Post by Guidas on Jul 28, 2014 8:09:36 GMT -5
Nope. I was saying he can/has thrown the ball over the plate for strikes repeatedly when he wants to - and then he can't. Which means he hasn't learned how to do it when he wants to. He obviously knows how to do it, because he has did it repeatedly during the game, then couldn't. THAT is mental. Whether it's toughness, I can't say, but he has not learned how to put himself back in the mental state that produced success just a few pitches before. There was one sequence when he walked two batters on nine pitches. Call it performance anxiety, monkey mind, or whatever you want, but after demonstrating repeated successful execution of his pitches he gets in positions where, mentally and physically, he can't execute those very same pitches.
Bob Tewksbury has made a living working with guys who have these problems. I've spoken to him, Ed Palubinskas (NBA free throw coach), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (research scientist whose work is more predicated on when athletes and others get in "the zone" - or what he calls "flow" and can't seem to miss no matter what) and a few other people who work with pitchers, hitters, extreme athletes, sharp shooters in match shooting or putts in golf. For highly trained athletes at Webster's level who have demonstrated that they can do this repeatedly (i.e. not randomly) - but they just can't summon it consistently - it's all mental. The skill is in there, you see it in more than flashes. It's virtually all mental - turning complex physical actions into smooth near reactions. The trick is learning how to get out of your own way and letting whatever muscle memory or neural pathways you've built work for you.
We hear the phrases all the time: "It just clicked" or "He figured it out" or, as the sharp shooters say, "He lives in the black."
It's completely evident Webester hasn't figured it out yet. At least not well enough to take that #1 stuff and make it work for him when he wants it to. That's a mental part of the game. Period.
Bob Tewksbury has made a living working with guys who have these problems. I've spoken to him, Ed Palubinskas (NBA free throw coach), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (research scientist whose work is more predicated on when athletes and others get in "the zone" - or what he calls "flow" and can't seem to miss no matter what) and a few other people who work with pitchers, hitters, extreme athletes, sharp shooters in match shooting or putts in golf. For highly trained athletes at Webster's level who have demonstrated that they can do this repeatedly (i.e. not randomly) - but they just can't summon it consistently - it's all mental. The skill is in there, you see it in more than flashes. It's virtually all mental - turning complex physical actions into smooth near reactions. The trick is learning how to get out of your own way and letting whatever muscle memory or neural pathways you've built work for you.
We hear the phrases all the time: "It just clicked" or "He figured it out" or, as the sharp shooters say, "He lives in the black."
It's completely evident Webester hasn't figured it out yet. At least not well enough to take that #1 stuff and make it work for him when he wants it to. That's a mental part of the game. Period.