I have shared bits and pieces from sports psychologist Dan Abrahams before. They’ve covered topics like a list of tips & tricks, negative & positive emotion, thinking about how players think, and a list of practices you can use to be a better coach. In this post I want to explore something from Dan’s book, Soccer Tough.
The book itself is so heavily focused on soccer that I’ve opted not to review it here. I did, however, pull a pair of quotes out that are certainly applicable to volleyball. Here’s the first one.
“Lose performance focus and you can lose your technical game and tactical execution. Switching off leads to mistakes, to indecision, to a lack of awareness and to slow anticipation. Take your mind off the game for a second and you can cause an array of problems for yourself and your team mates.”
Hard to argue with that, right? Now here’s the key to staying locked in.
“I wanted him to understand the good news that the best soccer players don’t have some Zen like focus that mere mortals can’t aspire to. They are simply skillful at directing their focus on the most appropriate things during a game. These are things that help them execute their technique and tactical game plan to the best of their ability.”
This is exactly the sort of thing I mentioned here. Focus isn’t something inherent. It’s a learned skill.
How much time do we intentionally spend helping our players develop it, though?
I should note that reading (such as reading the server) is the byproduct of focus. If a player lacks focus, or focuses on the wrong thing, they won’t get the cues they need to make a read. Heck, they may not even realize they’re in a reading situation!
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