Math Teacher for Sportsman

By: Shahryar Badar
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:23
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Have you heard of the new energy drink? “High powered Math Shake - Gulp one down today and say goodbye to your weak math forever.” Even I haven’t. But what if such a thing really exists. Wouldn’t that be great for the sportsmen in particular and sports in general ? Our would-be world champs be then able to concentrate on their game better and stop worrying about their upcoming Math paper. Unfortunately, for now such a product is not available at your local drug store ( or for that matter anywhere else ).
But thankfully there is an easier way of teaching math to a sportsman.

Sports and Math.

Can sports and math go hand in hand ? It is common to find many talented soccer and basketball players, swimmers, athletes, gymnasts and other sportsmen struggling with Math. As it is the Math problems are plaguing the students of all grades, age and aptitude but the math problems of the sportsman are particularly severe. That is because sports man hardly gets time in between his rigorous training sessions to study math and whenever he does, then also the textbook appears to be written in Chinese.

Sport skills Vs Math skills.

Does muscular flexibility come at the cost of mental ability ? Working as a Math tutor I have been teaching Math to state level soccer players, swimmers, athletes and even to amateur boxers ( thank God I teach math online ). I have found that many of them have weak math fundamentals but almost all of them have high analytical ability ( the most important raw material to learn math). It has now been even scientifically proved that sportsman’s brain has greater ability to form synaptic pathways ( temporary circuits ) that lead to faster analysis of the problem. Understandably so, as their brain is trained to make split second decisions in the nick of time.

The Ideal Math teacher for Sportsman.

The top shoe companies like Nike and Adidas make specially designed shoes and apparels for their star athlete to dramatically enhance his performance. Similarly a sports man requires a Math tutor who can custom design a Math lesson for his specific needs. This is how a math lesson should be made for a sportsman.

1. Keep the Math lesson like a 100 meter dash : Sportspersons find it difficult to sit down still and concentrate for long hours ( I am not talking about the chess players ). They become restless soon. But the level of concentration they can generate in spurts is amazing. So Math tutor should make sure that Math lesson is kept short yet power packed.

2. Build his Math basics first : Before you can teach a person how to hit a home run, you must teach him how to grip the bat. Even born world champs need to get their basics right. So begin from the very beginning. Once the sportsman is taught the right way of solving math problems, he starts picking up the rest of math pretty fast. Always remember that the mind of a sportsperson is trained to repeat an action to perfection.

3. Stop being his tutor, start being his trainer : Stop preaching a sports man theories of Math. Tell him straightway the action he needs to do in order to get to the answer. I call this a one jab knockout technique. This way you make the sportsperson play at his strength.

4. Teach sportsperson Math in the language he understands : The secret to learn math lies in making your brain relate to it. This way you not only learn Math faster but effortlessly as well. It is not so difficult to understand why athletes pick up fast the topic of time, speed and distance, while snooker players are so good at doing coordinate geometry. The math tutor should make it a point to give interesting stories and examples from the sporting world to drive home the math lesson.

This kind of Math tutoring for sportsman will make sure that learning math is as easy for him as gulping down a protein shake ( provided it is not that awful in taste ).

Article source: Expert Articles