How to be a better athlete? It's all in your heart, says West Aurora teacher
For Christina Tammen, the path to improving athletic performance and teamwork is simple enough; it's really just another matter of the heart.
"I truly believe the most under coached muscle in sports in the heart," Tammen, of Naperville, said.
It's this "heartfelt" message that Tammen hopes to bring across in her new book, "C.H.U.M.P., Volume I," an illustrated children's book that teaches children and adults alike how to face their fears in the face of adversity and become better athletes and team players.
The book, the first in a series of five, follows Chump, a third-grader caught in the throes of anxiety during a championship volleyball tournament who must confront his fears to make it through the game.
According to Tammen, who holds a master's degree in sports psychology and has nearly 20 years of coaching experience under her belt, each page of "C.H.U.M.P." is designed to present the reader with different anxieties, like distraction or fear, that the protagonist must overcome.
"C.H.U.M.P." also illustrates the consequences of failing to overcome one's fears.
"The end of my book shows that you can get yourself so worked up you can cause an injury," Tammen said.
"When your faith is in tune and when your hope is in tune, that is the moment you need to exercise hope. Doing that helps you achieve the best and achieve a peak performance for yourself."
Tammen, who teaches social studies at West Aurora High School, first began coaching women's club volley shortly after graduating from North Central College in Naperville. About 10 years ago, while working at a youth summer camp as a coach, Tammen first began developing Chump's story and sharing it with her players as she began to place greater import on coaching the mental aspects of sports.
"My interest in sports has shifted from coaching to psychological elements of the game because we don't really teach that," Tammen said.
"I really feel like when we coach we don't incorporate some of the skills we need in the middle of the game like faith, belief and hope."
Tammen realized that her own skills as a player were not enough to help her players become better athletes, requiring her to shift gears and take on a new focus.
"My whole mentality had just shifted. I thought to myself, 'you need to learn how to coach a player's heart,' and I had no idea how to coach that muscle."
Tammen is also an advocate of what she refers to as "mental martial arts," or the power of an athlete to focus their thoughts in a positive direction to overcome any nervousness they have that could impact their performance.
Eventually Tammen would like to take her coaching online and provide assistance to others seeking help via her Web site, onlineteamcoaching.com.
"C. H. U. M. P., Volume I" can be purchased online at amazon.com. For details, visit chumpkingdom.com.