In praise of small injuries

[DobbsRover2]

In the John A. piece in the Courant about Bria the Sharpshooter, the mention of how her latest spate of incredible shooting has come following an annoying but not debilitating left thumb injury reminds me of how valuable that minor injuries can be to an athlete. When many years ago Dodger 3B Adrian Beltre came down with fairly painful left ankle problems, he suddenly transformed from a mediocre-hitting strikeout prone batter into a patient slugger who nearly hit 50 HRs. The fact that he could no longer reach out and chase outside pitches made him a more focused and patient for a good strike to drive that the pitchers now had to throw him. In running it is no secret that a minor leg ailment a week before a major meet is frequently a pathway to a big victory as the athletes are forced to cut back in practice a bit in the days before the race and not overexert themselves.

For Bria, the left thumb issue as she says appears to have made her focus more on what she can do, and who knows, maybe the fully active left hand was throwing off her aim a little before. Whatever the story, I hope if Bria starts going onto a slump again that Stef will have the good sense to grab her SG's left pinkie and do some work on it.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Your theory may be right Dobbs, but in my own experience and the anecdotal evidence from interviews seems to suggest that the best shooting happens when a shooter "enters the zone" and there is nothing deliberate or conscious about their heightened accuracy.

 

[meyers7]

In the John A. piece in the Courant about Bria the Sharpshooter, the mention of how her latest spate of incredible shooting has come following an annoying but not debilitating left thumb injury reminds me of how valuable that minor injuries can be to an athlete. When many years ago Dodger 3B Adrian Beltre came down with fairly painful left ankle problems, he suddenly transformed from a mediocre-hitting strikeout prone batter into a patient slugger who nearly hit 50 HRs. The fact that he could no longer reach out and chase outside pitches made him a more focused and patient for a good strike to drive that the pitchers now had to throw him. In running it is no secret that a minor leg ailment a week before a major meet is frequently a pathway to a big victory as the athletes are forced to cut back in practice a bit in the days before the race and not overexert themselves.

For Bria, the left thumb issue as she says appears to have made her focus more on what she can do, and who knows, maybe the fully active left hand was throwing off her aim a little before. Whatever the story, I hope if Bria starts going onto a slump again that Stef will have the good sense to grab her SG's left pinkie and do some work on it.

I did notice she did not shoot as well with the wrap off her thumb. Wonder if she would be willing to wear it the rest of the year??

 

[UcMiami]

I like it - had an acting coach back in the day who was big on giving students something real to do during speeches. Concentrating on pealing a potato or packing a suitcase - a 'real' action tended to make the speech more real as well and less 'acted'. I do think minor physical issues and sharpen the focus on the process of shooting in a positive way - a little boost to concentration or even a way to stop thinking about missing shots.
On Edit:
That scene in Tin Cup where Cosner has the yips on the practice range and Cheech tells him to shift all the coins from on pocket to the other pocket is an example - you start thinking about the coins and forget about not shanking the ball.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Your theory may be right Dobbs, but in my own experience and the anecdotal evidence from interviews seems to suggest that the best shooting happens when a shooter "enters the zone" and there is nothing deliberate or conscious about their heightened accuracy.

But the question always is, how do shooters enter that magical mystery zone where they can go from fretful misses to a state where they can pour in the points. You aren't always conscious of the factors that are making you hot, and I surmise if you start to dwell on what those factors are, you may slide into a cold zone. And sometimes, you hit a few in a row and your teammates see you warming up and keep feeding you the ball in good places to keep you on a roll. Without a MoJeff to deliver great passes, getting hot is much harder.

If any of us could bottle the Eau de Zone substance, we would become very rich. Would make a nice perfume for athletes to sprinkle on themselves before hitting the court.

 

[JRRRJ]

But the question always is, how do shooters enter that magical mystery zone where they can go from fretful misses to a state where they can pour in the points. You aren't always conscious of the factors that are making you hot, and I surmise if you start to dwell on what those factors are, you may slide into a cold zone. And sometimes, you hit a few in a row and your teammates see you warming up and keep feeding you the ball in good places to keep you on a roll. Without a MoJeff to deliver great passes, getting hot is much harder.

If any of us could bottle the Eau de Zone substance, we would become very rich. Would make a nice perfume for athletes to sprinkle on themselves before hitting the court.

The answer is not all that mysterious, and requires few simple (but sometimes difficult steps).

1. Practice the skills of your craft in isolation until you can do them consistently.
2. Use them in real situations that increase in difficulty as your ability to deal with them improves so you develop strategies to adapt to situations, which feeds back to 1.
3. Don't ever think about mechanics, think about goals and let your hard-trained skillset select the way to effect the goal.

The last one is often very hard. In my case it goes something like (waiting for a serve) "He's been having trouble with low balls, so I'm going to hit a short slice on the return". The server gets to select where he hits the serve, how fast & with what spin, so I have to react to a myriad of possible situations to achieve my goal. If I think about my reaction -- I'm dead. I only have about 8/10 of a second between when the ball is struck and when it gets to me on a decent first serve, and human consciousness only has a baud rate (information flow) in the 100's. If I let it flow, let the ingrained training do it's thing, sometimes it feels like I have all the time in the world to adjust to the shot placement & pace. Golden moments. Looking forward to having more of them when I'm retired & can practice & play some every day. But now, it's often not possible because I'm thinking about the error I made on the last point or a pain in my shoulder or that I've lost to this guy the last 3 times we played, so my conscious mind tries to get involved in "making sure" I do it "right". With usually poorer results than my optimum.