In my latest two matches — one a league match and the other a practice match — I was focused on just playing the game. This brought immediate benefits to my game. By focus on the point at hand, instead of worrying about my strategy and and tactics and whatnot, I was able to focus much more clearly. I made fewer mistakes. I don’t really mean fewer tins or errors, although that is true. What I actually noticed is I was less apt to “space out” for a few consecutive points. Sometimes I’ll go a few points and my mind will be elsewhere. I’ll lose consecutive points. Sometimes because I’m making more errors. Sometimes because I’m just letting the other player dictate things, without realizing that I’ve entered a passive frame of mind. When I try and play every point, I go through fewer stretches where I’m mentally checked out.
There are two approaches I’m trying that help me stay mentally connected to the point at hand. The first is to lock in mentally on the current score, and then think about where I want to be after this point. So if the score is 5-5, I’ll set a goal of ending the current point ahead 6-5. This is simple but effective. I used to do this when I was playing in college and I always found it to be a great technique for focusing. While I like this approach and it’s been helpful both in the past and currently, it’s not the most granular way to approach things. After all, each point can be broken down into individual shots, and you can break things down even further too — there’s a shot and then the recovery.
I’d like to see if I can come up with a smaller unit — something smaller than the individual point. The problem is going to be whether this approach is too distracting during the point itself. If you break things down into point-sized chunks, you can do your thinking in between points, when nothing’s on the line. If you look at the game in smaller chunks, will it get too distracting or confusing? I will test things out and see.
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