It is a while since I wrote it .... sorry about any bad english or description.
Mental Technicue Training
Mental Technicue Training.
I am a big fan of mental technicue training as a way to help keeping the technicue at a certain level during periods where it is impossible to train it physically because of sickness, injury etc. I also use it when trying to change some parts of the technicue as I feel it helpfull to know exactly what to do before I have to actually do the physical changes. Another use I have started to explore is to use it as preparation to stressfull and mental difficoult situations like international competitions.
When I like to start standing beside the ring together with the other competitors looking around the arena and the questions, what color is the track, the seats, the net and other areas of the arena where I normally notice the color. I look around to see where the pole vault is, the high jump and other event. What is going on right now?. How is the arena build? How is the structure? Is there anything bothering me? Maybe the judgers, are there anything wierd about the arrangement that unsettles me and make me unconfortable? I am starting to get a feel about the competition now, starting to feel the pressure from a competition where I dont control anything but my own performance. What I do now is to start feeling, feeling the competition pressure, stress and nervousness. I see and hear the huge crowd watching the competition.
Now we should have a feeling setting us into a very realistic scenario where we have to perform.
Another way to do it is to imagine your usual training field in the same way as that may be easier what do you see, smell and hear ?
When you have entered the scenario of your imagination we should start to throw. When trying to train techicue mentally it is important to do it in the same way as you throw. That means we got some simple important points to hold on to when training. Those are:
Throw from inside your own eyes.
Feel the movement, dont see it.
Do it as close to real life speed as possible.
If you miss, stop and do it over again.
You may have a bad day.
Training makes you good.
Throw from inside your own eyes:
This means that you should FEEL and «see» the throw in first person perpective and not third or anything else. This is not as easy as many may think, but with training it gets better. Important to remember what you actually see during a throw. Personally I dont remember having seen anything after a throw, therefore I write FEEL the throw from first person perspective.
Feel the movement, dont see it:
It is very easy to see your leg pivot fast in the middle, see the leg going in a wide arc before going to the center or see the great seperation between your right arm and the hip. But that is WRONG, you must always FEEL, FEEL, FEEL. Feel what you are doing, never see it. Remember to feel in first person perspective.
Do it as close to real life speed as possible:
The closer it is to real life speed the easier it is to do in your actual physical throwing. Like in real throwing it is easier to do things in slow motion and therefore that is the way to begin, but to make it really count in you actual competition throwing you have to be able to do it in full speed.
If you miss, stop and do it again:
Like real throws you may feel already from the beginning that you have missed the throw, maybe your balance is bad or something like that. Unlike real throws when training mentally you can easily just stop in and erase the throw and begin on new. Its like a computer game where you can load from a saved point. Do that until you finally makes it and yu will experience you will have to stop less and less as you start to get fewer misses.
You may have a bad day:
As in real life you may also hae a bad day in your mental training, maybe alot happened this day that you jsut cant push from your mind, maybe you are just too tired to concentrate or something similar. Remember that done wrong mental training can be bad for your technicue, if you feel that you cant do it good today, dont do it.
Training makes you good:
Like real throwing mental technciue training is a matter of repetition and training. As you start doing mental technicue training you will experience that you just cant seem to get a good feeling or the correct movements. That does not mean it will always be like that, it does only mean you have to keep up the training. When getting better you will feel great improvement as you get better and more really good throws.
My own experience with this is from using it mostly during periods of sickness and the fact is that I have often come back from sickness with a technciue at least as good as it was before I got sick. Also I often was able to do changes in technicue I had been working with before I got sick and I had been using while training mentally.
An example if a good way to use it is to get into the scenario and do 6 competition throws when you are in bed just before your going to sleep as the brain works with the last things you were thinking on when going to sleep.
Mark you that mental training takes time to master and that before you master it it may be more harmful to your technicue than good. But I belive it is an important tool to have.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! or email me at 0a4w@virginia.edu
