Learning Basic Communication Skills Through Your Favourite Sport

Today we are going to discuss about the basic concepts of communication through sports!!.  Surprised. You read it right. Sports is considered as one of the best ways of communicating.

You may have heard that communication is a two-way process. In simple terms that means no matter how well you send the message if the recipient has not captured the same. Let us take a real-life example from sports. Suppose you are participating in a relay event (say 4 x 100 m) where you are running the third lap and you are supposed to pass the baton to the runner who will be finishing the event. Therefore the two way process is that you pass the baton to your colleague. Without the presence of your colleague, there is no communication.

Now let us look into the concept of sending and receiving information with an end result in mind which is essentially the meaning of communication. You heard it, "sending and receiving information with an end result in mind". The baton is essentially the piece of information that you send to your team mate who needs to receive properly. What is the end result? That is to complete the relay successfully or in more supreme terms, to win the relay.

There should be a chemistry between you and the other runner to pass the baton as quickly as possible if you were to win the event. In order to make this process successful, you should be knowing about the other runner’s physical features such as his/her height, behavioural features such as how far he/she is willing to extend his/ her arm to grab the baton, whether or not he/she is willing to turn to a certain extent to check your actual location behind him/ her. This example paves way to comprehend the concept of understanding your audience. For instance, when you are performing a lecture to an audience, you should be knowing about their educational background, cultural background and their level of maturity. Accordingly, you have to have a tailor-made version of your lecture for successful communication.

Now think about a team sport which you have engaged in. Try to create an example on the basic principles of communication you may have used to achieve success in a team sport.