Psychology

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Tonight I was working with one of my top hitting students, a girl named Amy who always draws oohs and ahhs when people watch her swing the bat. She's a very good hitter, better than she herself realizes, I think, and really turned some heads as a varsity starter last year when she was a freshman.

Her normal swing is a good one, but tonight while we were doing some front toss I noticed something. At one point you could just see that something had changed with her — and changed for the better.

I had to stop and ask — did your concentration level just go up? Yes, she answered. She told me that the last swing, where the ball just jumped off her bat in what looked like it would've been a 300 foot home run if we were at a field instead of in a cage, she just totally blocked out all other thoughts and just focused on the ball.

Written by Stacie Mahoe

Most coaches have fears, worries, or anxiety about something. In fact, I'm not sure I know any coaches who don't.  It's pretty normal, when you really care about something greatly, to have concerns or worries about it.

However there is one softball coaching fear in particular that I see get in the way of good coaching time after time.

Can you guess what it is?

It's the fear of what others will think about you. I've heard advisers in other areas of life say that if you really want to be successful, you have to stop caring what other people think of you and your choices.

I believe that holds true for coaching softball too.

It's an easy trap to fall into. You and I both know how many critics there are of any softball coach. It comes with the territory. It's tough not to take things personally. Sure we all intellectually know that we shouldn't, but that's not always easy.  You're not the only coach who finds challenge in not allowing whispers (for shouts for that matter) from the outside impact what you do and the choices you make as a coach.

In this Fastpitch TV show, Arron Weintraub talks about attitude, it's affect on performance, and the two most important mental skills for success.

Also watch this episode to find out how you can win a Rip It Force Fastpitch Bat by Rip It Sporting Goods.

Previous episodes…

• How the Q Sports Helps Softball Players Improve their Game
• Hitting Clinic with Jenny Dalton Part II
• Hitting Clinic with Jenny Dalton Part I

Keeping What You See in Perspective
Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Softball fanatics love evaluating what those at high levels of play are doing. We may even watch the mechanics of some of the top players in Major League Baseball. As fanatics, we love to study those mechanics and try to learn from them in order to help our players, or our own children (male and female) become the best they can be.

There is a danger in all of this, however. Namely an inability to keep what you see in context.

While the mechanics of some of these great hitters make a good model and a good goal, it's important to be realistic in your expectations. Because like it or not, there is a huge difference between a 28 year old MLB player and a 12 year old girl.

Let's start with the obvious: a grown man is much stronger than a young girl. Not just in the upper body, but in every aspect. Take the strongest 12 year old girl you've ever seen and put her in a cage match with a 28 year old male professional athlete, and the girl is going to lose. Badly. So expecting a 12 year old girl to have the exact same swing mechanics, including the explosiveness, of a 28 year old MLB player is not very realistic.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Over the weekend I was working with Erin, one of my former players (who is still a student) on her baserunning skills. Actually, that's a misnomer.

We weren't really working on skills. We were working on the mental side instead — knowing what to do, and working on her opening up her game on the bases.

You see, she has legitimate speed. Not sure where she is now, but I know she was 3.0 home to first a year ago, and probably faster than that now.

Yet once she got on base, she tended to shrink into a shell. Most of the time she would think station to station instead of realizing just what her speed could do on the rest of the bases, so we went out on a field to try and change that thinking.

A big part of her "conservative" running was a fear of making an out. She'd take the easy base, but was reluctant to push the envelope even a little bit despite my encouraging everyone on the team to always "think two bases" when running.

Written by Stacie Mahoe

Being in the right frame of mind when going into softball competition is a big factor in your success or lack of success. There may be thoughts floating around in your head that stop you from performing at your best. If you can replace these negative thoughts with positive statements, you're likely to perform better on the field and be a bigger part of your team's success.

The first thing you need to do is recognize some of the negative thoughts you have. Here are some common ones that pop up for most players at some point or another. Just because lots of players have these thoughts, doesn't mean it's okay for you to allow them to hang out in your head. Any negativity you can replace with more positive thinking will go a long way to making you a better softball player.

17 Common Thoughts That Can Hurt Your Softball Performance

• I hope I don't strike out.
• I hope I don't bean this batter.
• Why is so-and-so playing?
• I can't play in rain/wind/sun/etc.
• This umpire just doesn't like me.
• I hate this field.

I hope you're enjoying all the giveaways we're bringing you this summer.  While we've done one for Got Bustos gear, an Insider Bat, and Ringor Cleats, we haven't really done one for Softball Performance.

Well, today we're going to change that!

Get $100 worth of softball training resources you need to raise your game to the next level.

• Throw harder
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• Get more hits
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From DVDs to Pitching Books to Coaching Resources to Hitting Audios and more, Softball Performance helps you become more dominant on the diamond.

If you win this $100 Softball Performance Giveaway, you'll get to buy products from the following list:

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Without a doubt this is a busy part of the fastpitch softball summer season. Tournaments every weekend, for some teams league or scrimmage doubleheaders during the week, and maybe a practice squeezed in here or there.

What that means is very little time to work on individual skills. Some may be able to handle that, but they're in the minority. For most, all this play time means skills are actually deteriorating.

It makes sense. In a practice setting, a hitter might take 100 to 200 swings in a session. In a game, she's lucky if she gets 12. That's a pretty big delta.

Same with fielders. Whereas in a good practice session you may field 50-100 balls or more, you may go a game or two without any significant fielding chances — especially if your team has dominant pitching. Sure, you get some practice during warm-ups, but your focus is different then. It's on getting ready for this game coming up, not on necessarily improving your skills.

Guest Post by Jen Croneberger

The top 5 mental mistakes coaches make prior to game time…

1. Expectations. Perhaps the number one killer of confidence, expectations are deadly. If you have expectations, you set your athletes up to fail. With expectations, they are in a succeed or fail mindset. If they don’t meet your expectations, they automatically see themselves as failures. This does not bode well for the rest of the game if they make a big error or strike out with a runner on third. By no means am I telling you to lower your standards. I am simply saying, use process/mini goals, or “manageable objectives” instead.

2. Putting too much emphasis on the outcome. When we focus on outcome instead of process, it causes us to not play in the present. We have to remember that we play this game one pitch at a time, anything else gets overwhelming. As a coach, it is our job to make sure our players stay present. Every at bat is a new game. Every play in the field is a new game and has no bearing on what they did in the previous inning or out. When our team is laser focused on one pitch at a time, amazing things happen. Don’t talk too much about winning or what you want the outcome to look like. Let them focus on a process goal for that game instead. So instead of a player making a goal to go 3 for 4 when the game starts, have them focus on having good at bats today.

Guest Post by Dalton Ruer

I was recently reading a very huge book and wanted to share an excerpt from this story with those of you who may not be familiar with it. It is very complicated stuff so I will interrupt the story with my own commentary so that you don’t get lost.

Once there was a mother pig who had three little pigs. She did not have enough to keep them, so she sent them out to seek their fortunes. The first little pig had not gone far when he met a man with a bundle of straw. The little pig said to him, "Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house." This the man did, and soon the little pig had built a house with it. Just after the house was built, along came a wolf. He knocked at the door of the little pig's house and called, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in!" But the little pig answered, "No, no! Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" Then the wolf said, "I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in!" So he huffed and he puffed until he blew the house in, and ate up that little pig.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Over the weekend I heard about something that just made me shake my head. It came from the parent of a 12U player.

Apparently, after her daughter's team lost their game, the coaches decided that what was called for was a little punishment. They lined up all the girls and made the entire team run a sprint for every error and every called third strike in the last game.

Essentially they meted out punishment to the girls for losing the game. After the next loss they did it again.

Maybe I'm just soft but I don't understand what good that could possibly do. Research has shown that making mistakes is an essential part of the learning process. Child development experts concur — children must be allowed to make mistakes in order to discover how things work and who they are.

Yet in spite of all of that, our society is so winning-focused that an otherwise reasonable adult believes that corporal punishment for losing a softball game is a good idea and perfectly acceptable. The belief is that the sprints will act as some sort of aversion therapy, making sure the players don't make the same mistakes again.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

This past weekend was the first tournament for the 14U team I coach. We'd spent a lot of time drilling, preparing, running game-like simulations, studying our playbook and otherwise getting ready. I was absolutely convinced we were ready to come out gangbusters.

Then came the first game of pool play. I swear it seemed like my well-drilled team had been replaced by look-alike aliens who had never seen a fastpitch softball game in their lives. We couldn't hit (despite working on it all winter), we threw to the wrong base or at the wrong time, we missed easy fielding chances, it was just a disaster. Definitely not what I was expecting.

And that's what's so humbling about our game. I've had a pretty good run with players I instructed individually the last few months. I heard glowing reports about their performance, saw their names in the newspaper, was proud of them for their post-season awards. Then the day I go out to coach my own team I wind up feeling like the worst coach in the world.

If you’ve read any of my former posts you probably realize by now that my writing is meant to encourage athletes, coaches and parents alike. I try to string together words that perhaps you have read before, in a way that makes them sound fresh. Recently one of my batting students made me realize how cliché some of our sayings can be at times and yet how critically vital they are to continue to repeat.

One of the things as a coach and an instructor that I realized a long time ago is that anyone can look good when everything is going there way. But how you react when you are in the batter’s box and the umpire made that strike call even though the ball bounced is what really separates the average players from the great players. What I’ve found is that average players allow the “happenings” around them to determine their “happiness.” While the players with the ability to win long term, and throughout life, are able to maintain control of the 6” between their ears despite the circumstances around them going against them.

I recently read an article at TheGuardianOnline.com which was so full of softball awesomeness, I just had to share it with you.  It's no wonder this team is experiencing success this season and quite impressive under a first year head coach!

Here are some of my FAVORITE highlights from this article…

…everyone has identified their role and what it takes for the team’s identity of success…
Too many players and coaches miss out on that part after the "and!"

"It’s important that every player that wears a jersey realized they are just as important as a starter," …. "It is a constant reminder they need to be prepared to produce."
I could not agree more. Many times "bench" players are asked to "accept" their role, but this often diminishes their importance within the team environment. Make sure everyone on the team grasps how important and critical EACH team member is.

We have to get the little things done.
The "big" things don't always go as we plan. Sometimes they happen. Sometimes they don't. The "little" things are usually what we have the MOST control over. Make excellence in those "little" things a priority and I'll bet more of the "big" things fall into place.

“If you are not enough without it, you will never be enough with it”

I love quotes. I just absolutely love quotes. Whether they are about chasing dreams, building confidence, working hard anything that I can use to inspire me. So I love watching some of the all time classic sports coaching movies. The ones where at just the right time emotionally the well respected old coach delivers the perfect motivational saying. The one that rallies the troops to come back from an insurmountable score, the one that sticks with you the rest of your life and you just wait for the right time to share it with others and pass it on.

One of the lines that has stuck with me for 18 years now actually comes from one of the most unexpected places. The comedy classic “Cool Runnings” which is about the Jamaican Bobsled team. The coach in the movie is played by John Candy and throughout the movie he is the exact opposite of what you would expect from a “great coach.” He’s not very disciplined. He doesn’t even try hard. As the move progresses you learn that he got kicked out of the sport he loved, bobsledding, for cheating. Clearly not the kind of person you would want leading your daughters … right?

One of the quickest ways to earn playing time is to be successful as a hitter.  Being a successful hitter does not only entail getting "hits."  After all, even "good" hitters will "fail" 6 or 7 times out of 10 at bats.

So what can you do to 1) get more hits and 2) be "successful" even if you don't get a hit?

Here are 5 tips to help you become a more successful softball hitter:

Know the Situation

Getting a hit is great, but since 6 or 7 out of 10 times you're not going to get a hit, how can you help your team even if the defense makes a great play and gets you out?

Well, knowing the situation is key.  You have to know what your team needs right now.

• Does your team need 1 run or 5 runs?
• Does your team need you to get on base safely?
• Or is it more important for you to advance an existing runner?
• How many outs are there?
• Does your team need you to score the runner from 3rd even if it means that you get out?

It's the Time Between Lessons That Really Counts

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

As most of you who have been around for a while know, I am a private instructor in addition to being a team coach and administrator of the Discuss Fastpitch Forum. It's something I love doing — I must, because for most of the off-season I'm doing it nearly every day of the week for hours at a time.

As such, I'm certainly an advocate of taking lessons for various skills — particularly hitting and pitching. A good instructor can really help shorten the learning process, and keep players from making a lot of dead-end decisions regarding technique.

Yet I always have one thing I stress to every new student and her parents: It's not the time you spend with me that's important. It's really the time you spend between visits to me that makes the difference.

Sure, I wish I could offer some miracle cure to players — a simple laying on of the hands, so to speak, that would instantly convey the skills they want to acquire. But honestly, if I could do that I'd be charging $1,000 per lesson, maybe more. And there would be a line a mile long to get a little of that "healing action."

Let me just preface this video by saying that I was once this coach who had no clue.  So if you're new to SoftballPerformance.com or new to coaching softball, it's okay if you're still making this training mistake, but if you are watch the video so you can find out how to get the help you need to fix the problem!

Thanks for watching,

Stacie Mahoe
P.S. - please excuse the drowsy look in this still frame

Need help with a good dynamic warm-up for softball? Go to SoftballWarmup.com!

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

The other day at practice we were talking about the factors that can affect the success of a play. Our players were tossing out ideas, and we built a list on a blackboard that included things such as the sun, field conditions, umpires, parents yelling, speed of execution, focus, etc. The list included more than a dozen different items, and could've been even longer if we had more time.

Once the list was made, I handed the chalk to one of the girls and told her to cross off anything that she couldn't control. When she was done, she handed the chalk to the next girl who did the same, and all the way down the line.

What was left was a series of factors that our players can control. It was a considerably smaller list to be sure.

What that list came down to in the end was our marching orders for practice. It told us the intensity level we needed, the speed we needed to practice at and the amount of focus required to be successful.

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Perhaps one of the most interesting and fun things about coaching softball players who come to you after working with other coaches is hearing the crazy things they're told to do. I'm not talking about the standards — the often-repeated instructions such as get your back elbow up. I'm talking about some of the really odd things coaches have players do.

A great example was the craze that had hitters slapping their backs with the bat. I'm not sure where that started, but there were a lot of females making that painful move not too long ago. Thankfully it's mostly gone by the wayside now.

The thing that most fascinates me about it is it seems neither the players nor the parents ever ask the simple question "why?" As in why do you want me to slap my back? How does it help?

Everything you do as a player (or say as a coach) should have a purpose. Sure, you don't want to be seen as being disrespectful, and if you're paying for lessons you want to be able to trust the person you're paying. Yet you have a right to know why you're being asked to do certain things, particularly if they deviate from the norm.