Seeing your future makes you come out better

The other day in a training session something struck me.

This was the setting: the goalkeeper was exposed to a sequence of three scoring opportunities.

1. drag flick after penalty corner
2. a bouncing ball from roughly 9 mtr
3. a ball, kicked over a Dflecta, from around 6,5 mtr

In the circle there were obstructions placed, representing opponents. The shooters/kickers would pick up any rebound that would occur.

During the first set a lot of rebounds occurred. And most of these rebounds resulted in a goal being scored.

Upon reviewing with the goalies it became apparent that they used a self-instruction that would sound like: “I prevent the ball from going into my goal”. And that’s what they actually did: they blocked balls with a limited sharpness on the rebounds that resulted out of that.

After some discussion we tweaked the self-instruction to something that would sound like: “I eliminate the scoring opportunities in my circle”. The resulting number of rebounds dropped dramatically.

By re-shaping the instruction, the context of their action was widened. And as a result of that they had to create an image in their heads of the available space that could be used to direct the ball out of their circle.

Give your brain a chance to handle all relevant info by feeding it with various perspectives: not only the task at hand directly but also with the constraints to make the action successful also in a larger context/timeframe.

BTW: this approach is also used in (long-term) goalsetting: you have to have an image in your head of the desired outcome!

Good rebound-handling, ‘till next posting!