Everyone chokes and usually, more than once! You are in a match or any kind of competitive situation, and you miss that match point that could have sealed the deal. Why do you play so well in practice then tighten up so much when it feels like it really counts in a match?
Well, there are three parts to the brain that are helpful to understand. The back of the brain, called the reptilian brain, keeps your heart pumping and lungs going so that you do not have to consciously think about it! The mid-brain, which is also our flight-or-fight controller, is where our survival instincts come from. If you were on a safari and a lion is about to attack you, you would not sit there trying to rationalize how you would escape. Most likely your flight-or-fight response would kick in and you would run to the nearest path of escape. The third part of the brain, or the cortex, is where we store all of our knowledge, skill and athletic ability. When we are in a fearful situation like a lion about to attack or something as simple as being nervous in match play, the brain recognizes this nervousness as fear. This fear signals our mid-brain to kick in and shut off the cortex where our skills are stored. This mid-brain function makes us choke and feel very reactive and uncoordinated.
There are several tricks to learning how to take control of your mental abilities. Practice makes perfect is not always the answer. What does a student actually need to practice or focus on to become mentally tough? Realizing and understanding the three parts of the brain is a good start. At least physiologically, you can understand that this occurrence is taking place.
If you want to learn more, contact Mike May at
mmay@houstonian.com for more ways to develop your mental toughness.