Mindfulness training in soccer: Engaging the prefrontal cortex of the 9-year-old academy boys

Would you consider meditation for your athletes? Done right, it can be a powerful tool in mediating stress and enhancing cognition on the playing field. And as I discovered recently, you may be able to start with kids earlier than I had imagined.

Every Sunday morning, I coach an indoor soccer academy with my friend Darryl Hooker. We work with players ages 8-10 and focus on ball technique together with speed and agility training—stuff that pertains to the particular physiological “sensitive periods of trainability” that these players are passing through.

We coach 20 boys for the first hour, and then 20 girls for the second hour. Over the course of three or four months, the improvements in individual player performance range from good to great. It’s as good a coaching buzz as you could ever want.    

Notably, the players span almost all ranges of ability and experience. We don’t preselect or try to identify talent at this age. We pretty much take all sorts, and this means we work with kids who demonstrate a wide range of emotional and cognitive maturity.

Present case in point: a handful of nine-year-old boys who really struggle to follow even the most elementary instructions during our sessions.

While the rest of the group attacks every training task with relish and enthusiasm, these guys are often more interested in poking each other, bouncing off the walls, and generally playing with each other in giddy hysteria.

That’s all good and healthy—I heartily support kids being kids and being goofy and playing. But generally speaking, not during the academy. The academy is where we try to instil successful training habits. We endeavour to make the drills and games challenging and fun, but the kids still have to focus and do the work.  

On a recent Sunday, I was coaching a group of 10 boys that included this handful of eccentrics. And it didn’t matter what we did. These guys were just all over the place. Crazy antics prevailed. Finally, I stepped back and reassessed the picture.

These guys were completely “elsewhere” mentally. Trying to coach them was like trying to train squirrels.

So I called the squirrels into a circle and asked them to sit down with me.

I asked them first as a group, and then I asked them one-by-one.

(Apparently they had trouble processing the word “everyone” when I said, “Okay guys, everyone sit down.”)

Once we were all seated, I looked around the group.

“Hey guys. We can’t train like this. We need to be more focused.”

I paused, provided some silence, and surveyed their eyes to gauge their reaction. Lots of fidgeting, eyes darting, some poking. One boy was especially distracted. I had to start with him.   

“Hey Edwin—what’s up, buddy?”

He turned and looked at me.

(The name-thing almost always works. Though Edwin is not his real name. I am changing names to “protect the innocent” and all of that.)

“You’re normally rippin’ it up out here,” I continued, “but it’s like you’re a million miles away today.”

He lowered his eyes and became still.

Slowly, he began to speak. As we listened, he described a situation in his family that made him feel sad. His words came slowly, steadily, measured, mournful.

The boys were acutely attentive. So was I. Real emotion was happening and all the members of the tribe could feel it. 

“Wow,” I said, “That’s rough. You must feel pretty sad.”  

“Yeah.”

We talked about it for another minute or two, and Edwin’s mood became slightly lighter. He looked thoughtful, reflective.

It was a good moment to give him a minute to process.

I turned to another boy in the group.

“Jeremy, what about you? You seem to be having a lot of trouble focusing today.”

Jeremy told the group that he had been at a birthday party the night before where he had eaten a truckload of ice cream and candy, so he figured he was still fighting the afterglow of acute sugar shock.

“Wow, good of you to recognize that!” I said. The group laughed. “I’ve had sugar shock, too. I know what that’s like. I tell you what. We’re going to do a little exercise right now. Everyone cross your legs and sit up like me.”

They all crossed their legs and sat up.

“Just let your hands rest in your lap. Like this. Watch me.”

I gave them a couple of seconds to adjust their posture.

“Now I want you to take a deep breath with your stomach like this ….”

I drew a deep breath and inflated my belly.

“Hold it for five seconds,” I muttered through tight lips. “Then let it go slowly, like this.”

I let the breath escape with a long, audible sigh. 

“Let’s do it together now.”  

We did three long breaths with our bellies, holding them each time, and then releasing slowly.

“Now take your pointer finger, and touch your forehead between your eyebrows.”

I demonstrated and they imitated me.

“We’re going to close our eyes now and do two more breaths, but this time I want you to focus on that spot as you breath.”

“Ooooooh-mmmmm!” said one of the boys, and he giggled.

“Sure, that’s kind of what we’re doing here,” I chuckled. “Let’s breath with our bellies now. Everyone close their eyes….”

We did two more long breaths.

I had done this exercise many times with groups of older players, but never with a group of nine-year-olds. I was very curious to see how this was going to work.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” I said.

The boys were still. Their eyes looked clear and their expression attentive. It surprised me a bit. Just five deep breaths.

“I think we’re ready to play soccer now.” I looked around the circle and nodded to each boy.  

“But let’s do something,” I said. “Let’s totally rock this drill. For the next five minutes, let’s really show how awesome we are.”   

We got up, each boy grabbed a ball, and we went back to the drill that had been a complete washout only 10 minutes before.

It was great.

Were they suddenly masterful in their skills execution? Not the least.  

But they were about 10 times more focused and intent, and that’s the basis of good training in any activity, whether it’s practicing the violin or mastering the multiplication tables.  

That's the power of meditation and mindfulness training. I wasn’t sure it would work with a group of kids that large and that young, but obviously it does. It has helped my older teams at U12-U18 over the years, especially in preparation for big matches, so I will keep exploring this approach with the younger players.  

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Readers who are interested in the practical uses of meditation and mindfulness are encouraged to check out the work that is being done by the David Lynch Foundation with school children, prison inmates, abuse survivors, soldiers with PTSD, and more. Special thanks to Jacqueline Dara for the tip. Also check out this excellent article about meditation training with police officers in Oregon. 

Copyright © 2014 by Jim Grove. All rights reserved.