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CALGARY HERALD
March 19, 2005
Spellers must get in shape, just like any contender
Valerie Fortney

Think like an athlete -- like a well-oiled fighting machine that can float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

And make sure you can spell abacist, soavemente and polyptoton. Because when it comes to the word world, spelling bee contenders are Rocky Balboa or the great Ali.

So what if these athletes aren't getting into a boxing ring anytime soon? The competition doesn't require skates, and no mouth guards are needed to protect their braces.

Still, when it comes to the spelling bee, the laws of the sports jungle rule.

In fact, according to one colleague whose former job was at ESPN magazine, when it comes to sports pools, even the pool-crazy staff at the magazine's New York headquarters forget a spelling bee isn't technically a real sport: they get more excited about the world famous Howard Scripps spelling bee pool than any other.

When 32 of Calgary and area's best spellers meet today at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the regional finals of the first CanWest CanSpell spelling bee, they'll be vying for a trip to the national finals in Ottawa in April, along with a trip to Washington in May for the ESPN-broadcast, Scripps Howard spelling bee.

They're all super smart kids who know how to spell words that would trip up most adults.

When it comes to the crunch, the winning edge will be who can think like a top jock.

I know there are more than a few out there who'll chuckle over the comparisons between pre-adolescents spelling words on a stage, and Jarome Iginla speeding down the ice as he lines up a slap shot. But it's not just me making this lofty claim. According to two of North America's top sport psychologists, there are indeed more similarities than differences between a spelling bee champion and a champion athlete.

Over the past two decades, Dr. John Murray has helped some of the world's best tennis players (he wrote the best-seller Smart Tennis: How to Play and Win the Mental Game), Olympic athletes and sports teams, including the Miami Dolphins. Today, his practice extends to the worlds of business and academics.

He'd love to get his hands on a smart speller and help them reach the top. "A spelling bee is the most public performance you could imagine," says Murray from his home in West Palm Beach, Fla.

"In sport, you're looking to help people achieve their ideal performance state, and in a spelling bee, you're doing the exact same thing."

According to Murray, the biggest challenge bee competitors face is the way the brain reacts to stress. "If you succumb to the pressure and start thinking negatively, it'll cause a certain perceptual and cognitive narrowing," he says. That in turn will affect memory retrieval. "You may have the proper spelling of the word in your memory, but you may not have the ability to retrieve it on the spot."

Murray says he would work on getting competitors to employ relaxation techniques prior to a bee, such as proper breathing and using positive imagery. "You need to have a certain amount of stress to be alert and on your toes, but too much will make your performance drop dramatically." He also recommends rehearsing, and not letting a mistake devastate the competitor. "You have to develop resilience, which is a willingness to bounce back from adversity."

Dr. Saul Miller has worked with the likes of the Vancouver Canucks, the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Today, the Vancouver-based sport psychologist counts among his corporate clients Nike, Sony and General Motors.

He doesn't think comparing a spelling bee to a sporting event is the least far-fetched.

He also happens to be a big spelling bee fan. "It's amazing to watch, those kids can be under such tremendous pressure. I remember last year at the ESPN-broadcast Howard Scripps bee, one of the kids even fainted."

Miller says much of what he teaches athletes, he would teach a spelling bee competitor. "We'd do a lot of mental preparation, working with focus and emotional control," he says. "You want to get them into that zone where the stress they feel brings optimal performance, where they're the most focused and aroused."

Like Murray, Miller utilizes breathing techniques, visualization and "self-talk" to help those about to perform in a stressful situation. "You get them to say to themselves, 'I can handle it,' 'Be calm,' 'Sound the word out,' and 'Ask the right questions.' You'd be amazed what an effect self-talk can have on your performance."

Most important, he says, is to develop confidence in your skills and abilities. "The best way to do that, " says Miller. "Is to really know your stuff. Then everything else can fall into place."

Considering there are more than 23,000 words in the Howard Scripps list of spelling bee words, that's a tall order. But when're you're a word jock, it's all part of the game.

http://www.JohnFMurray.com
Tel: 561-596-9898