Analysis of Mental Toughness among Yogic Practitioners and Physical Educators

The natural or developed psychological edge that enables the individual to cope better than his opponents under various demands, that sports places on a performer such as competition, training, and life style. It enables the sportsmen to be more consistent, focused, confident and in control under pressure than his opponents (G. Jones, 2002). Mental Toughness is the ability to consistently sustain one‘s ideal performance state during adversities in competition (Solomon, 2009). Successful athletes are supposed to be not only Physically Tough but Mentally Tough as well. The reason for this originates out of the realization that top sports are a ruthless, cold, and hard business, where there is no place for the tender spirited. Tutko‘s (1974) characterization of such trait indicates that the ―Mentally Tough‖ athlete can take rough handling; is not easily upset about losing, playing badly, or being spoken to harshly; can accept strong criticism without being hurt; and does not need too much encouragement from his coach (S. Rajendra and K. Rajesh, 2011). All sports are psychological as well as physical. They involve mental images, thoughts pattern, one‘s psyche and physical conditioning. It will however, allow one to draw the most form of the conditioning one had. If one has trained more and better, his present capacity will be higher than the one who has less trained. Elite performance in sports does not merely depend upon systematic training of physical, physiological variables and technical aspect of sport but, it also demands training of psychological characteristics of the sports man for success (Brynt J. Cratty, 1968). For the promotion of sports ability, yoga has a tremendous role to play. The important factors like endurance, Neuro-muscular co-ordination, and mental preparation are essentially required in any sports, physical education activities. A number of studies were done in the past on these areas showing the utilities of yogic practices in the various aspects of health and fitness Yoga practices have often been thought of as a form of exercise. They are not exercises but techniques which place the physical body in positions that cultivate awareness, relaxation, concentration and meditation. Yoga practices develop our good physical The purpose of the study was to analyze the mental toughness among Yogic Practitioners and Physical Education Personals.

The subjects for the study were 41 male and female students of Yoga discipline and 41 male and female subjects of different disciplines, studying in L.N.U.P.E., Gwalior, Who practice their respective discipline regularly for 3-4 hours per day. The age group of the subjects selected for the study was between 19 to 23 years.

For the purpose of the collection of the data Dr. Alan Goldberg‘s mental toughness questionnaire was used. Mental toughness questionnaire is a 30-item, self-administered scale, developed to measure mental toughness of the respondents. Respondents were asked to rate their current feelings on the questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of five factors which include Rebound ability, pressure tolerance, concentration ability, level of confidence and motivation. To analyze and compare mental toughness among Yogic Practitioner and Physical Education Personals, descriptive statistics and t-test was used at 0.05 level of significance.

The data collected were analyzed statistically and the outcome generated has been given below.

Table displays the mean and the standard deviation of various factors and also t value shows that there is no significance difference at the 0.05 level of significance in any of the factor of the Mental Toughness and total measures of mental toughness of Yogic Practitioners and Physical Education Personals.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of the study was to analyze the mental toughness among Yogic Practitioners and Physical Education Personals. The study reveals that there is a no significant difference on level of confidence, pressure tolerance, rebound ability, concentration ability and motivation factor between Yogic Practitioners and Physical Education Personals. The results also illustrated that there is no significant difference between total mental toughness of Yogic Practitioners and Physical Education Personals. This result may be due less numbers of subjects or because of the nature of both the practices. The result may owing to be because physical education personals, who involves in physical activities build up mental toughness in training sessions and competition due to high amount skill proficiency, physical involvement and mentally engulf environment whereas Yogic practitioners perform Yogic Asana-s, meditation, chanting and Shatkarm (purification of body and mind) which increases mental toughness. May be due this reason there is no significant difference among both the groups. Fig.2 shows that there may be chances in mental toughness by participating in physical activities but by practicing Yoga one can develop mental toughness.

1. G. Jones (2002). ―What is this Thing Called Mental Toughness? An Investigation of elite

Psychology, Vol. XIV, (September, 2002); 205 2. S. Rajendra and K. Rajesh (2011). International Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science; Vol. 06, Centre for Physical Education, Health & Sport Science, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan . 3. Brynt J. Cratty (1968). Psychology and Physical Activity. (New Jersy: Englewood Cliffs, Prentice half Inc. 1968) p. 15. 4. Loehr, James E., Jansen, Dan And Evert, Chris (1995). The New Toughness Training for Sports Plume Books, USA : 1995 5. Fourie, S. and Potgieter, J. R. (2001). ―The Nature of Mental Toughness in Sport‖ South African Journal for Research in sports, physical Education And Recreation. 6. Jones, G., Hanton, S. & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An investigation of elite sport performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, pp. 205-218. 7. Solomon K. Arupaeayil (2009). Construction of questionnaire on Mental toughness, Unpublished master‘s thesis, LNUPE, Gwalior 2009, p6 8. Bera, T.K., Rajapurkar, M.V. and Ganguly, S.K. (1990). Effect of yoga training on body density in school going boys, NIS Scientific Journal, 13, .2, pp. 23-35

Assistant Professor, Amity School of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Amity University, Noida, UP