When you feel good, you are apt to
play well. Conversely, when you feel bad, you are likely to play poorly.
Sport psychologists talk about the
need to control emotion on court, but what they mean by this is not simply
suppressing emotions (like anger or depression). They refer instead to an
optimum strategy by which players not only rid themselves of negative emotions
but also work to create positive ones.
During tennis competition, as with
the other sports, positive emotions help but do not guarantee good play. This
fact tends to confuse players because they often find that they still lose
matches even after disciplining their emotions positively and well.
So they start to think emotional
control has no value. And they are dead wrong! Even though good emotions do not
ever guarantee a victory, bad emotions often guarantee a loss.
Emotions only set the stage for the
quality of play that follows, but they don’t control it. Good emotions only
make good play more likely; they don’t guarantee anything.
Finally, emotional effects on tennis
performance are often overlooked because they may be small, sometimes only a
difference of a point or two here and there, which are hardly noticeable. (But
these few points, in a close match, often make the difference between winning
and losing.)
Habits,
Repetitions, and Our Strokes
Our strokes are controlled by
sequences of muscle memories that are programmed into the nervous system
through repetition in practice. The more correct repetitions, the more accurate
the programming and the more likely the stroke is to function properly in
competition.
Optimal tactical responses to an
opponent’s shots during play are also programmed into our nervous systems by
reward and punishment during past competition. For example, when we hit the
right shot and win the point and, in the same situation, hit the wrong shot and
lose the point, our nervous systems record this information and use it later to
improve shot selection.
Eventually, the strokes and
immediate tactical responses are no longer under conscious control in matches.
They function by habit and come out too quickly for conscious thought.
Of course, at the conscious level,
we need to have game plans and remain sensitive to how well they are working in
order to make effective adjustments, but this is all superimposed upon the set
of basic programmed habits and responses that function below the level of
conscious thought.
Now for the punch line: these habits
and programmed responses are substantially affected by strong emotion. They are
disrupted by negative emotions (and negative thought processes that ultimately
produce negative emotions) like anger, depression, fear, and pessimism.
On the other hand, they are helped
by positive emotions (and positive thought processes that ultimately produce
positive emotions) like optimism, controlled aggression, feelings of
confidence, strength and courage. Even when the effects are small, they often
make the difference between victory and defeat.
In competition, the top pros spend
most of their time between points striving to eliminate negative emotions and
create positive ones. This requires an emotional plan and the discipline to
implement it regardless of negative events that may occur during match play.
The less successful players allow
their emotions to be determined by what is happening on court. This is an
unstable and circular situation in that their emotions are controlled by events
(which are out of their control) rather than by themselves.
Control
Your Emotions on Court
Bad play produces bad emotions,
which in turn produce further bad play. The trick in maximizing performance and
reducing its variability is for the player to produce positive emotions before
every point, independent of what is happening on court.
The easiest way to achieve this is
to begin by having no emotion at all at the end of a point. (Don’t allow
anything that happens on court to shake you in any way.)
Then, starting from an emotionally
neutral position, you consciously and deliberately (through visualization,
positive interpretation of events on court, self-exhortation, etc.) work to
conjure up positive emotions before the next point starts.
This will set the stage properly and
increase your odds of playing well when the next point begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment