Practice is Practice and Play is Play

How many times have you seen an amateur sportsman, or even a professional one for that matter, try and rectify technical errors on the field/course/court? How many times have you hit a splendid drive thinking about your swing the entire way through, or kicked that pearler of a drop goal whilst feeling every movement of your foot going back to your hips swinging through at just the right time and angle? The answer to the two questions above are, Plenty and never. Plain and simple, sport is a game where instinct and habit takes over to create an optimum performance.

The purpose of practice is for the muscles and brain to learn a set of movements and actions that are best for you to perform at your maximum potential. This practice then brings confidence to sportsmen as they perceive/allow themselves to think, that they are improving. Confidence comes through preparation and past performance. Therefore during practice it is crucial that you work at an intense level and iron out any technical flaws that you may have. You need to take heart from any small improvement whilst working towards a larger goal that you have set for yourself. At the end of every session you should evaluate your progress and assess how prepared you are for your game. You should also practice the discipline of controlling your thoughts and visualising the perfect scenarios. Finished and Klaar!
The game situation is different, this is where you allow your instinct to take over, where you trust that all the work put in will pay off and where you continue to ensure that your thoughts are what they need to be for optimum performance. No thoughts of technical issues, or failure, or why you are not performing as you did in practice need take place. The less thought you give to your game, whatever it may be, the better. The truly instinctive players are able to do that because they have practiced both physically and mentally but then let themselves go and play freely. During a match, a round, or a game, you are best served just concentrating on your goal or more specifically your target of where you want to bowl/hit/kick the ball and then just do it. Sometimes there is just very little you can do to rectify technical errors during a game situation and the best thing to do is to just trust your instincts. A great example of this is Roger Federer who of late has really had to battle some poor form during games and also some improved opponents, yet his results have still been impressive and he has been able to win matches even when he played below par. He has been able to trust himself on the court and let his instincts flow. Yes, he may be talented, and practice a lot more than you and I, but the fact is, it is highly rare for someone to perform well when laboured with the thoughts of technical flaws and fears of failure. If you are struggling, just play on and do what you can do well, well. Stick to your instincts and enjoy the game, and keep practice for practice time- trust me!!