okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Friday, May 07, 2004
Confidence
Orienteering well when you lack confidence is tough. I can think of three good ways to have confidence:
1. Train the way you wanted (so you feel well prepared).
2. Reflect on prior good races.
3. Be totally oblivious of past training and results and just assume you'll do well (I've seen some basketball players who seem oblivious to everything going on around them).
I'm not really sure 3 works. If it does, it'd take a very special mentality.
I was thinking about confidence and sports performance while I was watching the KC Royals baseball game tonight. Last season, the Royals performed better than expected. This year, they've struggled (their pitching wasn't much last year and they didn't really improve over the off season). Tonight they played Boston -- a strong team -- and faced a good pitcher.
The Royals looked good. The Royals had a 6-2 lead going in to the 8th inning.
Then they fell apart. Boston scored 2 runs in the 8th. The 9th inning was a disaster. The pitcher walked a runner, then gave up a home run. The score was tied. They walked another runner. Then the Royals brought in a new pitcher who got one out before giving up a hit that scored the winning run.
Falling apart like that must destroy the athletes' confidence.
posted by Michael |
9:19 PM
