Drawing on two decades of experience as a school psychologist and sport psychologist practitioner Adrian Moldovan shares insights from his recent program with a boys’ basketball team aged 10 to 12. He describes how he approached the challenge of making mindfulness accessible to children still developing their body awareness and emotional regulation skills. From simple, sensory-based exercises like the “candy exercise,” which invited the young athletes to experience an ordinary object through all their senses, to playful group activities designed to build team cohesion, Adrian reveals how mindfulness can help young athletes become more present and engaged without feeling overwhelmed or judged. The conversation also touches on the common barriers and misconceptions that arise when introducing these practices, such as initial skepticism from parents and coaches or the children’s difficulty understanding abstract concepts. Adrian also explains the importance of modeling non-judgmental acceptance, especially when exercises, like the body scan, don’t unfold as planned, and reflects on the “mental training paradox,” where everyone acknowledges the importance of mental preparation but struggles to implement it consistently. Throughout the episode, he offers practical suggestions for professionals and parents who want to nurture self-awareness, focus, and resilience in children, while respecting their developmental stage and keeping the process engaging. Whether you’re involved in youth sports, education, or simply curious about applied sport psychology, this conversation offers thoughtful perspectives on helping young people grow from the inside out.
Mathias Alberton (00:03)
Hello everyone, this is Mathias Alberton. I am the creator of Martial Attitude. This is Martial Attitude Voice. It's a podcast where we explore a bit the dynamics of sports psychology, applied sports psychology, different disciplines, how the concept of discipline works out in different settings. And we speak with the different professionals, apply different kinds of strategies to address the crowd, the athletes, the people they are working with. Today is interesting. It's going to be an interesting conversation because as you know, I developed a system of training for visually impaired and blind people to have better posture, better confidence when touching other people or being touched by other people. We call it Martial Attitude Training. We take the workshops in London every Sunday and you can always ask information, you will find everything on the website, of course, and the links to have more information. But other professionals like today, Dr. Adrian Moldovan from Romania, is in his own way is working with children in sports settings. And he started introducing the idea of workshop around the idea of mindfulness. And we met one month and a half ago in Bucharest during a conference in sports psychology at the University of Bucharest. And I was really struck by interest by the work that he was doing because mindfulness is a kind of a complex concept and I want to ask him about, but I was really interested in how he was working with such a young population. Of course, I work with visually impaired and blind people. Normally they are adults, but in the future, Martial Attitude Training will be hopefully implemented in a school system. So that is also interesting for me to understand what other kind of approaches can be explored with such a population. Adrian, thank you very much for joining the podcast. How do you do?
Adrian Moldovan (02:16)
Mathias, hello, thank you very much for inviting me. It is an honor to speak at your podcast and to meet again with you.
Mathias Alberton (02:25)
Well, I know that you have a long history a psychologist, but now after some 20 years you have ⁓ kind of decided to change, to go more into sports. So how is working out? What do you do right now? What you're going to do next?
Adrian Moldovan (02:47)
Yes, as you said, I work for 20 years as a psychologist, as a school psychologist. And in the last 15 years, I worked with gifted children, gifted children in different areas, arts, sports, and academic. And in the last five years, I saw the need, at least in our local community, I saw the need for sports counseling, sports psychology. And that was an extra motivation for me to address more of the sports issues in performance athletes, especially children. Being a teenager, I was also an athlete.
I was practicing track and field at a high level in our country. And since then, I noticed how important is sports psychology or mental preparation because at that time we didn't have any kind of psychological support here ⁓ Romania.
Mathias Alberton (03:59)
I have come across your presentation. You presented the study that you're working on. You are writing the paper right now. The name of the paper is Integrating Mindfulness Techniques in the Mental Preparation of Pre-Teen Basketball Athletes. And for as interesting as the title might sound, I would ask you...
What does mindfulness mean in the context of working with the pre-teen athletes? How do you usually explain such a, let's say, an abstract concept to children between, let's say, the age of 8 and 12, maybe 15 years old?
Adrian Moldovan (04:48)
Yes, I will tell a couple of words about the concept of mindfulness as I see it. And because it's a very complex concept and different people use it in different ways. Although there is kind of an essence. In my opinion, mindfulness represents a sort of experience, the experience of being present here and now with a non-judgmental attitude. Of course, this is an abstract definition and in an experiential way, it's quite difficult to explain to somebody until that somebody experienced it. So when working with teenagers, preteens or children, it can be done quite easily if we approach this concept through artistic methods or easy techniques that are allowing participants to be in a real and present experience. I will detail later what kind of activities can be named mindful activities.
Mathias Alberton (06:13)
Well, exactly. So I would ask, in your experience, what are the main difficulties or barriers young athletes face when trying to engage in mindfulness practice? So, you know, it can be a cognitive problem. And I'm saying that they are cognitive deficient. I'm just saying that it is just difficult to understand what you're trying to get there or emotionally. if they accept this idea of working towards something like mindfulness. So what are the main difficulties here?
Adrian Moldovan (06:40)
Yes. If I'm trying to approach mindfulness from a theoretical point of view, I think that the chances are almost zero to explain. But if we think that pre-teens or teenagers play a lot of games on their computers and they are present, fully present in what they are doing, we can say that in a certain way, that is a mindful experience or when they are in love because now it's a moment at this age is the moment when they taste for the first time love. When they are in love with somebody or have a crush, they have sort of a mindful experience or when they like something and they are absorbed by this experience. So it's easier to relate with things from their life in order for them to understand the concept. And for them to practice the concept, it's okay if we use, as I said before, experiential activities.
So the idea with mindfulness training has a very practical objective. In my program, for example, about I am writing now, my main objective was developing team cohesion because the team was involved, it was almost at the beginning of a competition season. I try to introduce mindfulness techniques in order to some kind of basis for them, for future interventions and for them to understand a minimal psychological experience on which we can grow later. So, these techniques took relatively a small amount of time during the sessions. I applied these techniques during the sessions, as I said, and I suggested and proposed to the pre-teens to practice also at home some of these techniques in a creative way.
And we started with a very useful, in my opinion, introduction in what mindfulness means and which is called the candy exercise. The candy exercise is quite simple. We take a candy and ⁓ we experienced it through all our senses. For example, one requirement is for the children to watch the candy, to see how the colors look on the candy, to see how the comes on the candy, to see if the candy has some problems, to see if the candy is bigger or smaller than they expected. After that, to feel the candy in their hands. How does it feel?
Is it sticky? Is it heavy? Does it have some kind of irregularities on it? Afterwards, to smell the candy, how does it smell? What sensations it bring when we smell it? Afterwards, to taste the candy, to chew the candy, to swallow the candy and feel how it goes down. So this is regularly when somebody eats a candy people don't pay attention to all these sensations but this is the essence of mindfulness how we can see something that is very normal and regular in the fullness of that experience and it has strong relations and we can make a strong parallel with sports experience if a teenager or a child or an adult trains each day and they become quite bored about this routine. How can we translate this candy experience to their practice? Can you be present in your practice and fill it with all your senses? Can you enrich your psychological experience of a practice in order for you to understand that it's different than any other practice. So it is such a simple exercise, but it can set the ground for connections with the training experience. And now as you saw the candy in a different light, can you see also your training in a different light? And can you see that each training is different?
Can you be present in your training and in consequence to fully engage in what are you doing? Not that your mind is in one part and your body is here making some moves. So this one type of exercise that I use in order to introduce the concept of mindfulness.
Mathias Alberton (12:30)
The session you're talking about is one hour session is a workshop of two hours. You do different things. So the candy exercise is one of those things? Or for instance, the session is the candy exercise?
Adrian Moldovan (12:42)
Now, the session one hour and a half, and it has three parts. One part is related with mental accommodation, just for them to more present in the session. Maybe I use some icebreakers. Maybe I use some metaphorical stories to introduce the kids in what are we trying to reach for that session. The middle of a session involves approaching a concept that is useful for the session and course. And the mindfulness were related with the main concepts. So they were introduced in like five to 10 minutes and five to 10 minutes for discussion participants felt the experience. And this discussion is very, very important because in this discussion, they say, my thoughts were in all the places. I couldn't focus at the candy, for example. Or they can say that the candy brought in them some present memories. And in this way, we can discuss about how in other experiences, we try to focus on something, but our mind goes wild.
Mindfulness doesn't mean to be focused only on your anchor, only on your object, but it means the capacity to be aware when your mind is flowing in another part and to come back at your anchor. So this is quite essential. And even in training or in competition, you can be distracted by many things and this is quite normal. But through mindfulness techniques we try to train the capacity to come back to the object of focus and to accept that our mind is our mind and it whenever and wherever it wants.
Mathias Alberton (14:53)
You were talking and I was trying to visualize this kind of workshop with, I don't know... eight, ten children, something like that. okay, maybe one is more talkative, the other one is less talkative, then maybe they started to get a bit into the workshop, they start to loosen up, so they start to be a bit more approachable. But then you said, you know, we do this candy exercise, how do you feel? A bit like this. So in that case, would you redo the candy exercise? Let's say, okay, now that we know everything that we know, why don't we change candy and we redo the candy exercise?
Adrian Moldovan (15:44)
It wasn't my strategy because one major concept in using mindfulness techniques is to accept the limits. And if the limits were like this today, this doesn't mean that we didn't try our best, but this is what we managed to do in this exercise. And now we come to the concept of being present in a non-judgmental way. If, for example, we try to repeat it in a way we become judgmental because we say it wasn't good enough, let's come back and to correct it. But in my experience, it's better to accept it as it was to talk about this and to focus in the next exercises in the next week or in the next session but not with the purpose to do it perfect. When we try to do it perfect we are challenging a standard and if we are challenging a standard we are not present as we are. We are in some kind of you know ideal state but not in our present experience. So understanding that there are limits and not putting pressure in achieving some kind of standard. It's very, very important also when we translate it to sports experience.
Mathias Alberton (17:18)
I think it's wonderful. I think it's super cool. But I would expect that at the beginning, when you proposed to introduce this kind of workshop, there might have been some initial signs of reluctancy or skepticism, either from the children themselves, from the coaches, the parents about introducing mindfulness technique in such a young age group. If that was the case, how did you address those concerns?
Adrian Moldovan (17:54)
Yes, it was the case. The parents, for example, asked me when I presented them the purpose of a mental program and the techniques I will use, asked me if it's possible for such a young group age participate in this kind of activities. And of course I explained them that the techniques are very easy and our purpose is not to make them specialists. It's just to introduce this type of approach, to experience it and to set the basis for future more complex, more complex techniques. And the children, of course, they don't understand things as I explain them now. For them, mainly it's for fun because they were between 10 and 12. And it was more like a team spirit session, you know, they were together and they experienced something together.
Many of the children perceived this type of exercises in their secondary effects. What does it mean? For example, when I introduced a mindfulness technique based on following the breath, for them it was quite easy to engage in following their breath and when their thoughts were through their mind to come back to the breath it was a good anchor for them. But there was a positive secondary effect. They felt more relaxed. So they were tempted to see this kind of technique as a technique meant to relax them.
And that's why I'm saying this is a secondary positive effect because the main purpose was that this technique allows them to understand that it is important to be an observer of your mind and body. So that was the main purpose. But secondary positive effects are quite as good as this. So their level of understanding doesn't allow them to see things in an abstract way. So they perceive these techniques, for example, in a very concrete way, but in very positive effects. So the parents understood that it's quite easy for them to follow the breath.
Yes, and you can use this exercise even before the game. For example, breath is quite common used by athletes or people who are tensed just to relax a bit the body and the mind. That's why I'm telling that these techniques are not something new, but the context in which we use them another interpretation.
And ⁓ of course, we had meetings with the parents three times, once before the beginning of a program. The second meeting was in the middle of a program and the third meeting was when the program was finished. So could follow the sessions and they could follow my feedback understand from the event history, what was the meaning. That's why, of course, at the beginning of psychological initiatives, not only this kind, people have a lot of questions. But when they see how these initiatives develop, of course, that their understanding becomes more complex. And only in the end, they can say it was about this. And after one year or two years or three years or four years or five years, they can say, ⁓ it meant this It tends to relate with the trust people have in you. And if they have a minimal trust, they know that there is nothing bad that can happen and that there is an exploration.
And this exploration can enrich in some way. But myself, I have this approach. I tell from the beginning, look, these are the things you can expect from these meetings. I never tell them what will be the outcomes. I tell them what will I do What will be the actions and how I see these actions can improve something or can develop something. But I never say, look, we will reach this state of mind or we will reach this kind of mental performance. So it is quite ⁓ pressure free and it's good for me as a professional and it's good for the parents because they have realistic expectations.
Mathias Alberton (23:11)
Now you have talked about a program, meaning that there is a series of workshops. How many?
Adrian Moldovan (23:19)
Yes, we had 10 workshops. Every week but it happened that in one week for example they were in competition so we had to postpone it but there weren't breaks or long breaks this is very important
Mathias Alberton (23:37)
And every week there is one technique.
Adrian Moldovan (23:42)
One technique is unique, but not in every week we introduced a mindfulness technique. There were introduced five techniques to assimilate better and to practice at home something also.
Mathias Alberton (24:00)
I find it very interesting the idea of mindfulness as a state, and mindfulness as a building block to create something else later on. So the kids start to learn something about themselves, about how to control their state of attention, of focus, or to redraw attention and focus to the right things, even if they are aware now that they are wandering around with their ideas because their minds are flowing around freely, as normally happens, but they now can focus back. And of course, this candy exercise is immediately lovely to understand.
But conversely, on the other hand, where there are particular approaches or exercise that did not seem to resonate with the group or that you found less effective in practice. And then you maybe you change your program and said, ⁓ I thought this was great, but actually doesn't work.
Adrian Moldovan (25:15)
Yes, for example, I use also this technique of body scan. And basically body scan means that ⁓ you are focusing on the different parts of your body, scanning your body and trying to be aware of the sensations you feel in that parts of the body. And if thoughts or feelings arise, you come back to the anchor which is represented by the body. So this was an exercise I practiced with adults and it was very easy for me to conduct the exercise and it had ⁓ plus value for the adults being involved in this type of technique. But with the pre-teens it was difficult because in my opinion ⁓ I introduced this exercise too early, our sessions and the group was not quite accommodated with this type of approach and there was silence because silence was needed, and they were with their eyes closed and my feedback from them was that they felt kind of frustrated. It was an awkward silence and being in a group, being in a circle, they felt observed.
So again, their mind went in another place and they couldn't bring their mind back to the body. So when at this age, children are a bit frustrated or a bit shy, they tend to laugh, yes, to convert this shyness into laughs. So they laughed and it was not a good moment for ending in a planned way. But I come back to the principle of mindfulness techniques. This was a limit that we reached in that moment. So it was very important on behalf of me to understand the limit and not to show that I am angry because the exercise wasn't done in a perfect manner. So my attitude, even if technique didn't work, was an example of mindful approach. is what we could. We will try differently next time. But at this moment, we have to accept that it is what it is.
And to come back to what we have to do. So it is very important. as I understand and as I saw in experience, it's very important to walk the talk. If I say that we are doing things in a non-judgmental way, then I have to model that I'm doing things in a non-judgmental way. This doesn't mean that I'm not angry or frustrated or that I don't want to see coherence, but it means that I accept or at least I try to accept as best as I can and to go on, to go on. This is very important because we have different sessions also. We then don't have to get stuck in this session. We have more sessions. And this is how you build trust. Because they say, the coordinator is not angry because we did this. Yeah. So it's an element of trust.
Mathias Alberton (28:58)
You were talking about this idea of the body scanning and the idea that maybe, the age group is too young or maybe the positioning of this specific workshop was not right in the program of workshops around the idea of mindfulness for pre-teen. But I was also thinking time ago, I made a research upon emotions in professional boxing and I made a series of interviews with many professional boxers. One of them was, a heavyweight champion and he's a big boy, he's a big guy, very big and he started when he was 17, super tall, super muscly.
And he said, well, actually, it took me nearly 10 years to control all my body. So it was very difficult for me as an heavyweight to box well. Because actually, the coordination and the control of my body for as big it was, for as tall as I was, it was very complex for me.
Instead, I see my colleagues in other weight categories, which are much, much smaller, and they are technically very, very able, very, very early as compared to me. So I was thinking maybe there is a component there in this idea of body scan. The adults do respond well because they have, let's say, an internal feedback perspective built throughout years of development, which is a physiological development, But for children, everything is new, so they actually are not really yet physically able to understand what that thing means for that part of the body because everything is changing too much. What you think?
Adrian Moldovan (31:04)
Yes, I think there is strong scientific point of view in what you said. Because let's say mental map of the body has to keep the pace with the body. So we see that teenagers are quite clumsy, not because they want to be like that, but they don't have this coordination.
But when you think that somebody feels that the stomach is hurting or feels different sensations of the body. So when you approach this on an experiential way, you can see that everybody can look at his body at least in a small percentage these bodies scan wasn't conducted for a long period of time. It was for four minutes. So this is another point of view. It's very difficult for somebody who is anxious to close his eyes because when he feels what it is inside. And sometimes when you are anxious, you tend to overestimate some sensations that you feel and to give them a negative value. And this tends to make you more anxious. And this is cycle. I saw this many times, even myself I'm practicing different types of mindfulness techniques or meditation and in the very beginning I was very anxious when I had to close my eyes and to focus for example, on my breath, and I felt that my whole body got heated and I became scared. And this is kind of a barrier when applying mindfulness personalities are not quite fit for techniques. That's why I'm saying that it is my belief that at age, it is important to be related with concrete activities because it's ⁓ not as stressful for them.
Mathias Alberton (33:26)
Now, looking forward, what recommendation would you give other practitioners to integrate mindfulness with young athletes?
Adrian Moldovan (33:36)
Well, I guess that if we do things like a teacher does things like trying to explain, it's not such a good approach. So the best approach is being experiential. This is my opinion, and relating the concepts of mindfulness with artistic means or with experience from their life. For example, I adapted body scan and transform it in the door out. It's a different exercise. And for example, when they open a door, opening the door, becomes a trigger and they remember to make a pause and for 30 seconds to observe how their body feels in this moment. They don't have to close their eyes just to feel how the body is expressing in that moment. And if you do this, it sounds easy, but it's not so easy to be consistent, with this. If you do this twice a day, for example, you learn that there are moments in the day when you can look at your body and how you feel and maybe becoming aware of how you feel to make some adjustments. If you feel tense, for example, okay, you can stretch your arms or do something. But the main idea is to become aware. It is a different type of body scan, more natural to apply and it can be extended to practice also. in the training for 30 seconds you can become aware and ask yourself, am I present in my training or my mind is in a different part or in the competition? If you have a sort of a pause, you can ask yourself, how am I feeling? Am I too tensed? Am I heavy? Am I agile? So you can become aware and this could mean some grounding in the midst of events. So it's a different type of body scan, but it has, in my opinion, at least the same value. So I say to myself, keep it easy.
Effort without effort because the real effort is to be consistent with this practice.
And this is a strong concept in sports psychology, the mental training paradox. And it means that everybody involved sports performance knows that mental training is essential. But only a small percent apply mental preparation on a consistent basis. And one reason is they don't have the best information about this and how it can be conducted. And second major reason is they think they don't have the time to introduce it in a consistent way. So that's why I returned to introducing easy mindfulness techniques, because they create a basis for a routine. And if you have a routine, you can develop that routine in future with more complex or special tailored interventions.
Mathias Alberton (36:47)
When is your article going to be published?
Adrian Moldovan (36:51)
It depends on the organizers you already met in the conference. But I guess that at the beginning of September, it will be fully edited.
Mathias Alberton (37:03)
Adrian, it was phenomenal conversation. Thank you very much for the found it extremely interesting. Thank you very much for dedicating your time me and thank you very much for the work you're doing.
Adrian Moldovan (37:19)
I want to thank you also, Mathias. It was an honor, as I said before, for me to participate at your podcast and it was also a pleasure if I'm being mindful with experience. Now I'm trying to see how I feel. was trying to see how I think, but now I feel that it was a pleasant experience for me.
Thank you for this opportunity and I hope it will be some help for somebody ,who knows...
Mathias Alberton (37:49)
Absolutely. And thank you very much to all the audience who has been with us during the podcast. If you do have questions or thoughts about mindfulness in applied practice with young athletes, please forward me any question or ideas and we can try to connect with Adrian as well for future interventions. I remind you that Martial Attitude is promoting a series of workshops for visually impaired and blind people in central London every Sunday to be more comfortable in touching and being touched by people in social settings to get a better posture, to get a bit fit, to get better coordination. If you are interested or you know someone who might be interested, you know the drill. You keep in touch.