A.V. Kokurin, Ph.D.
L.G. Maydokina, Ph.D.
Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute named after M.E. Evsev'ev, Saransk

Key words: sports mastery, psychological competency, athlete, development.

Relevance. The strengthening positions of the Russian Federation in sport prove the importance of the purposeful work to obtain sports mastery of elite athletes. The course set by the Olympic Games 2014 confirms the need to strengthen the status of Russia as a sports power through the development of professional sport, which is impossible without the development of sport skills of every athlete. The leading place in the system of wrestlers' sport training belongs to the development of sports mastery promoting the high-quality professional performance. Sports mastery is a system property that determines the success and efficiency of sports activity and the high level of achievements in a particular sport; it is the result of athlete's deliberate training involving expertise, traditions, material and technical base, qualified personnel and the prospect of participation of training athletes in top competitions in case of having an appropriate fitness level [3].

Among the components of wrestlers' sports mastery the key role is played by psychological competency, on the basis of which the orientation in opponents (in their plans, conditions, intentions, personal traits, etc.) and in themselves as the subjects of fight occur. In case of equality of physical, technical and tactical abilities, the winner is the one who is more intelligent and perceptive, who can see the opponent's plan, understand his conditions, trace his strengths and weaknesses, and take advantage of this knowledge. The development of psychological competency is one of the important tasks of psychological preparation of athletes, and at the same time one of the tasks in forming elite sports skills.

Today the results in elite sport are achieved by combining all the elements of training, including psychological one.

The problem of psychological preparation in sport has been considered both in the works of experts in the sphere of sports theory (V.K. Bal'sevich, L.I. Lubysheva, L.P. Matveev, N.G. Ozolin, et al.) and in the works of sports psychologists (A.V. Rodionov, S.D. Neverkovich, V.N. Nepopalov, V.F. Sopov, et al.). Psychological preparation refers to the process of forming and perfecting the important for sports personality traits and underlying mental qualities. During everyday activities the task of psychological preparation is narrower and more specific: to create an athlete's mental state favorable for successful training and competitions [1].

The psychological preparation helps to maximize the use of athlete's potential in order to increase the efficiency and reliability of his competitive activity. The efficiency and reliability of athlete's competitive activity are determined not only by his all-round preparedness, but also by his readiness for a specific competition [5].

Particular attention should be paid to the problem of psychological competency of an athlete as an important component of his sports mastery.

The category of "competency" means a personality integrated quality of a person, that possesses the features of innovative learning, that is oriented on the formation of personal readiness to rapid changes in society and to the complex reality of life through the development of skills allowing to quickly grasp a problem, creativeness, various forms of thinking, and the ability to cooperate with other people [6, p. 46]. An athlete should understand the individuality of person as a value, take into account mental characteristics of people from various age groups, perform psychologically justified constructive communications, and be a subject in the implementation and replenishment of his mental resources [2].

We define athlete’ psychological competency as a professionally significant personality education formed and developed in the course of focused psychological preparation, ensuring the athlete's readiness and ability to think and act during training and competitive activities with regard to psychological principles.

The purpose of the research was to study psychological competency of athletes from different qualifying groups.

Materials and methods. In the course of research we proposed the following methodologies: "Psychological analysis of photograph of wrestling match", "Psychological analysis of video recording of wrestling match", and "General psychological preparedness of athlete" [4].

80 persons were involved in the experiment, divided into three groups: group 1 (30 people) –junior group, group 2 (30 people) – youth group and group 3 (20 people) – elite group. The experiment was conducted at the Regional scientific and practical center for physical culture and healthy lifestyle, which is a structural subdivision of the Mordovia base teachers’ training center of MordSPI.

Results and discussion. According to the technique "Psychological analysis of photograph of wrestling match", the subjects were to describe the photographs with the images of wrestlers getting ready for some action (hold). They had to understand the intentions of opponents in the photographs and describe them.

The descriptions of the subjects were assessed qualitatively as adequate and inadequate ones. The adequate descriptions were consistent with the content of the demonstrated action or an attempt to carry out this action. The inadequate descriptions either contained an incorrect interpretation of the plot of the match or consisted in failure to describe it. The third group included partially correct but not complete descriptions of the expected action. As an example, here are the fragments of the adequate response: "in this picture we can see how one of the contestants (Ye. Spirin) is attempting to perform a turnover to the right; his hold has shifted, and he is close to cover. The second wrestler (Yu. Mokeev) is turning right defensively, exposing his right arm and leg to prevent the execution of the action. Most likely, this situation will not bring points to Ye. Spirin, he will find himself below in a referee's position, and the referee will mark the action as a failure."

"Russian athlete Kh. Baroyev is conducting back suplex, his legs are tucked and ready, the back is straight, the grip is strong and on the right place – all in accordance with the classic rules of Greco-Roman wrestling. As we see from his posture, Gardner from the States is an extra in this situation and has no chance either for cover or for defense. Baroev will win one point at least, and if the action will continue without fail and in the same vein, our wrestler will win four points."

Note that this task caused some difficulties among the participants, especially in the 1st group of beginners. The latter often gave wrong answers, refused to answer or tried to blindly guess. There were also some cases when a subject did not try to understand what was happening in the photograph, but tried to remember who had won, if the subject had been present at that contest or has watched it before, whereas we were interested in the ability of an athlete to understand and predict the actions of the contestants.

The results of the study are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. The results of the analysis of photographs by subjects from different qualifying groups

Note: JG - junior group, YG – youth group, EG – elite group.

The data given in the table 1 show that only 16 % of respondents from the junior group were able to do the task correctly, 39 % of respondents were able to partially describe the given photographs, and 45 % failed the task. The results in the youth group were much better (55 % - 33 % -12 %). The athletes from the elite group coped with the task almost completely (89 %), 11 % of respondents answered partially wrong, wrong answers were not registered.

The findings suggest that the ability to understand the intentions of opponents is acquired with training, increasing skills and gaining experience. Besides, the results show the need for strengthening the socio-psychological training of students, due to which social intelligence and psychological competency will be formed much faster.

A video recorded at the 2013 World championship in Greco-Roman wrestling was given to the same athletes for an expert evaluation. While watching, the record was stopped from time to time. The subjects were to explain the contestants’ actions and to predict their further actions. The results are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. The results of the video analysis by subjects from different qualifying groups

Note: JG - junior group, YG – youth group, EG – elite group.

The results of this study, in comparison with the previous one, showed a small increase in the percentage of correct answers. That, in turn, suggests that it is easier for athletes to understand the contestants' intentions in the dynamics watching a video. Unlike viewing photographs, when the video is stopped the respondents knew what was going on before, so they could easier develop a logical chain and give a correct answer. Other results of the study were similar to those of the previous one.

The distinctive feature of perception is meaningfulness. Through the words describing a wrestler his image is supplemented by the generalized knowledge about the hold he applied, being the result of the previous training experience and more or less assimilated by the perceiver.

Basing on the experience of athletes' training, the dominant role belongs to practical exercises, so that the teacher-trainer shows a particular action, and then organizes training sessions, making the necessary adjustments according to individual characteristics of his athletes. As experience has shown, the role of verbal impact is undeservedly underestimated.

In order to show the meaning of words in training of pupils in the youth sports school, the athletes were given the following task. The wrestlers were shown photographs with some parts of a wrestling match: an athlete is ready to perform hip throw; turn-over; chest throw and duck. The athletes had to verbally describe what they saw after looking at the photographs for 5 seconds.

Different groups got various guidelines prior to the demonstration of photographs. For example, before showing a photograph of an athlete getting ready for turn-over one group was told ‘now you will see a picture showing an athlete who is getting ready to conduct back suplex,’ whereas another group was told ‘now you will be shown a photograph of an athlete preparing to counteract a turn-over,’ and so on.

The athletes could be divided into three groups according to the analysis of verbal reports. The first group consisted of athletes who followed the instructions in their perception and evaluation of all four photographs. The second group included subjects who strictly followed the evidences in their perception of those four pictures. The third group contained the athletes who perceived some pictures basing on the instructions and others - on the evidences.

According to the findings, the impact of voice has a tremendous effect. This means that much more attention is to be paid to verbal methods of pedagogical influence during training sessions compared to the actual practice. Their role is especially important in the competitive environment. However, it should be emphasized that effectiveness of linguistic manipulations depends on students' individual characteristics (type of nervous system, suggestibility, anxiety, etc.). Therefore it is essential to consider the individual characteristics of students to improve the efficiency of verbal impact methods used by teachers and trainers. This, in its turn, requires from teachers-trainers high psychological competency. The results of the data obtained by the technique "General psychological preparedness of an athlete" are listed in Table 3.

Table 3. The characteristics of psychological preparedness of athletes

According to the data shown in Table 3, the majority of the athletes had an average level of psychological preparedness with regard to such components as emotional and volitional, correction and implementation, and functional and energetic. There were detected some athletes with a high level of psychological preparedness in the motivational and target, informational and evaluation components. Low levels of psychological preparedness were found for athletes in all components except for the motivational target one.

The psychological preparedness of most athletes was average, as most of its structural components were expressed insufficiently. According to V.R. Malkin, it is not enough to have high levels of only motivational target and informational and evaluation components of psychological preparedness in sport, as an athlete will not be able to completely implement his potential in competitive activity [4].

The findings showed the low level of psychological competency of the athletes, so our challenge is to develop the psychological competency as an important component of athlete's sports mastery in the system of training sessions.

It is important to develop the psychological competency of an athlete in a specific sport for high-quality athletic performance. The program "Psychological preparation in sport" tailored to specific sports has been developed in MordSPI. This program is assigned for future and practicing trainers and athletes. The program consists of the theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part helps an athlete to actualize and enrich the knowledge about psychological preparedness in sport; the practical part contributes to the development of the skills to apply the psychological knowledge in practice. The program includes the following sections: psychological preparation of athlete; psychological preparation of sports team; psychological preparation of coach; mental self-regulation in sport; psychological support of sports activity.

The section "Psychological preparation of athlete" helps an athlete acquire the knowledge about psychological training in a particular sport, because psychological training varies depending on the kind of sport. The section "Psychological preparation of sports team" helps a coach train athletes in team sports at a qualitatively new level. The section "Psychological preparation of coach" helps form the psychological competency of a coach. Mastering the section "Mental self-regulation in sport" contributes to acquiring the knowledge and skills of effective management of mental conditions in sports. From the section "Psychological support of sports activity" a coach learns how to apply psychological knowledge for the high-quality professional work.

Conclusions. It is timely and relevant to address the issue of psychological competency in the training system for athletes of different qualifying groups. Achievement of high results is associated with psychological preparation, during which psychological competency is being developed. Thanks to this competency an athlete will be able to know himself better, learn various aspects of personal behavior and own personality, as well as his opponent's personality. In order to develop psychological competency the program "Psychological preparation in sport" was designed. Having mastered this program an athlete acquires psychological knowledge and skills to manage his own mental state, to realize the potential in sports on a qualitatively new level.

References

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3. Kokurin, A.V. Pedagogical conditions of formation of sports mastery in institutions for further vocational education: abstract of Ph.D. thesis / A.V. Kokurin. - Saransk, 2006. – 18 P. (In Russian)
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Corresponding author: kokurin68@mail.ru