New Year, New Opportunities

Hey everyone! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is ready to get back to work. The new year brings with it the opportunity to reevaluate where we’re at, start over, and get recommitted to achieving your performance goals. I hope you are all as excited as I am about the upcoming season and are ready to start working hard toward achieving your goals. Let’s get the season started right by putting in the work now. I’ll see everyone soon.

Great News!

We have moved into our very own facility. This facility will enable us to serve our athletes better and take player development to new heights. If you're in Huntington Beach come by and check us out. We are located at 15661 Producer Ln. Suite N in Huntington Beach, Ca 92649.

The Importance of Silence

Sometimes it seems that the more progress we make in the physical development of athletes the farther we get away from the importance of the mind and the recognition of the mind/body connection. If you’ve read any of my earlier blogs you know that I’m a big believer in the mind/body connection and my teaching is based on the fact that all physical movement and physical skills originate in the mind. Your ability to execute and repeat your mechanics is 100% due to your ability to eliminate any resistance and mental clutter from your mind to allow your body to execute the skills you’ve learned. Without knowing it however today’s athletes routinely fill their mind with mental clutter inadvertently creating inconsistent performance.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was watching Matt Garza of the Tampa Bay Rays pitch. During the game they showed what Matt does to prepare for his start. Sitting alone Matt has his head plugged into his iPod with loud music cranked up to get him “pumped up” for his start. Now I would never argue about Matt’s ability or say that he doesn’t posses lights out stuff. The problem with Matt is throughout his career he has demonstrated that his performance isn’t as consistent as the great pitchers in the game today. One day he’ll have no hit type performances (like he did a couple weeks ago) and other days he’ll resemble a AAA level pitcher.

Watching his pre-game routine made me think back to my own career. Back in college I too listened to loud music to get me “pumped up”. I had the belief that success in baseball was directly related to my level of effort. That if I got fired up, went out and tried hard, and wanted it more then my opponent that I would achieve the success I desired. Unfortunately I experienced the same inconsistent performance that Matt Garza has. I didn’t understand what the proper mechanics were or how to prepare my mind to enhance my performance. It wasn’t until I started to study the mind and the mind/body connection that I realized how powerful silence really is.

In today’s fast paced society where we have the opportunity to be constantly stimulated athletes don’t spend very much time (or any time at all) in silence. Today’s athlete can wake up in the morning, turn the tv on, eat breakfast, shower, jump in the car, turn the radio on, and basically go through their entire day without ever experiencing a moment of silence. If they are in a position where they might be forced to be silent they can plug their into their phones or iPods and distract themselves even further. The problem is, this constant stimulation doesn’t allow our mind to quiet itself and allow the free flow of information from our subconscious mind to our body which is necessary for repeatable, consistent performance.

If you look back in history samurai's would go into deep, silent, meditation before battle. These warriors were masters of movement and understood that a quiet mind was a necessity for them to execute their skills efficiently. Personally, as I got farther along in my career I began to employ silence and meditation into my pre-game ritual. The results I experienced were amazing. Executing my mechanics became easier and almost effortless. I had much more control over my emotions and I stayed on more of an even keel mentally and emotionally.

I would encourage you to begin to use silence in your pre-game routine. Put away your iPod and don’t think about getting “pumped up” for the game. Instead think about putting yourself in the best position possible to consistently execute your mechanics. Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Many times this can be done in your car in the parking lot before the game. Close your eyes and just listen to yourself breath for 10-15 minutes. Control your breath by utilizing slow, deep breaths. If your mind begins to wander just gently bring your focus back to your breathing. At first your mind may object by creating it’s own mental clutter. Understand that this is all very normal, you are just becoming aware of the clutter and resistance that you were never aware of before. Over time your mind will begin to quiet itself and the resistance that has been preventing you from achieving your desired level of performance will begin to disappear. You will begin to notice not only improved performance but more consistent performance as well. Do yourself a favor, eliminate some of the stimulation, and quiet your mind. You will be shocked at how this simple mental technique will improve your physical performance.

Effort Levels and Why They’re Important

One of my favorite things to see as a hitting instructor is when an athlete begins to produce far more power then they ever have with very little effort. The look on their face when they hardly swing and yet crush the ball is absolutely priceless. They can hardly believe that for all these years they have been trying much harder and getting much less of a result. As I’ve discussed in the past elevated effort level effect us both mentally and physically as effort comes from doubt or our ego neither of which isn’t a good place to be mentally and physically it creates added muscular tension which doesn’t allow the body to execute the mechanics properly and it slows the athlete down. However most athletes are stuck in the believe that increased effort equals increased speed and power. One way to look at it is increased effort doesn’t give you increased speed but rather it increases your output of energy essentially giving you the sense that your working harder which you interpret as moving faster.

However this increase in effort creates muscle tension throughout the body and while we are increasing the amount of energy expended we are not increasing our speed or efficiency. Bruce Lee describe it best in his book, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, “Before movements can take place, there must be a change of muscular tension on both sides of the joints to be moved. The effectiveness of this muscular teamwork is one of the factors which determine limits of speed, endurance, power, agility, and accuracy in all athletic performances.... When rapid motion takes place, as in running or throwing, the muscles closing the joints shorten and those on the opposite side lengthen to permit the movement. There is still tension on both sides, but on the lengthening side, it is considerably reduced... Any excessive tension in the lengthening muscles acts as a brake and thereby slows and weakens the action.”

Do yourself a favor and lower your effort levels. Begin to think about being more efficient, focusing on the execution of your skill and not trying to muscle through to produce a result.

Baseball is a SKILL Sport

Many of my clients wonder why it is that I have studied martial artists, musicians, and athletes in other sports as well as baseball players and their mechanics. Quite honestly I’m not that interested in many things outside of baseball however my interest in these other pursuits are what I use to learn about skill and the development of skill. The people involved in these other areas have done much more research on the development of skills then we have done in baseball over the last 100 years. Martial artists have been developing amazing athletes for centuries and it doesn’t appear as that is going to slow down anytime soon. Yet in baseball we cling to the natural talent theory and yet ability in baseball isn’t about natural ability, size, or strength which so many people inside the game would have you believe. It’s a skill sport, a sport where the best athletes execute proper skills more often then athletes of lesser ability. Like martial arts the skills it takes to become great can be learned. Unfortunately most people involved in baseball over the years have lead the rest of us to believe that baseball is a sport where you either have it or you don’t. Primarily because the people in charge of baseball development were either too lacking in the knowledge it took to improve the athletes with which they worked or they were just too lazy to try. Either way it became much easier to focus on the more advanced athlete and throw everyone else out the window because they “just weren’t born with it”.

Adding to this theory is that most athletes don’t know what they need to do to develop the skills they need to be successful or they don’t have the patience or drive to perform the mundane drills and exercises necessary to develop these skills. It’s fairly common for me to get rolled eyes or slumped shoulders when I start my athletes with body drills and slow motion work. As a result of our addition to instantaneous gratification many athletes simply jump in a cage and hit off a machine or get their Dad or buddy to throw to them or jump on the mound and start with a bullpen because it’s far more enjoyable then standing in front of a mirror by yourself going through your mechanics in slow motion making sure each movement is correct while you are trying to program your nervous system. But make no mistake about it, hitting, throwing, or pitching a baseball is a skill and these skills can be learned. You may be in a different place developmentally then another athlete and it may take you longer to get where you desire to be however that doesn’t mean that skill development and ultimate skill mastery is impossible. If you truly want to reach the levels of performance that you desire to reach then it’s imperative that you take the time to learn about and employ the steps necessary to develop the skills you need to be successful. Think of it this way, you’ve already learned and mastered the most difficult skills you’ll ever learn. Learning to walk, write, type, all take much more skill then to swing a bat but the difference is you learned these skills at a younger age, long before you had the ability to decide that learning these skills took too much time and were too much work. You don’t need a thousand swings a day but rather consistent, detail oriented, focused work. Move slowly at first and then gradually increase the speed of the skill you’re trying to execute. Over time you will achieve a level of mastery over that skill and you will be able to have the success you desire to have. Keep in mind that everyone is different. For some it takes more time to master the skill. Just keep at it, and remember the Japanese theory of Kaizen, which stands for never ending daily improvement.

Success in baseball is no mystery. Your overall success is based on your ability to execute proper mechanics consistently. Everything from you mental and emotional state, to your training, to the thoughts you consistently think effect your ability to do this. Don’t let anyone tell you that you just weren’t born good enough. The fact is you just need more time to develop the skills you need to be successful. It’s not a matter of genetics or natural selection it’s a matter of programing movement patterns into your nervous system and subconscious mind. It may take time, it may take some effort, however with patience and consistent practice these skills can be learned and mastered.

“Training for skill is purely a matter of forming proper connections in the nervous system through precision practice.”
~Bruce Lee
Tao of Jeet Kune Do

You Gotta Have Fun!

It seems like this almost goes without saying. I mean baseball is a game and we started playing this game because we love it and it’s a lot of fun. The problem is that the farther we progress up the ladder and the farther we get away from the innocence of our childhood we tend to forget why we play this great sport. It starts to become more about other things. Our ego (or how good we are or how good our kid is), making a particular team, reaching certain performance goals, getting a scholarship, winning a championship, or any number of other things that takes us away from the game in it’s most natural and purest form. All of these things take us away from the real reason we started playing in the first place. We have this belief that I’ll enjoy it when I reach this level or that level or I’ll enjoy it when I get a few more hits or reach a certain statistical plateau. Parents will say they’ll enjoy it when their child gets to college or signs a professional contract. The problem is this way of thinking prevents us from ever enjoying it or having fun when we play. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says it puts us in a state of, “striving yet never arriving.” There will always be another level to reach, higher stats to obtain, all star teams to make, hits to get, and so on. Parents and athletes alike forget to have fun and enjoy where they are at in this moment and as a result the playing career ends and we’re left looking back wishing we could still play thinking we should have enjoyed it more. Wether your career is over at 18 or 45 if you don’t take time to have fun and enjoy it right now you never will.

This mentality can affect performance as well. When we are in a state of joy this is the most optimal state of allowing. In this state the subconscious easily communicates to the body and allows the athlete to play “in the zone”. In this state athletes are completely free from negativity that hampers their performance. So not only will you enjoy playing more but having fun will actually increase your performance giving you the ability to repeat your mechanics more often. As a wise man once told me, “You don’t have fun because your having success, you have success because you’re having fun.” At your next game make your goal to have as much fun as possible. Tell yourself that regardless of what comes your way during that game you are going to have fun, enjoy every moment of getting to play and watch how your performance increases.