Madison’s varsity field hockey team is accustomed to giving their maximum effort on the playing field, dominating at practice five days a week from the beginning of August to the start of November. In addition to their rigorous athletic regime, the team tried something new this school year: practicing mindfulness.

As stated by the American Psychological Association, mindfulness refers to a psychological state of awareness, the practices that promote this awareness, and a mode of processing information.

“I think [practicing mindfulness] helped us by getting us in the right mindset for our games. It helped us be prepared before the games started instead of just going in and playing,” Caroline Turner (’17) said.

A couple of weeks into August, team coach and Madison P.E. teacher MaryElizabeth McManus hired sports psychologist Dr. Keith Kaufman to come in once a week to work with the girls on developing mindfulness during their season.

  “I think [mindfulness] is a way that you can relax and destress and is kind of like meditation, but it’s more focused on achieving goals. Instead of worrying about the little things, [mindfulness is] focusing on what you can do to become better, ignoring your errors you’ve made going on,” Emily Serveiss (’18) said.

Every Tuesday, the team met in Warhawk Hall for the first 45 minutes to an hour of practice and gathered in a circle around Kaufman. Most sessions involved him teaching the girls techniques for focusing on their own breathing or walking, adding their field hockey sticks as they progressed.

“I apply the breathing techniques. I apply them to all my games: basketball, lacrosse, field hockey,” Kelly Hager (’20) said.

Kaufman also questioned the players on their mindsets during moments of their games, and then instructed them on how to fix those mindsets for the best results. He emphasized focusing on the present rather than revisiting past mistakes.

“When we beat Westfield, everyone was in the mindset that we needed to beat them. Everyone wanted [to win], because [Westfield] was supposed to win the state championship. But our team did very well with being able to stay focused during the game and not worrying about what would happen next,” Hager said.

The biggest impact of practicing mindfulness, however, was the closeness that it encouraged throughout the team. They developed stronger bonds along with more mindful habits.

“[Practicing mindfulness] definitely helped our season for field hockey. We made a key word, it was called ‘pineapple’, so anytime people were getting distracted we’d yell ‘pineapple’ and people would come back to the moment and playing the game. It definitely helped our team bond because we had a common activity,” Serveiss said.