Mental skills consultant Kylie Wilson with Warriors coach Andrew Webster at training. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
\u201cHe and I will do quite a lot of brainstorming and sharing of ideas and strategies of how we might integrate things, and he will lead it. I will just support his leadership of that, and it feels really integrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players work in different groups depending on their experience, skillset or areas they want to develop, whether that is proactive performance-skill development or more reactive support.<\/p>\n
Wilson, with Webster, works with those groups each week and is also available for players who want to engage in one-on-one sessions. But mental skills aren\u2019t just called upon when things are going wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to organise and set up systems and ways of working that set up the likelihood of high-quality performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a team is going well, Wilson says, finding the eye of the storm can be just as important. The noise might be positive, but it is still noise.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something she has seen first-hand during her two years with the Warriors, as the team has experienced significant positive attention and expectation<\/a>, much of it being absorbed by a relatively young playing group.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just harder for young people to shut noise out, to be disciplined enough to keep focusing on the thing that\u2019s going to help you stay grounded.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like they\u2019re going to nail it 100% of the time, but it\u2019s certainly part of our environment, naming those traps.\u201d<\/p>\n Curious and observant about human nature from a young age, Wilson\u2019s introduction to sports psychology came through her own experience as a high school rower.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout knowing it, I was exposed to mental skills work because of my high school rowing coach. We learnt relaxation techniques and breath work at a young age.\u201d<\/p>\n One exercise in particular stayed with her, rowing with her eyes closed and paying attention to the sound of the oar hitting the water. It sparked a curiosity about the role the mind could play in performance.<\/p>\n As a physical education student at the University of Otago, Wilson began to see the possibilities of mental skills work through her studies.<\/p>\n At the same time, she was playing rugby for Otago University, giving her the opportunity to test on the field what she was learning in lectures.<\/p>\n An opportunity to undertake a PhD at the University of Wales in Cardiff took Wilson overseas and also connected her more deeply with the Welsh side of her family.<\/p>\n Working under leading sports psychology researcher Lew Hardy, Wilson completed her PhD in motivational climate, examining the relationship between an athlete\u2019s motivational profile and how well it aligned with that of their coach.<\/p>\n Her PhD was funded by British Gymnastics, which also involved part-time applied work within the sport. For a novice practitioner, it was straight into the fire.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the gymnastics environment at the time, there were a lot of power differentials, particularly the coach-athlete dynamic and it quickly taught me about the role of power. How do you empower people to own their own journey?\u201d<\/p>\n Working with young gymnasts who were centralised, training fulltime and operating in a highly pressured environment also shaped Wilson\u2019s understanding of her role.<\/p>\n \u201cIt made me realise my role as a provider was to bridge the gap between athletes and coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n While in Wales, Wilson coached and continued to play rugby, eventually earning 53 caps for Wales. Coaching the university rugby team also gave her another environment in which to experiment with the concepts she was studying.<\/p>\n Living away from home and working through her own sense of identity gave her an understanding she would later draw on when working with young athletes entering professional programmes.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a real empathy for how challenging growing up and figuring out who you are can be \u2013 but trying to do that when there\u2019s a huge amount of scrutiny and pressure, eyeballs on you, standards and demands that are really stretching you beyond where you\u2019re naturally capable.\u201d<\/p>\n Through her work in the UK, Wilson realised how much she loved the applied side of performance psychology, being alongside athletes and teams rather than university lecturing and research.<\/p>\n Returning to New Zealand, she joined High Performance Sport New Zealand and was able to fully immerse herself in her craft.<\/p>\n She also noticed a different attitude towards engaging with a sports psychologist or mental skills coach.<\/p>\nKylie Wilson: “It\u2019s just harder for young people to shut noise out.” Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Mental skills coach Kylie Wilson at the Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n
Kylie Wilson: “How do you empower people to own their own journey?” Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n