High School Baseball Coaching Tips: How To Focus

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High School Baseball Coaching Tips: How To Focus

Jim is a 16-year-old varsity pitcher. Unlike many of his teammates, he hadn't played on a select team, but is showing signs of becoming a very powerful player as his body grew taller and stronger over the summer.

Jim loves baseball and wants to take a shot at landing a college scholarship.

His coach thinks he's got a good chance. He's always first to show up at practice and the last to leave and he soaks up every bit of advice his pitching coach offers him.

The catcher says he's never had a pitcher, who was so intense and focused while throwing fireballs up to 88 mph...in practice. Which brings us to Jim's problem...

At game time, he seems OK, until the first time he walks a batter or gives up a home run. After that, he gets flustered and loses his focus. When he's doing well, all he sees is the catcher and his glove and he doesn't hear a thing.

But when he messes up, he hears the fans and the other players' voices inside his head, questioning his every move.

Then he starts to beat himself up. He can't help, but see his coach's disappointed face and the worried look of his teammates and that continues his downward spiral into performance anxiety.

Does this sound familiar? Have you or your athlete experienced loss of focus and performance after a screw or mistake?

So how do you get yourself back on track?

What Jim needs is pattern interrupt or mantra to re-focus himself to the task at hand. What most people forgot is that, in the present moment, there is no fear! Unless, of course, we are talking about physical danger like facing a grizzly bear.

Fear, in sports, is something that we create by thinking of our past mistakes or ones we will make in the future. So the way to eliminate performance anxiety, which is nothing more than fear, is to get back to the present moment.

Have you've seen the movie "For Love of the Game" starring Kevin Costner? There is a scene where the pitcher gets himself in the zone by saying the words, "CLEAR THE MECHANISM".

This could help, but we can do much better for Jim and your athlete. What would be even more powerful is if Jim had a phrase or statement that is directly related to the action of pitching the ball.

He could repeat that phrase to himself to re-focus his mind and bring himself back to the present.

Some examples could be:

Push off the mound, full extension...

Or

Crack the whip and release...

Or

Put the ball in the catchers mitt...

These are very simple and serve to occupy the mind, so it doesn't have time or space to think about the things that cause the fear and anxiety.

Here's the key to making this work for you...use it in practice as well as at game time. Don't wait until you are losing it out there in the middle of competition.

You could also practice using this technique in your mind as you go to sleep at night. Imagine you are bringing yourself back to the present in stressful situations.

By the time your next game or event rolls around, your mantra will be like an old friend you can count on to get you back to playing your game like a champion.

This works...do it!


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