Tola Performace: Ed Banner-Eve Interview

Jason coaches professionals to help and support them throughout their season, working with clients to help them maintain a good headspace and work on their personal development on and off the field.

Photograph by Emily Gordon

Performance Coaching

Case Study Ed Banner-Eve

Photograph by ©www.imagesofpolo.com Ed Banner-Eve has been working with Jason for over six months

Jason works with professionals to help and support them throughout the season and year, helping them to maintain a good headspace and work on their personal development on and off the field: “This season I have worked with Matt Perry and Jack Richardson in their high goal campaigns along with other pros in the lower levels. Performance coaching is helping players by giving them a space to talk about their life and performance on and off the field and be open to questioning that can help them to gain more clarity over time about how they can develop. It’s not advice or polo specific advice, the players I coach are better than me so that wouldn’t necessarily work! But being able to understand life as a professional polo player does help a lot”.

Case Study: Ed Banner-Eve

I’ve worked with Ed for around six months now, we started working together when he was playing in Dubai in February, we speak on zoom most weeks keeping him on track with the things he is trying to achieve.

Without beating around the bush, Ed was struggling with a bad reputation on and possibly off the field, which he wanted to resolve. He also was keen to work on his personal growth and become a more rounded person looking openly at everything. Being curious about all aspects of your performance and self is a good place to begin coaching from. Ed took to the ideas we created in sessions well and started to act on the areas he was trying to improve such as his fitness, organisation, reputation, personal habits and many more.

Coaching is very much about the person, what they want to develop and the pathways they want to take. It enables them to set and explore goals, assess where they are currently, look at the options going forward and have a coach to keep them accountable. In polo there are a lot of decisions and changes that happen, whether you’re deciding what to do in the winter, where to base, what horse to sell or how many 0s to put on the end of your contract price. Decisions seem to be part of the process all the way through in polo. With Ed we’ve worked on things from his fitness, organisation, to his reputation on and off the field alongside a lot of other areas.

For me this quote sums up the power having a coach or external voice that can help you to work through various areas of your life:

“We cannot solve our problems by thinking on the same level that we have used to create them” Einstein

Photography courtesy of www.tolaperformance.com

Q: When did you start coaching with Jason and why?

A: I started in February 2021. After seeking help with my playing as well as off-field vices and flaws. Previously I hadn’t found a person that I had connected with or understood the unique, odd ways of the ‘polo life’. I had spoken to another player that had used Jason and they highly recommended him.

Q: How has it helped you with your performance or life?

A: I have always lived my life with the motto “the proof is in the pudding”. From my first session with Jason, I have improved and developed, for me there’s not much else that I can say. I have always been a hot-headed, outspoken person; especially on the field which has hindered my performance and reputation. Jason has helped me focus on the bigger picture and taught me how to break down that hot-headed temperament and take the stepping stones to improve, it’s worked.

Off the field Jason and I have worked together to see where I have been lacking and what tells/characteristics indicate this. Once this had been done a solution can be applied. It’s a strategy I’ve not used before or previously thought of.

Q: How can it help others?

A: It can help people to understand themselves, find what they really want to improve on, set goals and help provide a suitable plan to reach those goals.

Q: Does ‘Performance Coaching’ have a place in polo and why?

A: Yes, I believe more so than other sports. Polo is highly stressful. It involves a lot of organising and has many variables for example, horses, grooms, transport, handicap, team changes and many more. There is a lot of responsibility and change. Unlike other sports polo doesn’t have many, if any, sports psychologists, or coaches/ mentors and so it’s an obvious gap in the industry and much needed. At the end of the day, it’s a professional sport so it needs the accompanying aspects to grow and help the players in the game be the best they can on and off the field.

Q: Do you think it’s important for people to have Personal Coach?

A: Some people don’t need one and don’t like to have one. That’s up to them. Many others don’t realise how helpful and important one is until they take that first session or hear someone else in their industry using a coach. It’s very much social conformity that hinders many aspects of polo and the lifestyle it brings. I would say organise a call and see whether you think it could help you. Polo is a small world but everything is confidential and professional so you can be open and honest during sessions.

Contact Jason on tolaperfomance@gmail.com www.tolaperformance.com