Testimonial Category: Workshops

Jo came to Benenden to give a series of lectures to 14 – 17-year old students, on topics including: Identifying your Ideal Performance State and how to achieve it; practical strategies such as using visualisation and music; and managing nerves and stress.

Her sessions were clear and concise, and interactive; involving lots of discussion and some motivational ideas to take away. The girls loved the playlist idea when travelling to a fixture and they made one straight away. They also benefitted from the mental imagery and the trigger words discussions.

I would recommend Jo to help school girls as she is on their wave length, and they felt that they could easily chat with her. We had national Lacrosse players, tennis players, netballers, equestrians, squash players and swimmers all at her talks. Some are at the top end of performance and others were school players.

I too benefitted! After discussing the nerves that cripple me when competing (equestrian), Jo’s advice meant that I now have a music playlist and a ‘trigger saying’ when I feel I am in danger of holding my breath though nerves!

Surrey County Athletics Association holds training days twice a year for young cross country runners who have qualified to run for the county; aged between 11 – 16 years. Jo has organised very successful workshops for all the age groups.  Her warmth towards the young athletes and very practical approach mean her slots always hold their attention and they are keen to ask her questions and talk to her afterwards.  She has helped so many of the youngsters overcome anxiety when they are racing in national and local competitions and she has also helped them cope with the stress of exams. Jo manages to give them confidence in themselves; no concern is too small or too large for her to talk through and give very, very practical tips on how to cope with each problem.

The parents all praise her work and not surprisingly some have asked her to work individually with their children.  She really helps youngsters enjoy their sport and their lives to the full.

I really enjoyed my 6 week sport psychology and Pilates workshop. Jo was so encouraging and we were all able to discuss our own confidence wobbles as a group. After finishing the course I was able to put lots of the confidence tricks and tools to work and my riding has gone from strength to strength!

I found the holistic approach of the course very useful for combining the physical strength aspects of pilates and focus on breathing and relaxation, with the structured sports psych sessions to look at how to improve my competition mindset. The psych sessions were useful both for helping me work through the best techniques for my own focus and nerves, and for the group environment and hearing other people’s experiences. I also met two friends through the course, so it worked out all round!

I found Jo’s approach so relaxing and informal this allowed me to feel at ease during the course which maximised the learning opportunity. The strategies covered have started to be so helpful and I am already feeling improvements. I can not wait to put things into practice during the eventing season. I feel that my riding goals can now be successfully met. Thanks Jo!

I attended one of Jo’s Sport Psychology workshops through MKRC shortly before competing at the Indoor Carriage Driving national championships. Applying what I had learnt at the session really helped me to focus on the specific things that I could directly influence, and not worry about everything! I used the technique of repeating 3 key words to myself throughout my dressage test – ‘rhythm, balance, breathe’ – keeping it simple helped us to do one of the best tests we’ve ever done and come top of our class. Jo’s advice helped to make the whole weekend far more enjoyable and less stressful – thank you Jo.

Jo has run two workshops for our Riding Club (Milton Keynes RC) – one on Combating Nerves and Building Confidence, and one on Mental Skills for Peak Performance; both of which were excellent. They were very well attended, and it was great to be able to offer something which appealed to all of our members, from those competing at a national level, to those who were nervous hackers. Jo gave clear and concise information, which was easy to understand and accessible to all, and used relatable examples to bring her concepts to life. As an active competitor myself it was SO useful to be reminded to only focus on what I can control, not all the other factors going on around me; as well as thinking of a positive mantra to keep myself in the zone! The sessions provoked a lot of discussion and those who attended really got a lot out of it – I would recommend Jo’s workshops to anyone.

We at the Skilam Elite Squash Academy asked Jo Davies to deliver an introduction to Sports Psychology for our group of Elite Sussex Junior Squash Players, with an age range of 8 to 18!! The session covered centering – a mental tool to enhance focus; looking at what that is, how it can help, and when to use it. The group found the session very helpful and interactive. Jo also provided hand-outs as a useful tool to refer back to after the workshop, with a step by step guide in how to achieve focus through centering. We would certainly recommend Jo Davies and would ask her back to similar style workshops.