Tag: peak performance

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

Analytics or…?

Dr. John Panepinto

A defining moment in the 2020 World Series (Dodgers versus Rays) will be the expression on Blake Snell’s face as he awaited the handoff to Tampa Bay manager, Kevin Cash. After pitching lights out and still under his pitch count, Snell understandably seemed upset at the lost opportunity to continue his gem.

While hindsight is a perspective available now but not in that moment (from which it all fell apart), an old argument calls to mind the blurring of boundaries that ruin so much of human resource, production, and expression: when to be guided by quantitative versus qualitative measures. Simply put, not everything that matters can be measured. Here are a few arguments for ignoring analytics and leaving Snell on the mound:

Management versus Leadership: Management is about systems and things, and leadership is about people. While numbers may inform decisions, the human element will always be beyond measurable. You have a Cy Young winner pitching at the peak of his ability. Unhittable is a feeling. The Dodgers would have attested to this.

Variability of performance: Even at the elite level, athletes need to find out who they are that day. The great Willie Mays said it best: “When I’m not hitting, I don’t hit nobody. But, when I’m hitting, I hit anybody.” (New York Times, April 25, 1976). Interestingly, on that day Snell’s fastball was more electric, and his slider and curve had more bite. All three pitches working at the top of his register. Athletes dream of these days… So who do you want on the mound? Your best pitcher at his best in the moment or someone who hasn’t thrown a pitch yet?

Analytics draws from a larger context: While data is useful and informs decisions, the production of numbers always draws from a larger context and remains an approximation. These probabilities are called “models’ for good reason as they do not represent a complete picture of the territory. Consider all the variables that have to be ignored, and all the assumptions that have to be made in an open-system of human beings. This is not to say, throw out numbers and analytics. They are good tools. But complete dependence upon tools denies some of the greatest gifts of being human: feel, creativity, and intuition.

History: Sports annals are full of stories of athletes going above and beyond. Michael Jordan in the “Flu” game. Willis Reed limping out on to the court in the finals for the New York Knicks during their 1969-70 Championship season. Lebron James running down Andre Igoudala in Game 7, bringing the Cavaliers all the way back from a 3-1 series deficit. And Tom Seaver throwing 150 pitches (yes, 150 pitches!) to lead the Mets in a Game 4 win on the way to the 1969 world championship. All these efforts derive from the intangibles of athletic performance. They are memorable for a reason. We show up as competitors and fans not for the benign and predictable, but for the sublime and unexpected.

So, Snell’s expression was more than the stock “I wanna keep playing” seen from little league to the Bigs. The athlete who knows when he is in the upper register of performance also knows it’s a feeling beyond words and logical explanations. Flow. The Zone. A sublime feeling you can bet on more than algorithms pretending that a Game Six is the same as a weekend series in Baltimore (sorry O’s fans).

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

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photo credits: Michael Dziedzic and Ben Hershey (unsplash.com)

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

The Practice-Performance Connection: Putting it All Together

Dr. John Panepinto

There is never a simple way to become more complex—as an athlete or a person. It takes imagination, time, and intentional effort. But at each level complexity becomes a simplified, automated process in order to reach the next level of complexity. And that is the spiral of development in any sport. Oddly, you have to keep each step simple in order to build a complex structure because of the nature of learning. Symphonies, hip-hop, jazz, and rock all start with the same 12 tones. The greatest works of literature or a mindless social media post are born of the same 26 letters. But what you can create, even with the simplest of building blocks, is infinite…

Here are some effective ways to enhance the practice-performance connection:

Follow success. In every sport there are models of excellence for every part of development. We are gifted with the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences. Watching others do something at the level we are trying to reach is a powerful source of learning. Pick an area that needs work and find someone in your field that does it at a superior level. Then follow success with your unique touch. In other words, follow the principles (form and function) not the personality.

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Make practice a place for research development. Taking from leading edge businesses, resources are dedicated to the future in R&D. Our resources include time, effort, aptitude, and creativity. This bracket of time within practice (but outside the box) can be fun, adventurous, and truly playful. Ask: “What if?” And enjoy what flows…

Consider your maps. At each level of progress, the maps of performance differ. Maybe you need to recognize and respond quicker or differently to a situation. Or your technique needs smoothing out. Regardless of the physical or psychological nature, we have mental maps (schemas) that we have previously constructed that dictate our motions, emotions, movements, and responses. Ask: “Are they still working?” and “What isn’t working?” Then, edit, polish or discard.

Work on the mental game. Notice your language, expectations, and assumptions. Notice how you process experience and use it to inform you, and for continuous improvement. These all provide leverage for the next level. A journal or coach (or both) can help you with these important internal dialogues.

Start whole and master the parts. Working from a wider perspective can help create a more focused developmental plan for practice. Knowing what the end-product looks like, you can better isolate the areas to attend to. Another benefit of taking this route is how it primes and feeds motivation.

Reframe frustration. A first response to frustration may be avoidance or to soothe the feeling. But frustration’s value is the energy it gives to the change process. It is the fuel of disequilibrium and lives at the edge of growth and new skills. A major change is embracing the frustration as a normal part of growth— and pushing yourself to that tipping point of change.

Hire a Mental Game Coach. Acknowledging the need to focus on regulating states of mind, increasing awareness, and developing more complex mental maps during practice are key factors in the practice-performance connection. Reflecting with and learning from a coach adept in the mental side of the game can be the pathway to new levels of performance.

Putting it all together, the practice-performance connection is the pathway to improvement and goes above and beyond the edges of your current level. Seeing this opportunity makes practice a place not of rote repetition, but of vision and intentional development.

 

If you would like more structure to take your mental approach to the next level, consider picking up a copy of my new sports psychology workbook: Above the Field of Play. Or to learn about other sports psychology services pricing (including an assessment of your present mental approach), visit my website at DrJohnPanepinto.com.

cover shot

photo credit: Austin Chan (unsplash.com)

 

Performance psychology, Sports Psychology

The Pull of Motivation

Dr. John Panepinto

Most have considered their personal notion of great human achievements. And I am certain there are clusters of agreement around specific events. Depending on interests and culture, groups can sit around the circle and recall with wide-eyed wonder the greatness of an experience or event. Today I would like to offer one for consideration: Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite.

In June of 2017, Honnold made the nearly 3000-foot ascent in just under 4 hours—without a rope. No safety nets, just him and what climbers consider the most daunting face of granite on earth. This feat, captured in the documentary, Free Solo, is something to behold. Just hearing about it is not enough. To see some aspect of the climb makes the jaw drop and the inevitable “Why?” sighs from an open mouth.

But this is the pivot point of motivation. The question of, “Why?” There are only a few deep sources of motivation as it is fundamental to life. To live without some sense of principled motivation is to embrace entropy, a slow death spiral, or to place the digestive system at the pinnacle of effort. The pure moments described as flow or peak experiences are the essence of the feeling of “being alive.”

Honnold’s ascent, to me, represents a string of perfect moments in flow, a linked crescendo of peak experiences. How many and how long? It’s impossible to quantify, for in these experiences time disappears. The climber and the climb become one, as do granite and flesh.

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Photo by André Cook on Pexels.com

The documentary, Free Solo, comes at the event from a few angles to dig into Honnold’s persona and create cinematic tension, an arc to an amazing story. This is where we go above the field of play, in this case over a half-mile of steep granite. The backdrop of Honnold’s life, family, friendships, and his significant other makes for a good story, but in no way touches the “why?” Honnold attempts to explain the pull of motivation of such a momentous task, but it remains for the most part indescribable.

It doesn’t matter that on film Honnold comes across a quirky, at times insensitive (even to fear and death), awkward in love and relating, and a host of other adjectives that, also, do not matter. For the true depth of his motivation remains unplumbed by what is recorded on film. Only he knows the “feel”, the emotion that motivates for he is the first and the only. This probing into character will not reveal the essence of Honnold’s motivation or ability. Unfortunately it is a sign of the times that we seek simple formulas for excellence, and attempt to codify a process that is complex and becomes a part of the fabric of one’s being…

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It’s no secret that one of the stars of the event, the documentary, and the personal quest is Death. And it hovers ever so close, on some level, a feel quite like the curiosity of passing the scene of a gruesome accident. Death is imminent and present in every move along the climb, and in every nub, nook and cranny of El Capitan. And for those (which is over 7+ billion and counting) who do not have Honnold’s sublime gift, Death would be the last acknowledgement before the credits roll…

Motivation’s pull is an agreement with a vision, one that comes from deep within, at first formless just as the infinite from which we come. Over time, the vision takes form, but it is the feel that gives rise to power. Like opposite poles of a magnet the pull is real, and its ample force is felt in trying to deny the connection. Honnold’s ascent seems fueled by such a pull. A thing of art and beauty, wonderfully defying odds and logic—for his logic was a personal one.

But, we all can feel the pull on some level, in some space. And that is the point of aspirations and of being alive. To give birth, to raise a child. To comfort a friend. To bury a loved one with grace when your heart is broken. To love another fully and completely. To do good work. To play. To forgive flaws and trespasses. To get up off the floor one more time. To play a sublime melody and a melody sublimely. To listen with a beginner’s mind…

All of these could make someone somewhere sigh, Why? How? For Honnold, I imagine it was El Capitan whispering in his ear, Why? How? All the while offering subtle clues along the razor’s edge that is being and non-being. For a little under 4 hours he reminded us what it means to be fully committed to a vision, and that being fully alive acknowledges the brackets of time, markers we submit to in moments of clarity, despair, and awe.