Doing rather than thinking
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Loading ...This is an extremely important concept, for any athlete of surpassing ability. It’ll be described in all sorts of ways: execution, having the game slow down for you, being locked in, making it all look easy, whatever.
It’s all just a fancy way of phrasing the reality that the athlete in question has honed their craft to a point where it’s no longer necessary to have to focus on every little detail of their game, and instead can channel all their mental energy into focusing on the situation. This is why major league baseball players spend hours in the batting cage, tinkering with mechanics–get it to a point where it’s second nature, and then you can focus on just hitting the ball, not your left foot position, your grip on the bat, all of that extraneous stuff comes naturally, and for an instant, everything clicks.
That’s why you practice your throws, time after time,–so when you’re on the field during a game and you need to get that forehand huck off under pressure, you can focus on breaking your mark, rather than breaking your mark while stepping out, making sure your grip on the disc is correct, and keeping your wrist position from turning the disc over too much.
But to just generalize with “this comes merely from doing X over and over” would be misleading. It’s not that simple; it requires loads of focus and deadication in practice. Even when you’re just tossing, you have to make sure you’re reinforcing good habits, getting out, getting low, hitting your target in the chest–every time. If you practice without focus, you’ll pay for it in game situations.
Once you’ve applied your focus thusly, it becomes a matter of making it instinctive. If you’ve practiced good form for 1000 low-release forehand throws, you should be able to merely concentrate on your target, and how you want your throw to be while throwing, and have the form come naturally.
Success at the highest level absolutely requires this sort of neuromuscular coordination, to be able to respond with the correct movement and ability as quickly as possible at precisely the right moment.
