Artur Litwiniuk

Socio-demographic factors of practising martial arts and combat sports by Warsaw inhabitants

The origin of contemporary martial arts and combat sports reaches back to ancient times, probably to prehistoric intertribal wars, where the result of unarmed combat or fight with use of primitive tools conditioned whether an individual or a group survived. In Europe hand-to-hand fight as sports rivalry without using weapons and without an intention to take the opponent’s life away was known only in ancient Greece, where the Olympic Games were organized regularly. In contrast, ancient Rome was known for spectacles in which the failure of one fighter frequently meant death. In modern times general rules of martial arts are similar to ancient traditions of contests taking place in Greece, except that in the next Olym pics the number of disciplines increased and women participated in the games as well. Both these facts as well as specific psychological and physical requirements that training effort sets for the human organism in every discipline belonging to martial arts, should induce coaches, physiologists, doctors, psychologists as well as representatives of other sciences involved in the development of sports and physical culture to cooperate in the field of monitoring health and physical efficiency both at the time of active practice of the above mentioned sports and during an observation of remote consequen -

The level of anger experienced by the champions training judo measured by Spielberger’s Staxi-2 test

The analysis of anger is definitely more common in sport; the results of aggressive behaviour or its consequences are very often discussed whereas feelings which trigger aggression are often omitted. Aggressive states are very frequently related to the feeling of anger. There are various forms of ag gression in sport; mainly these are instrumental and hostile aggression. Hostile aggression is an aggressive behaviour provoked by the feeling of anger. Instrumental aggression is an aggressive behaviour directed to the obstacle which is be tween an aggressor and aim which he/she wants to achieve. What’s more, it is not triggered by anger as such [1,2]. Re viewing the psychological concept of anger, Spielberger, Rit ter band and other authors [3] indicate significant incoherence and ambiguity of the following notions: anger, hostility and aggression. The authors also suggest the way to systematize the notions. They claim that although the above concepts are related to each other, they cannot be used interchangeably. They suggest to use the following term to define three phenomena: „AHA! Syndrome” (anger, hostility, aggression). Spielberger [4] defines anger as an emotional state which involves different feelings in terms of intensity ranging from subtle annoyance, irritation to strong fury and rage. Hostility is related to frequent experiencing angry feeling, however itself it refers to the complex set of behaviours such as: malice, scorn, revengefulness, cynicism, which provoke aggressive atti tude towards other people [5]. Whereas the concept of aggression refers to the states of destructive and penalizing nature directed towards other people or objects in the environment [6,7]. Anger is undoubtedly the core (nucleus) of AHA! Syndrome, however neither hostility nor aggression should be identified with anger. The basic difference between them is that anger is an emotion, hostility – an attitude and aggression – a behaviour [8]. The real problem is the lack of adequate methods to measure emotions of anger. Most frequently researchers use the R.B. Catell’s Questionnaires of personality, The Buss – Durke’s Inventory or the Z. Gas’s Inventory of Psychological Aggression Syndrome, which measure the level of aggression (behaviours), not of anger [9,10,11] Spielberger’s STAXI2 test may be an alternative to the above tests.

Psychological factors of students training Olympic taekwondo at various level of sports advancement

The knowledge concerning motor abilities and the psyche of a human is a fundamental issue in sport sciences. The ap plica tion of mental skills in sports is linked with the development and maintenance of expert performance in sport. The best results in contemporary sports are achieved only by those highly talented, optimal body build and highly fit technically, tactically, psycho-emotionally and teoretically [1,2]. A very broad spectrum of conditions of manifesting psychomotor abilities in ontogenesis generates the demand for such research in various age and social groups significant from the viewpoint of health and economies of all countries [3-6]. In the constantly changing world youth and students from universities often receive many contradictory data and proposals both in the sphere of life philosophy as well as in life style. In many books and a number of journals we can find research concerning of physical activity e.g. recreational and sport of different kind social groups. Student is a special social category of society [7]. Sport training is a complex process and its efficiency depends on a lot of factors, the knowledge of whose forms the basis of the whole training process. In many kind of combat sports is a highly demanding sport with respect to body build [8-12], physical fitness [13], coordination motor abilities and technique [14-18] and optimal psychological features e.g. personality [19-25]. Re search into personality in psychology of sport has been done for a long time yet a lot of conclusions drawn from the research are contradictory [26]. Athletes’ personalities more often be come the subject of psychologists’ researches, because they help to solve many problems connected with efficiency of train ings and success in sports competition. Moreover, it has been difficult to find out which personality components are closely connected with success in sports and life after sport career. The aim of the present investigations was the evaluation chosen psychological factors characterizing students train ing Olympic taekwondo.