/2017-12-20/the-grind-deexcite-the-mind

[RudeBoy]

It's a bit of a stretch to link yoga to psycho-babble.

[K]

^ You were the only one who denounced the AFLPA for announcing lululemon as its "Official Yoga and Mindfulness Partner".

[RudeBoy]

[K]

Oh, no: the dreaded double-headed eye rolls. Rudey, I should have been more mindful of your post. But perhaps it was a lululemon.

[RudeBoy]

[K]

And now a look at the Brisbane Lions. (Compare with the Crowbots.)

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2018-07-14/what-on-earth-are-the-lions-trying-here

Well, they did win the game...

[John LEWIN]

The AFL, for better and worse, is now totally engulfed by corporatism. With that comes so called corporate culture, a truly vast field of both nonsense and intelligence, ripe with financial opportunity for people with management jive talk proposals to build teams and improve performance.

The management consultancies which market the "latest" "idea" usually rely on some novel aspect to sell their services. The novelty will always get you. It used to be nights out at Gentlemen's clubs ( a long time ago and much more informally ) Then it became SAS weekends. Now in the age of #MeToo it is different types of novelty, hence Lulu lemon. All of this masquerades as group psychology. Usually sold by people who have never read a book, don't know what the "Id" is and are toting forged University qualifications.

We are in the world of sales, convincing people to give you money for something based on the proposition that you need what they are offering.

If you come into the management structure of an AFL club (including the coaching etc staff) you will most likely have a football background and usually not much else. The enormous crowd of opportunists preying on the body of the sport will include lots of B grade aspirants to a place in the corporate sun, who will give you their business cards at club and AFL functions, Presidents lunches etc. etc. Some of them will have some sort of football connection . You may have played with or against them at school. They were B graders on the field then and are the same in business now. They have moved on from real estate and cars. One way or another you will find yourself having lunch etc. and before you know it you and the players and the staff will all be together in an episode of Survivor and/or Love Island saying "OM" doing the "MBTI" the "NEO", or some weird hybrid of all of the above, focussed on a "destination" built by one of their business associates for just such an occasion. Because, taken as a whole, the network is totally mates driven and incapable of critically evaluating anything except a list and a game plan. Now that, admittedly, is an exaggeration. But I think Eddie Betts and his family would wonder what was involved in the decision making that exposed him to the morons that sold just such a fiasco to the Crows.

Probably the most fantastic effort was Malcom Blight's DYI effort having the Geelong players dress up as American native indians. If I recall correctly they sat around the edge of a swimming pool and related their feelings about the club and the team. And, a hazy recollection of fire walking and burnt feet now comes to mind as another AFL expedition to the other side.

I hate to mention it but suddenly I'm thinking about Harry O'Brien and Paul Seedsman again. Yes psychology is the final frontier of football!