A Danger in Lessons: from the Mail Bag
From the Mail Bag:
Kate writes...
-----
"I have a 13 year old daughter who made an elite softball team with older, more experienced girls. While she is very talented, enough to make that team, she is the youngest on the team.
"Her strongest area has always been her batting, right now however she isn't hitting at all and seems intimidated and timid during tournaments with this team. She spent all winter, twice a week with a batting coach who made changes and now is striking out continually.
"I believe it is the mental part of the game, how can she snap out of this? She is in to her 5th tournament of the season with only 5 on base hits. Any suggestions? Thank you!
-----
Some of the red flags that pop up in that...
1) lots of coaching -- new mechanics
2) new level of play -- she's playing up so the competition is tough
3) she's had some failure so I'm sure she's not thinking productively. The failure doesn't hurt her future performance, her thinking does.
Let's start with #3. She's no doubt pounding herself with negativity bombs 24/7.
Whatever you focus on you get more of.
So spending her time thinking about how badly she's hitting brings about more bad hitting.
#2: When the other girls are older the competition will be tough. She'll fail more and needs to understand that if she is going to have a chance to succeed.
Getting upset about failing makes future failure more likely.
#1 Lessons can be dangerous. Chances are she's got a head filled her with mechanics. That means her head will be deliberately talking to her muscles while she's hitting.
That's not good. (It's like having a 3 year old "help" you paint your bedroom -- a mess.)
The key to success in hitting is focus and trust. Focus on the ball, trust your body. Let it do what it knows how to do instead of trying to help it.
9.3 times out of 10 when a player is going bad he/she will tell you their focus in on their mechanics.
Just as often a player going great will say they are just focused on the ball, or the mitt if she's pitching. Not their mechanics.
Its unlikely the lesson giver was able to teach mechanics without her becoming mechanical -- few can.
So there's lots more I could say about each of these three things, but let's just take the shortest path to turning things around.
The keys to her future are in her past.
Encourage her to pick a time when she was hitting great. Go back and re-experience it. Enjoy it. Let go into the experience so she can feel it.
Then mine it for info. Look for what she was doing then and do those things now.
Easier said than done, I know. But it works if she'll do it.
In the same vein, she needs to shift from an outcome focus:
getting hits, to a process focus: seeing the ball, putting the fat part of the bat on the ball, having a quality AB, or even "having fun," or "supporting my teammates."
Have her choose something she's doing when she's hitting great that she can control and judge her ABs on whether or not she did that thing (stand tall, breathe, focus, etc.)
Also, chances are good she's very focused on herself.
Focusing instead on supporting her teammates can take some of her self-imposed heat off of herself.
I could go on all day with ideas. I've actually got a lot a very useful info in my "5 Steps to Unstoppable Confidence"
f*r*ee course at FreeBaseballConfidence.com.
Keep me posted, Kate
Sincerely,
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Join.html
p.s. What I don't like about my answer above is that I'm not a big quick fix guy. Developing mental skills can be lightning fast, but, like physical conditioning true change happens over time.
With conditioning.
That's why my basic program is called Confidence Conditioning.
You condition yourself to be confident just the way you condition yourself to be fit. (Unless you don't, of course. But then you get the consequences: If you don't condition yourself physically you get fat and ineffective. If you don't condition yourself mentally you risk being in the situation the girl in the question is in.)
To get Confidence Conditioning for no charge, join the Baseball Confidence Gym for just a month.
Take your time, as the guy below did. He joined the Gym for a year today and got all the bonuses...
-----
Dear Tom: "I played pro baseball (minors) many moons ago and now teach athletic training for not only baseball and softball (my 1st love) but I train for all sports.
Three of my 5 kids are very good athletes, so my push to switch to this new career has been hastened a bit, which was probably good since otherwise I would probably have always dreamed but never made the leap.
"I always had that mental edge where the switch would always click when I crossed the white line but I have struggled with being able to teach it to others, especially my kids, outside of the skills/drills, values and work ethic that I have instilled in them since they began to crawl and walk.
"I have spent a good time studying and analyzing many different programs out there and throughout all my travels in book store and the internet, I keep coming full circle back to your program and website.
"So, I finally made the decision that I have exhausted all my research and I believe that your site has the most to offer, so here I am.
Warm regards, Mike Killian Sports Excellence, LLC.
www.SportsExcellenceLLC.com
-----
To check out the Gym, go to
http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Join.html
For an overview of all my programs, go to http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Products.html
Kate writes...
-----
"I have a 13 year old daughter who made an elite softball team with older, more experienced girls. While she is very talented, enough to make that team, she is the youngest on the team.
"Her strongest area has always been her batting, right now however she isn't hitting at all and seems intimidated and timid during tournaments with this team. She spent all winter, twice a week with a batting coach who made changes and now is striking out continually.
"I believe it is the mental part of the game, how can she snap out of this? She is in to her 5th tournament of the season with only 5 on base hits. Any suggestions? Thank you!
-----
Some of the red flags that pop up in that...
1) lots of coaching -- new mechanics
2) new level of play -- she's playing up so the competition is tough
3) she's had some failure so I'm sure she's not thinking productively. The failure doesn't hurt her future performance, her thinking does.
Let's start with #3. She's no doubt pounding herself with negativity bombs 24/7.
Whatever you focus on you get more of.
So spending her time thinking about how badly she's hitting brings about more bad hitting.
#2: When the other girls are older the competition will be tough. She'll fail more and needs to understand that if she is going to have a chance to succeed.
Getting upset about failing makes future failure more likely.
#1 Lessons can be dangerous. Chances are she's got a head filled her with mechanics. That means her head will be deliberately talking to her muscles while she's hitting.
That's not good. (It's like having a 3 year old "help" you paint your bedroom -- a mess.)
The key to success in hitting is focus and trust. Focus on the ball, trust your body. Let it do what it knows how to do instead of trying to help it.
9.3 times out of 10 when a player is going bad he/she will tell you their focus in on their mechanics.
Just as often a player going great will say they are just focused on the ball, or the mitt if she's pitching. Not their mechanics.
Its unlikely the lesson giver was able to teach mechanics without her becoming mechanical -- few can.
So there's lots more I could say about each of these three things, but let's just take the shortest path to turning things around.
The keys to her future are in her past.
Encourage her to pick a time when she was hitting great. Go back and re-experience it. Enjoy it. Let go into the experience so she can feel it.
Then mine it for info. Look for what she was doing then and do those things now.
Easier said than done, I know. But it works if she'll do it.
In the same vein, she needs to shift from an outcome focus:
getting hits, to a process focus: seeing the ball, putting the fat part of the bat on the ball, having a quality AB, or even "having fun," or "supporting my teammates."
Have her choose something she's doing when she's hitting great that she can control and judge her ABs on whether or not she did that thing (stand tall, breathe, focus, etc.)
Also, chances are good she's very focused on herself.
Focusing instead on supporting her teammates can take some of her self-imposed heat off of herself.
I could go on all day with ideas. I've actually got a lot a very useful info in my "5 Steps to Unstoppable Confidence"
f*r*ee course at FreeBaseballConfidence.com.
Keep me posted, Kate
Sincerely,
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Join.html
p.s. What I don't like about my answer above is that I'm not a big quick fix guy. Developing mental skills can be lightning fast, but, like physical conditioning true change happens over time.
With conditioning.
That's why my basic program is called Confidence Conditioning.
You condition yourself to be confident just the way you condition yourself to be fit. (Unless you don't, of course. But then you get the consequences: If you don't condition yourself physically you get fat and ineffective. If you don't condition yourself mentally you risk being in the situation the girl in the question is in.)
To get Confidence Conditioning for no charge, join the Baseball Confidence Gym for just a month.
Take your time, as the guy below did. He joined the Gym for a year today and got all the bonuses...
-----
Dear Tom: "I played pro baseball (minors) many moons ago and now teach athletic training for not only baseball and softball (my 1st love) but I train for all sports.
Three of my 5 kids are very good athletes, so my push to switch to this new career has been hastened a bit, which was probably good since otherwise I would probably have always dreamed but never made the leap.
"I always had that mental edge where the switch would always click when I crossed the white line but I have struggled with being able to teach it to others, especially my kids, outside of the skills/drills, values and work ethic that I have instilled in them since they began to crawl and walk.
"I have spent a good time studying and analyzing many different programs out there and throughout all my travels in book store and the internet, I keep coming full circle back to your program and website.
"So, I finally made the decision that I have exhausted all my research and I believe that your site has the most to offer, so here I am.
Warm regards, Mike Killian Sports Excellence, LLC.
www.SportsExcellenceLLC.com
-----
To check out the Gym, go to
http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Join.html
For an overview of all my programs, go to http://www.BaseballConfidence.com/Products.html
posted by Tom Hanson at
12:45 PM
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