Associate professor, Ph.D. M.A. Karpov
Applicant V.V. Vorontsov
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: organization, educational process, sports training, taekwondoka, individualization

Foreword

Subject matter of the study is among the top priorities at the moment due to the growing demand for the training process individualization in taekwondo. The individual approach in this sport is so important and challenging for the reason that the sport itself is very difficult. The known statement of O.A. Sirotin that a personality or identity is one of the most complicated subjects for a scientific research is widely recognized today [6, p.7]. In this context, one of the major challenges for any process individualization is to select a well-grounded set of criteria indicative of the individual specifics of the athlete so that the coach could use this set as a basis for prudential design of an individual approach to the training, mental stability improvement and education of the athlete.

In opinion of A.A. Derkach and A.A. Isayev, two key aspects are of equal importance for the educational process individualization. First, the tutorial action shall be designed to reach and be adopted by every young athlete. Second, the individual approach shall be designed with good knowledge of individual specifics and living conditions of every young athlete and due consideration for these specifics in every step of his/ her personal education and upbringing process. That means that the knowledge of the individual specifics and living conditions of every young athlete gives the coach a good toolkit for selecting the interim objectives, content, methods, means and organizational formats for education and upbringing. The process design shall be rather focused on the specific interim targets and concrete content of the education stages geared to shape up the young athlete’s personality rather than on distant and final goals and generalized content of the education process (since the latter are largely pre-determined by the society) [1, p.135].

The young taekwondokas' sports training process shall be based on a balanced combination of two training components, namely the general preparation component and specialized component. The general preparation segment of the process shall be focused on developing the obligatory minimum of vitally important motor skills and habits supported by the relevant knowledge as an objective for the athlete; and on attaining the desired level of individual physical – reasonably versatile – conditions by the athlete. The basic content of the training program for this component shall not necessarily be tailored to individual specifics of the athlete. Individualization in this case may be restricted to the training and upbringing methods and to additional training instruments [1, p.201].

The specialized component of the educational and training process shall be focused on the individual advancement in the target area.

Both the methods and content of the training exercises shall be designed with due regard for the individual dispositions and talents of the teenagers. A balanced combination of the both training components will create good environment for a versatile and duly individualized physical improvement of the trainee.

Analyses of the available data on the psychological training problems in general and on the athlete’s mental and emotional stability improvement in competitive environment in particular show that one of the major reasons that may hamper the offensive potential of an athlete in sparring bouts is his/her excessive emotional tension or mental hypersensitivity [3]. This emotional condition may be described as a mental strain that may, as demonstrated by many studies, hamper the technical actions and moves of the athlete. Poor fighting experience of a young taekwondoka will aggravate this negative factor.

According to the procedural guidelines for taekwondo by A.A. Peredelsky, the coach must focus in this case on developing an “emotional indifference” in the young athlete [4, p. 67]. The importance of this quality may be well understood, according to the author, when one gets familiarized with the negative impacts of the emotional hypersensitivity that may cause various dysfunctions of body organs and limbs of the athlete. Therefore the athlete vulnerable to this condition must maintain full control and mental balance during the fight and demonstrate fury or fear only to frighten or mislead the opponent.

Objective of the study was to explore some approaches to the educational process design in application to the athletic training of young taekwondokas based on prudential individualization approaches.

Organization of the study

The sample group of young taekwondokas (18 people) who just finished their first competitive sparring bouts was required to master a three-position technique for two weeks. At first they were offered, when sitting in the meditation pose, to imagine them during the past sparring bout (with the highest possible attention to what they saw, heard and felt during the fight). In terms of neurolinguistic programming, this condition is called “associative” and refers to the first position. In the second position, the athlete was offered to mentally relocate to the position of a spectator of the bout and watch his/her own fight with a focus on every feeling in the process. And in the last and third position, the athlete was offered to imagine himself sitting in some other room and watching the video replay of himself sitting among the spectators and watching his own sparring bout [2].

Pedagogical monitoring of the athlete’s behavior during competitions and studies of certain prestart conditions comprise a regular practice in every national, international (European and international) competition. Young taekwondokas of two age categories coming from the Specialized Olympic Reserve Sport School “Core” for Underage and Young Students were selected as subject groups for the study.

The study was designed to fix vegetative activation levels in different situations experienced by the young athletes through metering the skin electric resistance (SER) data. The SER values and the vegetative activation levels are known to be inversely correlated.

The pedagogical, psychological and psycho-physiological control tests to rate the general physical and special fitness of the athletes are performed during training sessions in the periods of training for major competitions. The levels of personal skills and motivation are determined, examined and controlled using laboratory tests during the competition period, with a special attention to the conditions of the nervous system, psychomotor and intellectual functions of the athlete.

Study results and discussion

The study of individual typological specifics of temperament on the sample of junior teenage athletes has demonstrated that the sample may be broken down into seven major groups based on the extraversion parameters they scored, with the individuals in the groups ranging from hyper-introverts to hyper-extraverts [5, p.294].

One girl scored as much as 23 points that means that she was rated as a hyper-extravert; two young female athletes scored 16 and 17 points and were rated as potential extraverts; and three female taekwondokas scored 12, 13 and 14 points and were classified with the group of ambiverts.

Based on the test data, two extraverts were detected among the boys with the scores of 19 and 20 points; and nine boys scored 15 to 17 points and were classified with extraverts. Furthermore the test data proved that no introverts were present among the sample group of athletes.

The temperament rating studies based on the Hans Eysenck’s theory resulted in the conclusion that the young taekwondokas who scored 11 to 13 points may be rated with the normotonic type; one girl who scored as little as 3 points was rated with the concordant type; and the other girl who scored 17 points was classified as a potential discordant having an advanced-level neurosis.

As far as the temperament types are concerned, the study has demonstrated the following: two girls and one boy were classified as sanguine persons; six boys were also rated as sanguine individuals; four boys were found to belong to normotonic ambiverts as they scored 11 to 13 points and reached the levels of both super shares.

The findings provided a sound basis for the differentiated approach to training of athletes for the upcoming events. Tests of mental status in real competitive environment have revealed that the levels of reactive anxiety of the sample group on the Charles Spielberger-L. Hanin scale fall within the range of 29.1 to 48.6 points. And, as could be well expected, the young athletes of week mental types showed advanced and high levels of anxiety prior to the training sessions (43 to 48 points). Taekwondokas of the strong mental type who scored 36 to 43 points were, on the contrary, excessively calm. Those athletes who were rated with the ambiverts on the assessment scale demonstrated the best desirable ranges of anxiety.

Conclusions

Having summarized the test data, we have good reasons to conclude that the individual-approach-based method giving the top priority to comprehensive studies of individual specifics of every student is well-grounded and reasonably efficient. Due to the fact that individual specifics can be very different and vary depending on the general metabolic types, various behavioral models and mental types of athletes, a good set of personality identification criteria is very important for success. A valid and easily employable individualization methodology is the other important prerequisite for the efficient training process individualization. The set of criteria shall determine the individual temperament, its type and features that need to be taken into consideration when the taekwondokas sports training process is designed based on the individualization system.

References

1. Derkach, A.A. Pedagogicheskoe masterstvo trenera (Trainer's teaching skills) / A.A. Derkach, A.A. Isaev. – Moscow: Fizkul'tura i sport, 1981. – 375 P.
2.  Karpov, M.A. Individualizatsiya uchebno-trenirovochnogo protsessa yunykh tkhekvondistov na etape nachal'noy sportivnoy specializatsii: diss kand. ped. nauk. (Individualization of training process of young taekwondokas at initial sports specialization phase: abstract of Ph.D. thesis).
3. Karpov, M.A. Sportivnaya podgotovka tkhekvondistov na osnove individualizatsii (Individualization-based training of taekwondokas) / M.A. Karpov // Vestnik Yuzhno-Ural'skogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya «Obrazovanie . Pedagogicheskie nauki». – 2013. – V. 5. – № 1. – P. 138–142.
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5. Peredel'skiy, A.A. Tkhekvondo, kak sistema boya (Taekwondo as a combat system) / A.A. Peredel'skiy. – Tver': Sport TKD, 1995. – 96 P.
6. Raygorodskiy, D.D. Prakticheskaya psikhodiagnostika. Metodiki i testy (Practical psychodiagnostics. Techniques and tests) / D.D. Raygorodskiy. – Samara: Bakhrakh. – Moscow, 2000. – 672 P.
7. Sirotin, O.A. Psikhologo-pedagogicheskie osnovy individualizacii sportivnoy podgotovki dzyudoistov: monografiya (Psycho-pedagogical foundations of individualization of sports training of judokas: monograph) / O.A. Sirotin. – Chelyabinsk, 2009. – 315 P.

Corresponding author: aikin-va@yandex.ru