YJMD
Helluva Engineer
- Messages
- 1,622
And I'm not talking about gassing the defense or limiting their substitutions or really any type of disadvantage it might provide for their defense. I'm talking about speeding up the pace so our players have less time to evaluate what they are doing and get to simply doing it. Watching it, we are moving too slowly and appears trying to consciously think about the coaching and apply it in a game situation. Any time you are consciously instructing yourself, you aren't at peak performance. Usually when people talk about the light going on for an athlete, it's about them turning a mental corner where they are able to let their knowledge about what to do come to them automatically instead of being stuck in their heads. Yes it is to some degree a function of experience, but assuming there's no way to actively assist our minds in getting to peak performance is a grave mistake.
Some background: once upon a time I was a competitive pool player, entering in (but never cashing) some professional open tournaments. One of the highlights of my life was leading world champion Mika Immonen before having self doubt let me miss an easy shot to go 4-0 ahead and then falling apart mentally afterward as I got stuck trying to tell myself what to do instead of doing it. I have studied a fair bit of sports psychology and ended up becoming a psychiatrist myself (although very little directly applicable training here).
I'm more interested in trying to get guys to the line for the next play as fast as humanly possible, perhaps even making a competition out of who can get set the fastest. This focus distracts the tendency to dwell on and be trapped in evaluation of the past. Moving fast but not with haphazard attitude is a great way to get the mind in the present. Yes there will be mistakes caused by it, but when the team gets used to being fully present for the task at hand, then they can use the opportunity to slow down and not sacrifice presence.
Just my 2c.
Some background: once upon a time I was a competitive pool player, entering in (but never cashing) some professional open tournaments. One of the highlights of my life was leading world champion Mika Immonen before having self doubt let me miss an easy shot to go 4-0 ahead and then falling apart mentally afterward as I got stuck trying to tell myself what to do instead of doing it. I have studied a fair bit of sports psychology and ended up becoming a psychiatrist myself (although very little directly applicable training here).
I'm more interested in trying to get guys to the line for the next play as fast as humanly possible, perhaps even making a competition out of who can get set the fastest. This focus distracts the tendency to dwell on and be trapped in evaluation of the past. Moving fast but not with haphazard attitude is a great way to get the mind in the present. Yes there will be mistakes caused by it, but when the team gets used to being fully present for the task at hand, then they can use the opportunity to slow down and not sacrifice presence.
Just my 2c.
