Assessment of the psychological barriers level in the training process of Martial Arts and methods of their neutralization

Abstract

Psychological barriers in sports activities, as in any socio- professional sphere, are a subjective refraction of a problematic situation from the point of view of its potential threat in the form of a syndrome of fear of the unpredictable result of one's actions in this situation. Two conditions are necessary for the emergence of any psychological barrier: the presence of a suitable (unfavorable) external environment and the subject's internal readiness to form a barrier. There are certain limitations in the ability to overcome psychological barriers depending on their qualitative (type, nature, direction) and quantitative characteristics: height (degree of expressiveness), rigidity (amount of effort applied to overcome them) and inertia (duration of resistance under active influence on the barrier). The adapted version of the test for the psychological barriers’ assessment includes seven subscales corresponding to seven main psychological barriers. Based on the results of the testing, methods of overcoming psychological barriers can be chosen. With regard to psychological barriers, which have different origins and different forms of manifestation in different people, no single method of their elimination can be proposed, different methods will be the most effective for different barriers. The level of psychological barriers can be assessed on the basis of the version of the test for the assessment of psychological barriers adapted to the needs of modern psychology in sports. The test includes seven subscales and allows sports psychologists to approach the selection of appropriate methods for overcoming psychological barriers more purposefully. Methods of neutralizing psychological barriers are a group of methods of influencing the barrier and its related factors with the aim of reducing the negative impact of the barrier without actually eliminating it. These methods are effective primarily in relation to those barriers, the elimination of which is impractical for various reasons, for example, the too high psychophysiological price of such elimination. Overcoming all psychological barriers is overcoming forms of manifestation of the "fear syndrome", which has two sides: "fear of losing the old" and "fear of accepting the new", so each type of barrier can be described depending on the ratio of these two parameters in it.