Recently,
I was talking with a friend about a problem he was having with his
tennis game. He had come back to competitive play after a brief
hiatus. In the conversation, he identified the problem of his
wandering concentration, of large, multi-game gaps where he went
somewhere else, much to the detriment of his play. So, we talked
about drills he could use to stay focused, to sit the straying puppy
mind. Then, he wrote me an email saying that he thought the
problem was connected to his fitness level, and I wrote back agreeing
that as fitness wanes, so too concentration. Then he wrote again
saying that he thought that what the problem really needed was a
thorough assessment. Again, I had to agree. So, since that
conversation, the issue of assessment has been on my mind.
Most club-level,
or even league-level players tend to solve problems in their games with
an equipment change. It's the easiest, least invasive procedure,
promising the latest “game-improving” technology. But a quick
peek into any golfer's closet will reveal many such quick fixes:
discarded putters and drivers by the dozen that were going to be The
Answer. These rejected solutions hint at a truth we all know too
well: retail therapy feels good in the moment, but doesn’t go very far
in solving more pervasive, underlying issues. So, I have had the
following thoughts for squash players looking to move up on their club
ladder, beat their nemesis, and reach new levels of prowess:
Fitness. At
any and every skill level, fitness will be a major factor in winning or
losing. While we have all been spared the tremendous fitness
burden of 9-point scoring, squash still remains a very anaerobically
demanding sport. Most players use their regular matches as their
fitness regimen. But, if they were to dedicate even one workout
slot per week to improving their anaerobic capacity, they would be
amazed at the result. It's not just concentration that frays with
fatigue, but everything does. Everything. Another way of
saying this is that without a good fitness base, every problem in a
close match will be one of fitness. So, get that problem out of
the way.
Willingness.
The next most important skill in assessing problems is really a frame
of mind rather than one of technique: a willing attitude toward hearing
or seeing the problem as it is. I recently read an article that
reviewed findings from a study on self-assessment.* The bad news was
that it turns out we are pretty bad self-assessors, and further, we
tend to inflate our abilities in just those areas in which we have a
weakness. Experts call this problem a problem of metacognition,
which is, in essence, the ability to get some distance from our own
thoughts. An additional dimension to this syndrome is how
entrenched it is. We don’t give up our incorrect assessments
easily. We tend to believe what we believe. So, in order to
assess problems in our games we have to be both willing to be wrong
about our own thoughts about our game, and willing to hear what the
real problem might be.
Data. Much
as we like to complicate it, squash is a fairly simple game.
Therefore, our data collection does not need to take on the same nutty
statistical analysis as golf or baseball. But if the article I
referenced above is correct, we do need outside eyes. Take a
lesson from your pro, videotape a match, or have someone track your
match with a score sheet. How many tins do you hit? When do
you hit them? Do you go through highs and lows? Can someone
give you insight into your shot selection? Your footwork?
Any data point will help, as long as it contributes to seeing the
problem for what it is, not for how you think it. You may notice
that some problems are brand new to you, while others are ones you
actually knew about but were somehow avoiding bringing to your fully
conscious mind. The more interested you can be in discovering
problems, the more open you will be to their remediation.
One unifying
feature of successful assessment is the absence of ego.
Generally, you will find that greater ego investments yield fewer
dividends in truth. And every skill I’ve discussed above requires
a diminishing of ego investment. I will close with a personal
anecdote along these lines. During the time that I was playing in
a great deal of tournaments, training hard, and fancying myself a
pretty good player, my work took me to Washington, D.C. for a
year. As it happened, Ken Hiscoe (“The Bear”) was also living in
D.C. that year, and giving lessons. Figuring that you rarely get
the opportunity to get on court with someone who was once #2 in the
world, I signed up for some lessons, hoping to add some fancy new
tricks to my quiver. Well, after about ten minutes into our first
session, The Bear turns to me and says, “your length is really not that
good. Needs to be much better.” My length?! The most
basic of all squash skills! Well, though it took a bit to choke
down, I signed on to his program, improved my length throughout the
year, and went on to meet and surpass many of the goals I had set for
myself. Or, I guess I could have just bought a new racquet.
*Kruger, J. &
Dunning, D. 1999. Unskilled and unaware of it: How
difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated
self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology. 1121-1134.
Matt Munich:
When Matt is not torturing himself over the perfect sentence to craft
for his current work of fiction, he is a clinical social worker helping
children and adults recover from traumatic stress. He is also
starting a sport psychology consultation service for which he writes a
blog, often hosted on The Daily Squash Report, on the cognitive
challenges of sport to help athletes of all ages and skill levels
achieve their full potential. Matt has been involved in
competitive squash at all levels since middle school, and has been a
teaching pro and coached several high school squash programs. He
is still at it, harboring delusions of grandeur despite what has been
generally recognized as a modest degree of natural ability and the
wages of cruel time on his already blunted reaction time. He
lives in Jamaica Plain, MA with Melissa, his wife and muse. His
blog can be seen at: http://altiusperformanceworks.blogspot.com/
What's On My Mind is a column by rotating authors. Contact DailySquashReport@gmail.com
