Copyright (c) 2010 Tatiana Bandurina

Finally the long awaited Olympic Games in Vancouver have started. The future Olympic champions: who are they? As of today we cannot list the names of all the athletes that will be awarded medals during these games, but the fact that most of them were musically gifted in their childhood, is beyond doubt.

Only a narrow-minded person or a dilettante could believe that all a good athlete needs to be successful are muscles of steel. And what does one need to get strong muscles? Right, he needs persistent training. Any sport is very physically demanding on the body. Have you ever heard the saying; might makes right? Does it work in reality?

Whatever the sport might be – team, pair, or single – there are always specific competing tactics. That is, the athlete, or team, along with the trainer (or group of trainers), often discuss concrete actions the participants will undertake during the competition. And the tactics of both parties competing are looked at.

A good player has to know the strengths and weaknesses of their opponent in order to prepare, train and apply certain actions which would make their opponent either desperate, or have them confused for some time.

What conclusion can we make? That a good athlete must think well!

But, as it turns out, even that is not enough to get ahead in competitions for some sports! For example, let’s have a look at gymnastics and figure skating.

Selection of children in these kinds of sports is very important and is an essential component of the long-term sports training system. It involves the selection of a certain type of children who correspond to the requirements of a given sport to the greatest degree; children who are able to show the best possible accomplishments in sport, and children who can show high reliability and productivity under extreme pressure and in conditions of ruthless competition.

The technique of selection looks at physical contra-indications, evaluation of a constitution (body type), personality, physical and specialized technical training; and… musical talent!

Yes, you did read this right! It’s not a misprint! When choosing children for gymnastics and figure skating, it is very important to correctly evaluate a child’s musical abilities. Their ear for music is one of the most necessary criteria for achieving positive results in these kinds of sports.

You probably would like to know how they check for musical abilities. Here’s how. The child is offered to tap or clap the number of various rhythmic patterns starting with the most simple to the most complex. He/she should also show a sense of time and character of sounding music. In order to determine this, the child is offered to walk, dance, or trot, to musical pieces of different genres that vary both in rhythm and time!

If your child has already passed this rigid selection, the next leading criteria for forecasting his/her sports abilities at this stage, are the growth rate of necessary physical qualities and speed of motor skills development (his/her motor learning capability). Music lessons – and in this case playing musical instruments, – are of invaluable help in increasing children’s motor learning capability.

Even if your athletic child takes music lessons only for a short period of time, the fine motor skills acquired during these lessons will be very beneficial. They play a huge part in the development of a child’s right and left hemispheres of the brain. Playing musical instruments will have a positive impact on a child’s daily physical training and preparation for competitions in general.

What advantages do these young “musical” athletes have? They are better at perceiving and fulfilling the trainer’s tasks. They are capable of assessing and distributing their own energy more efficiently than other “non-musical” athletes. Their movements are more elegant, smooth and, shall we say, timely, as such children have a better developed sense of rhythm. Also, they feel character and time of music perfectly well, and move according to these parameters.

To estimate an athletes performance say, in gymnastics, figure skating, or sports dance, the judges mark them in accordance with a specific scale. This scale reflects technique complexity, technical performance, and artistic performance. And what else other than music, can develop this distinctive quality in your child? In fact the better the person’s artistic qualities, the more musically gifted he is and vice versa.

So, if you would like your child to become successful in the sports that use musical you should start developing his musical abilities! Help him/her improve their ear for music, sense of rhythm and memory. You can read about how to make this happen in one of my articles about the advantage of musical education for children.

This tabla sample gives a glimpse of Amol Khanapurkar’s mastery acquired over 15 years of rigorous training. His tabla is characterised by technical perfection to produce the most distinctive tabla bols with amazing ease and clarity with equal mastery of the Daayaan & the Baayaan. This sample demonstrates switching effortlessly from a pure classical theka to a variation used in light or semi-classical music and back again in the drut or fast Teen Taal rhythmic cycle. Enjoy !! Interested in learning more about Amol ? visit www.amolkhanapurkar.com

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