If you talk to accomplished athletes in any sport, you will hear them speak of the importance of concentration, for concentration is at the heart of success in any endeavor, including badminton.
Most everyone knows that concentration has to do with paying attention. Does that mean consciously willing yourself to focus? Is concentration a shrill voice in your head screaming over and over, "Pay attention!" until you do? Maybe at first. Focus is delicate, elusive. Pay close attention to the trees and you may miss the forest, and vice versa.
Eventually, if you stay with it, you will learn to relax and focus more naturally. Once you master the strokes and know when to use them, you may be able to turn game control over to your now well-developed instincts.
Your conscious mind, however, will want to interfere. Consider this athletic equation:
Most everyone knows that concentration has to do with paying attention. Does that mean consciously willing yourself to focus? Is concentration a shrill voice in your head screaming over and over, "Pay attention!" until you do? Maybe at first. Focus is delicate, elusive. Pay close attention to the trees and you may miss the forest, and vice versa.
Eventually, if you stay with it, you will learn to relax and focus more naturally. Once you master the strokes and know when to use them, you may be able to turn game control over to your now well-developed instincts.
Your conscious mind, however, will want to interfere. Consider this athletic equation:
Performance = Potential - Interference
Performance is how well you actually do your results; potential is a measurement of the best performance you are capable of at any givent moment; interferences is the mental static produced by the conscious mind. When pressure is minimal, the mind may become distracted.
A reduction of mental interference will improve performance, even with no change in potential (read: practice). In other words, get your head screwed on right, and you can become a better player without even picking up a racket.
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| Dutch Eric Pang concentrates on his opponent's service |
But the overactive conscious mind does not react well to being told to butt out. (It's rather like ordering yourself to sleep). Instead, you will have to rely on deceit. Some coaches suggest distracting the conscious mind by focusing in something only marginally related to the task in hand. By giving it something else to chew on, the subconscious is left unfettered. Two was to distract that pesky conscious mind are by association and visualization.
To associate positively, immerse yourself in positive recollections. Suppose you are serving for the match. Like everyone, you've had both good bad moments in the past. For best results, think about the successes and discard the failures. Replay an imaginary type that you might call "My Greatest Hits."
First cousin to positive association, visualization, is a type of mental rehearsal in which you conjure up detailed visions of the activity before you do it.
The first step of visualization is relax. Use a method that works for you. You might close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, recite your favorite mantra, or play a mental videotape of a winning moment.
Focus on the finer points of the swing. Immerse yourself in the swing. See it as one fluid whole. Hear the twang of shuttle hitting strings; feel the heft of the racket, your fingers curling around the shaft; see the bird streaking toward it starget.
Visualization takes dedicated practice. The up side is that, you can practice it anywhere - in a bed or bathtub, at a bus stop - and the rewards can be staggering.
Research suggests that muscles respond to visualization of an act almost if you did the act. Thus, the more intensely you visualize the perfect smash, the more entrenched it will be in your muscle memory. This kind of memory operates almost entirely on the subconscious level, which helps explain how you can play a shot beautifully but can't explain it to others.
Boga, Steven. 1996. "Badminton: A handbook of all the rules, strategies, tips, and techniques that you need to be a better player". Stackpole Books: Pennsylvania, USA.
