Thursday 14 April 2011

Hi all,

Well as I write I am sitting on a big luxury bus headed for Washington DC where we will play a double header against Georgetown University, our make up game from Tuesday.  As I ride in the bus I am looking out the window to the beautiful countryside of Virginia and listening to John Denver’s Sunshine on my shoulder. – Another beautiful part of the USA.

For those who may not know Virginia was the heartland of the southern/ confederate forces in the USA Civil War, which incidentally began 150 years ago on Tuesday 12 April 1861 when the first shots were fired.  My understanding is that the war ended close to his date some years later in a small town near Farmville called Appomattox, which is also the name of the street in which I currently reside here in the USA.  The surrender by the south was signed in the Appomattox Court House.  There will be a recreation of the armistice this Saturday the 16^th where actors will depict the southern soldiers bringing their weapons to the courthouse to be burned.  I am hoping to go.

Looking at the countryside, I am amazed at how this war must have been fought.  In movies depicting the war, we often see the battles undertaken in open fields and farmland.  When you drive through Virginia, you can understand why when you see how thick the bushland is here, or what it more likely referred to as forest.  It would have been difficult to conduct a war in such terrain in those days with that technology, whereas today it would be the preferred terrain.

We have arrived so off to the games.

Back in the bus now and on the way home.  Its 2214hrs.  So far on the ride back we have driven past, the Pentagon, the US Marines Memorial (the big one from Iwo Gima where the Marines are placing the US flag into the ground), driven over the Potomac River and past Arlington Cemetery.  In the distance I could also see the National Monument, The Capitol Building and the Washington Monument.  All fairly spectacular in their own right, I was the only one looking out the window!  Softball coach, son, friend, brother, tourist J

So a 50/50 day.  We lost the first game 3-2 in 8 innings.  We did not switch on early and only decided to bring the energy and intensity in about the 4^th inning when we finally got on the board.  Their team played a pretty good game to be honest, which we were to find out later was one of their best for the year.  But in between games, coach gave one of her ‘inspirational’ speeches which even made me fear for my life, I mean want to play well, and the girls came out better prepared the second game.  We won 8-2.

After a loss like our first game, it is easy to want to look around and find reasons why.  Sometimes I believe this can be a futile exercise.  Sometimes you just get beaten, sometimes you leave you’re A game on the bus, sometimes you just keep waiting for it to happen instead of making it happen.  When we have off games, this is what it feels like to me.  We each look at each other waiting for her or her to do something, instead of me doing something whether she does or not.  Like they say in footy, when its your turn to go, you go and if everyone goes when its their turn, then you have probably had one of those games where you have left everything on the field.

If you looked at the two games you would say that the only two things that changed from one game to the next was their pitcher and our intensity!  We can’t control who they throw at us, but we can control our intensity.  It is a lesson we keep learning and a line I keep throwing at them.

Had some pizza for dinner before leaving Washington which was very naughty, however I would trade it for everything to only get one more Italian Waterice which I found in Norfolk last night.  Rita’s Waterice is a Philadelphia must have and whilst up there during my playing days would get as often as I could.  Now before you people remind me of my insulin resistance, let me tell you that the flavour I chose last night was both sugar and fat FREE!!!

And before I go, I want to respond to J from Sydney.  He wanted to assure me there were more sports played in Australia than just AFL.  Well J, it is in fact the only sport we have that is not played in any other country with any where near the ability that we Australian’s have.  But rest assured, I have given some credence to cricket, netball, rugby league and union in my presentation.  The point was to speak on sports played elsewhere in the world but not the USA, with a particular attention to sports that are highly popular in Australia.  I have also spoken about the differences in sporting culture between the two countries.  One such difference that in the USA, it is WIN WIN WIN at all costs.  Whereas in Australia we like to win but the party afterwards is almost as important, as well as playing for participation and to have fun.  Thanks for that comment and I would like to remind you that my obsession with AFL is yet to have totally interfered with the rest of my life J

Next game will be at Virginia Tech, on Tuesday 19 April.

And the drive down Interstate 95 South continues.

D

                   This first picture is of the field at Norfolk State University

              Score board of the softball field on the right and Football field in the background

This is a shot from the dugout on the field on which Georgetown plays.  Our girls are praticing on the right.  Just to the right of the scoreboard is a dog park and it was fun to see about 20 dogs playing together int he park.  I am not sure what the building is but it appears to be a restoration.  An absolutely beautiful building.

                              A picture of Georgetown's field looking from the outfield.

Four More Games

Hi all,

Just on the drive home from Norfolk State University after crushing them by the mercy rule twice 12-3 and 9-0. They were not a very strong team.

We also won both of our games on Sunday at home against Charleston Southern University fairly convincingly.

We were supposed to be playing Georgetown University in Washington on Tuesday but were unfortunately cancelled due to rain. And it did rain hard all afternoon. However we have been rescheduled for tomorrow, so we will be heading up to Washington tomorrow morning for a double header. It's about a 3 hour drive so we'll be taking a big bus, not one of these small buses we are on now. Also one of my old bosses is now working at the Australian embassy in Washington and we are hoping he can come along to the games. Would be nice to see a familiar face.

So I am currently on the road on the way back from Norfolk State. I am able to use the Internet due to a small device called a MiFi. It is a personal Internet connection device that you have on you but it's not connected to anything. It sends out a small wifi signal that you can use to get the Internet on any device you have. My team member is using her computer and I am using my iPad! My new toy. My other new toy is my Bose noise cancelling headphones...oh my God!

Other than the above I have seen two movies: Hannah and Arthur. Both o.k but Arthur was very enjoyable. Hannah looked impressive but was ultimately disappointing. Although cate blanchett and Eric bannah were impressive.

I have also been working on a talk the school has asked me to do about the differences in culture between Australian and American sport. I was due to do it tomorrow but due to the games rescheduling, it will now be on the 26th.

I have also been working on a PowerPoint presentation to give to the team about routine in sport. I will blog more on the importance of routine another time.

That's it for now.

I'll check in again tomorrow on the way back from Georgetown.

Stay safe.

D

This week 4 to 10 April

Hi all,

A few days off from writing but I am back to tell you we won yesterday against the Adelaide Crow, in Adelaide, by 25 points. Ha Ha yes I mean the mighty Fremantle Dockers not our softball team.  Congratulations to the team and Matthew Pavlich who has just broken the Dockers club record for games played with 239.  Lets hope he makes it to 300.  Two wins away home now puts me in a very good mood for the season.

So as for softball, the week has turned out very well for the team.

Monday:

Monday was a day off play but a day on practice.  Practice began at 10am with 4 girls coming every 90mins for 90 mins of hitting each.  We set up 3 hitting stations and each girl hit at each station.  Without exaggeration, I am estimating that each girl would have had at least 1000 swings each in that 90mins.  Then about 2.30pm the girls had weights for 30mins.  Then at 3.30pm I began pitching practice and then at 4pm the whole team came for defence practice until about 6pm.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was more of the same except indoor practice this time.  Two girls would come on the hour for an hour - 30mins hitting with me off a tee or toss ball and 30mins facing live pitching next store.  Then at 5pm we began whole of training on the field.  I also ran pitching training.  Practice finished at about 7pm.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was game day against Radford University.  There was extra special incentive due to some of the girls having close relationships with some of the girls for Radford as well as the Raford coach being an ex assistant coach at Longwood :-)

Radford is about 3 hours away so we met at the buses at 10am for a 10.30pm departure.  On arrival we played game one at 2pm, winning 12-9 with about 20 hits to about 12.  It was a frustrating game although we won.  A few temperaments were frayed however it was all put down to what happens in the heat of the moment between competitive people.

I am to do a talk to the school this Thursday on my experience of the USA v Australia in sports culture.  One point I am going to make is that I feel in the USA, it is all about winning and winning above all else.  In Australia I believe sportsmanship, the social aspect and simply trying to play the best you can that are at the core of playing sport, as well of course as trying to win in the process.

Game two began with a cold snap.  We also did not fair as well losing 3-1.  You could look at it that we won the day over all, however the teams record will not reflect that!

This is a point where I would like to mention the weather in Virginia....WEIRD!  Its even worse than Melbourne's 4 seasons in one day!  One day it can be 30 degrees celcius and the next 10 with a minimum of 4 over night.  One day I have the heater on, like now, but two days ago I had the air conditioner on.  Today I was wearing gloves during the game with about a 10 degree max and tomorrow it is forecast for close to 30!!!!

So after game two, we grabbed some Subway (My nutritionist would be proud) and then the 3 hour drive home arriving at 1230am.

Thursday:

Thursday we had off and I made the most of it with a shopping trip to an outer suburb of Richmond called Short Pump.  I planned to hit Macy's and Men's Warehouse, however when I found Men's Warehouse, I also found Ross's and TJ Max.  These are extra special clothing discount stores! So I found some good deals there and then hit Men's Warehouse who have a special for buy anything int he store and get one free....so a couple of suits were the order of the day with the weight I have lost, plus some shirts and ties.  Yee ha.  Then back to Farmville for some reading.

Friday:

Thursday night the training schedule for Friday came out.  Same as Tuesday.  I had to do an online security training program for the school which took about 2 hours.  It was so that I can use the schools computer system, however logging on to do the test was the first time I have used it in 6 weeks!!!!!  That done I did some scouting for the games for today and then it was pitching and team defence training at 4.  I feel I am really getting somewhere with my pitching troops :-)

Saturday:

Today we had a double header against University of South Carolina who were coming off a big series against Alabama who are one of the best teams in the country.  So there were some nerves going into this one.

So after a warm night last night, we were playing in about 10 degree weather today after a morning of rain.  We won the first game 3-1.  Next game was harder fought and in the bottom of the 7th the scores were locked 7-7.  Then with 2 out up comes the fun loving girl from New Jersey, Margi MARGADONNA who hit the walk off home run over left field deep.  We have been working with her for 4 weeks trying to get her to pull the ball and BAMM, it finally happens with the game winner.  I was so happy for her and proud.  She is a wonderful young woman with wonderful parents who drive down from NJ for every game which takes about 8 hours a pop.

So all in all it was a great day.  One in which I felt our intensity was up all day and never dropped off.  This was great especially on a day where players could be forgiven for worrying about the cold a little.  I was also happy with the at bats we had where we hit a lot of home runs and did not swing at that many bad pitches.  I was also satisfied with my scouting analysis which told me they would probably be weak in the pitching department but strong hitters.  This turned out to be true. YAY.

So now it is Saturday night and with very little happening in Farmville, I had dinner at a local Italian resturant and am now here blogging away.

Tomorrow we have another double header at 12 and 2 at home against Charlestown Southern University.  We then have Monday off games and then a double header against Georgetown on Tuesday in Washington and then another double header at Norfolk State at 4pm and 6pm on Wednesday.  We then have 6 days off before the next games after that.  So its10 games in 7 days which we all love.  The 6 hour travel days, like at Radford and on to Georgetown, are however not so much fun :-)  Thank God I got myself an ipad :-)

Just a couple of small photos below of our trip to Radford.

Stay safe.

D

Courage

For Christmas I was given a book by my parents called 'The Changi Brownlow'.

Mum was on the mark when she said no book could sum up my interests more!  A book that combined my high interest in Australian WWII history and my obsession with the great game of Australian Rules Football.

I took some time getting around to reading this book as I had other books lined up, but about 2 weeks ago I began reading it.  And I finished it this afternoon.  I cannot put into words how this book made me feel and I feel words are feeble to attempt to explain the feeling that I have about the story and other Australian WWII stories.  But if I were to try, I think the words 'sheer unrelenting pride' would be the overwhelming emotion I feel.  Inspired would be another and I mean inspired to the point of outward emotion, even tears.

A couple of years ago I began a journey in getting to know the story of the person I feel could be described as the Greatest Australian that ever live - Prime Minister John Curtin.  He was our Prime Minister from October 1941 until his death in office on 5 July 1945.  He is the only man in Australian history who can say that he saved our country from invasion.  A man who unwaiveringly loved our country and devoted his life to saving it from a ruthless enemy, which he ultimately did.  He put so much into this monsterous effort that it is said that his death should be counted amongst the official Australian WWII death toll.  When I finished reading his brilliant biography John Curtin: A Life by David Day, I was in the USA.  I began telling a close friend about his story and all of a sudden began weeping uncontrollably.  I quickly left the house and was inconsolable for some time.  That is the kind of effect these stories have on me.

The Changi Brownlow is about a man by the name of Peter Chitty who played VFL football before signing up to fight in the 8th Division of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF).  Once deployed to fight, he was sent to Singapore to help defend that most important island and port to the defense of Australia.  It was actually hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbour when the Japanese bombed the Port of Singapore and invaded the Malay Peninsula.  This caused John Curtin to declare war on Japan, making him the first Australian Prime Minister to declare war on a country independent of England.  Most people do not know that the continent of Australia was bombed by the Japanese 92 times during WWII.

After a tough fight, the Japanese with a force of only about 1/3 of the troops of the allied contingent, forced the allied commanders into the surrender of Singapore, forcing about 80,000 Australian, British, Indian and other countries soldiers into becoming prisoners of war (P.O.W's).  These troops went on to experience extreme and unspeakable depravity and torturous conditions at the hands of the Japanese captives.  Under the slave labour direction of the Japanese, these soldiers went on to construct the Thai - Burma Railway which gave rise to the now well know places such as the Bridge over the River Kwai, Hellfire Pass and Changi.  It also gave us the name Weary Dunlop among other great Australians.

Before the soldiers were herded off to build the railway and face the death, disease and destruction found on the railway, sport was a big part of keeping up morale among the prisoners.  Many sports were played including rugby, cricket, basketball, baseball and volleyball.  But there was something missing for the soldiers, especially those from Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia - Aussie Rules.  Some of the prisoners had played at the top level in Victoria and WA.  Many meetings were held and eventually a very professional league was set up which included four teams with 18 players and one reserve each.  The four teams were Carlton, Saint Kilda, Geelong and Collingwood.  The transfer fee for a man to go from one team to the other was 3 bowls of rice and serve of veggies!

Before beginning the competition, it was recognised that they'd need a lot of new footy's!  So, the soldiers went out and hunted wild boars and got into business with local Chinese.  The Chinese made bladders out of rubber on hand and then made leather out of the hunted boars!  Brand new footy's were made for the competition.  The season went incredibly well and believe it or not, about 18,000 POW's gathered for the grand final of the competition.  The Japanese had to set up increased machine gun nests and aimed mortars into the crowd, just in case there was an uprising.

The name of the book comes from the fact that the organisers of the competition struck a medallion which would be given to the fairest and best player at the end of the season.  It was called the Changi Brownlow.  It would be based on the same voting system as that used for the actual Brownlow medal.  A 3-2-1 voting system as voted by the field umpire, just like we see now in the AFL.  As you may have guessed, Peter Chitty won the medal which he said was his most prized possession until the end of his life.  He was awarded several WWII medals and accolades for other action taken during his time in captivity but said this was the greatest of them all.  He said that the war medals were given to him but represented all of the men who went through the same experiences as he did, however the Changi Brownlow was something that he won on his own merits as well as the fact that football meant so much to him.  Later in his life it was donated to the Australian War Memorial where it sits today.  None other than the great Ron Barassi spoke at the ceremony.

So why is the title of this entry 'Courage'?

I think the word courage gets thrown around a lot without a true understanding of what it actually means.  As Rollo May says, "courage...is not to be confused with rashness...What masquerades as courage may turn out to be simply bravado used to compensate for ones unconscious fear and to prove one's machismo".  Incidently, the word courage comes from the French word 'coeur', meaning heart.  I think the best definition I have seen for courage is also by Rollo May who took from the words of Kierkegaard, Nietszche, Camus and Sartre to state that "courage is not the absence of despair; it is rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair".

What he means by this is that courage is shown by those who face uncertainty and despair, yet press forward anyway.  For a great example, think of a cancer patient who is given a terminal diagnosis yet attempts to live the remainder of their life with dignity.  I would suggest this definition does not  necessarily extend to what happens on the sporting field or where some celebrity seeks further fame by appearing on Oprah and seeks recognition for having stayed clean for 3 months!

Chitty was seen to be involved in several instances of personal courage during his time in the Ambulance Corps and then as a POW.  However I want to share one instance with you, that I still cannot comprehend but certainly makes me feel unworthy whenever I think about some of my own troubles.

When the Japanese decided that they would build the Thai-Burma Railway to ensure their supply lines for their surge south towards Australia and other countries, they used POW's to build that railway which included thousands of Australian's.  Thousands of POW's died either at the hands of the Japanese, starvation/ malnutrition disease or accident whilst building the railway.  Most died of disease or starvation/ malnutrition.  Countless acts of courage and heroism were perpetrated by the POW's during this time.

To build the railway, the POW's were force marched from Changi in Singapore all the way to Thailand.  They were forced to march 20km every day.  But this was no usual 20km walk.  Already malnurished, the soldiers had no clothes, no shoes, it rained every day turning the ground into mud, there were poisonous snakes, malaria, cholera, dysentery, locals trying to rob them and the abuse by the Japanese.  They even had to travel at night and rest during the day due to the unbelievable heat they were experiencing.

The Japanese refused the Red Cross supplies, (including food, medical supplies and medicine) that were delivered to help the POW's.  Therefore any man who was too sick to walk would be left behind by the Japanese to perish in a slow death.  But in a strategy designed to have the POW's push on, the Japanese promised that at the end of the forced march into Thailand, there would be better food and medical supplies available.  The soldier's pushed on.

At one point, a young soldier and mate of Chitty's who had been marching next to him, became too weak to go on.  Recognising that if this man was left behind he would surely die, Chitty put him over one shoulder and both his and the soldiers packs over his other shoulder.  He marched on with this man over his shoulder, through the mud and other treachery, until they reached their destination.  In the end, Chitty carried this man 155km to their final destination!

On arrival, the promised medical supplies and food did not materialise, in fact they were never intended.  About three days later Chitty learnt that the health of the young man he carried the 155km, declined even further and he died.  Chitty was said to be extremely distressed by the news.

Having learnt the multitude of stories similar, but not as awe inspiring as this one, I am driven to consider the use and definition of the word courage.  I encourage to you to do the same.

Although not part of the experience in Singapore, similar courage was seen in many under trained and under equipped Australian soldiers at Kokoda in PNG.  Perhaps the words of a commanding officer of the 39th Battalion somes up not only the courage of the soldiers who fought there, but also the courage and spirit of the Australian POW's in Singapore, Thailand and elsewhere.  He made this speech after the Australians had held off the advance of the Japanese, forcing them to ultimately begin to withdraw back towards Japan.  I believe these words are incredibly powerful and sum up the way we should all feel about the many soldiers who have fought for Australian over the years. He said:

"Now I don't know a lot of you by name, but I know you.  We met at Isurava and we fought there together and every step of the way here.  Now we are relieved and we will leave the battle.  And every day the enemies supply line stretches further.  He suffers now as you have suffered.  The battle you have fought at the track may have just saved your nation.  You have wounded him, we will stop him.  Brigadier wants you to know that your gallantry, your courage, your fortitude, are an inspiration.  And I want you to know, you are some of the finest soldiers I have ever seen.  You have seen things in this place that no man should witness.  Some of these things you must forget.  History will remember you and in the years to come, others will wish,  that they had your conviction.  Remember, remember the glory is not the exaltation of war but the exaltation of man.  Mans nobility made transcendent in the firey crucible of war.  Faithfulness and fortitude, gentleness and compassion.  And I am honoured to be your brother."

The words inscribed into the memorial at Isurava are:

Courage Endurance Mateship Sacrifice

These are the qualities on which Australia was born and the words on which Australia has endured.  Australia, please do not forget.  Australia please do not give up these most basic of Australian qualities.

D

The Adjustment Bureau

After having completed my driving suspension, I have finally been able to have the use of a car which I have made the most of in the last 3 days. The highlight most likely being able to buy an iPad :-)

But yesterday I was able to get out of the small town of Farmville and head over to a close town called Lynchburg. I did a little shopping and got a massage and then saw the movie The Adjustment Bureau. I had missed it whilst in the local cinema and was disappointed to have done so. So when I saw the opportunity to see it in Lynchburg, I decided to stay later to see it. Boy was I glad I did.

I have seen Battle LA, Lincoln Lawyer and Limitless since being here and the Adjustment Bureau was the best by far. Basically the sorry goes that Matt Damon is a young politician attempting to be voted into the USA Senate, however in doing so, he meets a lovely young lady who he wants to be with and she feels likewise. This is where the Adjustment Bureau steps in. The 'Chairman', otherwise known as God, has written the path that everyone is meant to take and these two being together is seen as a serious threat to that future plan. The Adjustment Bureau must attempt to keep the plan on track come hell or high water.  Matt Damon and his damsel attempt to rewrite that plan.

So this brings us to the existential meaning in the movie which I guess most people would not have recognized as existential. That is that our futures are not written for us, no matter what we are dealt at birth or throughout our lives. We have the freedom to make our own choices and therefore decide our own future. This is one of the four pillars of existentialism according to the great Dr Irvin Yalom. The four pillars being death anxiety, freedom, isolation (or loneliness) and meaningless. I have previously spoken of meaningless after reading Viktor Frankl's book - Man's Search for Meaning.

With the idea of freedom comes the idea of personal responsibility. In making choices we must also take responsibility for those choices, both good and bad! I would say the greatest domain in which I see the giving up of our personal freedom, is in the writings of different religions. If something good happens, instead of recognizing the power of the human spirit they say praise be to God. Explain to me how this works when two teams pray before a game, one team wins and the other loses. Did one pray harder than the other or was one more on their best behavior than the other? Or is it that one team took the free choice to work harder, prepare better than the other team? Both teams have the freedom to work hard and prepare well.

On the other hand something goes poorly and its 'God works in mysterious ways, nobody is to
know his plans'. Is it possible that bad things sometimes happen, or as hard as it is to admit or say, someone somewhere made a mistake. Perhaps it was the case that a bunch of small mistakes lead to one big mistake. By giving up responsibility to a pre-written plan, we give up the responsibility for our role in an unfortunate circumstance. And going further with this, the avoidance of responsibility is also a strong defense mechanism against guilt.   If we were to fully accept our responsibility for some of the bad things that happen in life, we would face inevitable guilt. One emotion that humans work tirelessly to a avoid.

If we take our sporting example again, what if one team did train one more night that week the other team and took the opportunity to scout the opposing team who did not do that extra work. The team who did the extra work, wins the game. All of a sudden the losing team tries to find a scape goat. The coach is pointing fingers at senior players and assistant coaches. What is known by some though is that the head coach 'knew' the other teams best player wasn't going to play due to injury and therefore took the choice not to train as hard that week nor spend the money to scout the opposing team. However if he had of, he would have found the opposing best player recovered from injury and trained on that last day. He had therefore not prepared well and saw the subsequent result in losing. But now he is doing everything he can to avoid the guilt by trying to find a scape goat.

Two things: firstly if he accepted responsibility it could be an amazing learning opportunity for him. he could say yes, that is my responsibility and I learnt about preparing properly for next time. I wont be caught out again. Secondly, when we do prepare properly, take responsibility for our own outcomes, we can have pride in the outcomes that follow. If we put in everything we can, make good choices and we get a good outcome we can say we did well! If we put in everything we can, make good choices and get a poor result, we will avoid the guilt which comes with knowing there was still something left in the tank or that we knew we made a bad choice. There is in fact something satisfying, even when we lose or something goes wrong, in knowing we did everything we could!

I'm sure we have all experienced that horrible, uncomfortable emotional feeling that you get when you know you haven't quite done everything you could have to avoid a bad outcome or to get a positive outcome, such as study harder for an exam! That uncomfortable feeling is called cognitive dissonance. The subconscious knows all and it knows when we have fallen short of our values. It let's us know through the cognitive dissonance (or guilt) which can be described as the space between the action we took and the action we should have taken in response to our own standards and value system.

I found an interesting article where a report asked several questions of the great tennis player, Ivan Lendl in a Qantas inflight magazine.  Among other questions he was asked:

Q:  "Most prized moment in your own sporting Career?"

IL:  "Wining 8 gland slams and the Davis Cup".

Q:  " Most humiliating moment?"

IL:  "If you try your best there are no humiliating moments.  If I am giving my best effort I am not embarrassed by the result".

I think these quotes perfect sum up the point I am trying to make.

So please, never believe you don't have the freedom to choose, whatever the situation might be.  Your future is yet to be written and is in fact a clean canvass. 

You have the power to set your own path and live a life based on the values that are most important to you.

D

What's in a Day of Practice?

Hi All,

Thought I would make an entry about what could be seen a fairly routine day of practice here at Longwood.

We were meant to play a double header against James Madison yesterday, however it was forecast for a 90% chance of rain so the respective coaches decided to postpone the games to another as yet unknown time.  We do hope to get these games in however picking a time and date is difficult as there are plenty of other games in store for both teams as the season progresses to an end about 5 May, with the hope of playoffs beyond that.  What is often lost amongst these discussions is travel.  The schools are a minimum of an hours drive from each other, so isn’t like we can just meet any old time for a game.

So I have finally worked out the rules for practice according to the NCAA.  Each player can only practice for a maximum of four hours per day.  Each player can only practice for a maximum of 20 hours per week.  Each player must have at least one day off per week.  However a travel day to play can be considered a day off and a double header does not count for the entire period the games are played but count for only three hours.  Even if the games go for 6 hours total, they only count for three hours.

So considering our games on Wednesday were canceled and we don’t play again until the 6^th against Radford at their place, this weeks practice has looked like this:

Monday:

The girls met for weights (or lifting as they call it here) at 1430pm.  Those who had classes at this time, met at 1000am.  After weights, pitchers and catchers met at the field at 1530hrs for a work out until 1600pm when the rest of the group arrived.  At that time the pitchers pitched to the hitters at different locations and various hitting drills were completed.  About 1800pm the group came together for some ‘scrimmaging’ with two make shift teams.  This finished at 1900pm.

Tuesday:

The pitchers were instructed to meet at the field at 1500pm.  We began a warm up for a work out, however word came down that there would be a scrimmage for practice and therefore pitchers were warming up for a game.  At 1600pm the rest of the team arrived and warmed up for the game.  Two sides were chosen and it was directed that the losing team would do double the conditioning after the game!  The game went until about 1800pm and there was fielding and bunting practice until 1900pm.

Wednesday:

A practice schedule was made for the girls to come in pairs, similar to the photograph below, for indoor hitting.  One pair of girls would come, hit in our indoor cage for an hour doing various drills and then move over to face live pitching for 30 minutes in the other cage.  When the girls moved over to the live pitching, I videotaped each of them for about five to ten swings.  I would then cue up each hitter’s video and they would come out and watch it in slow motion.  Honestly, videotape shows you so much and is a vital training aid.  Some of the girls who thought their swings were O.K could see for themselves that there were flaws in the swing.  It is usually the case that you can tell someone for ever what they can improve, but until a person see’s it for themselves, the message can sometimes miss the mark.  So after the analysis, they re-entered the cage to work on their techniques.  I have made a document on what we saw with the aim that we will return to the video in a couple of weeks to see how things measure up.  Some of these things take a while to change so the hope is for steady improvement.

                                   This is one of our indoor hitting cages

Why do we want to perpetually improve on a hitting technique?  For many reasons, to increase power, to increase the chances of connecting with the ball, to be able to hit the ball wherever we want to rather than in one direction but most importantly, good teams will pick weakness in a swing and pitch to those ‘holes’ effectively giving them a great chance of getting us out and ultimately winning.  Every hitter has an area in the strike zone where they will hit the ball better than other areas and not hit so good in one area compared to other areas.  As a pitcher, I am aiming at those not so good areas.  “My best pitch at their weakness”.  For example, Lefties have a tendency to ‘fall off the ball’ or have their weight fall away towards first base as they swing.  Is that case I would pitch down and away to them as they would have trouble reaching it.  Another hitter may ‘drop their hands’ in their swing and I would therefore pitch a riseball up and in to them.

The hitting finished about 1530pm and I was down to the gym at 1530pm to begin pitching practice with one pitcher, then the second pitcher at 1600pm and then the third at 1700pm, finishing at 1800pm.

Thursday:

Below you can see the hitting schedule for the girls for Thursday which was similar to Wednesday. 

I then met one pitcher at 1600hrs and we worked for an hour.  I have been working to increase her speed, confidence and movement.  Notice I did not say accuracy!  At this stage of a pitchers career, a lot of people make the mistake of focusing on accuracy.  This puts a lot of pressure on a young pitcher and they get into bad habits which effect the entirety of their pitching including speed, movement and accuracy itself.  What we see is the pitcher begins to ‘aim’.  They slow down their pitching motion and try as hard as they can to hit the proposed target.  Some coaches chastise them for missing and the aiming becomes worse.  They try to be ‘perfect’ in their accuracy which as we know is impossible for anybody!  Everyone makes mistakes.  With the over emphasis on accuracy, comes anxiety!  When young pitchers, and older ones too for that matter, become anxious, they tend to tense up.  That is their shoulder, their arm and their wrist.  However to throw hard and get movement, you need rhythm and ‘snap’, which comes from having a loose muscles rather than tensed muscles. 

Coming back to trying to be perfect, what we humans tend to do is say to ourselves, ‘don’t miss’ or ‘don’t throw it over the plate’.  In this negative self talk, our brains only hear ‘miss’ or throw it over the plate’!  We don’t hear the ‘don’t’ and therefore what we are trying to avoid, because a self fulfilling prophecy.  How many times have I observed myself or some other pitcher trying not to throw it over the plate, throw it right over the plate and get walloped.  Where was my sport psych when I was younger?

So what about accuracy you ask?  Well speed and movement are items which cannot be compromised on at the higher levels of this game.  If you have speed and movement, accuracy does not become so much of an issue.  If you cannot throw hard and or don’t have good movement, well you better be accurate.  So what I picked up from my young charge yesterday was that when she was free to work on movement and speed, she threw great movement and speed.  As soon as I asked her to work on her spots, she slowed right down and lost movement.  There was an ‘AHA’ moment for me as a coach.  We talked about it and I encouraged her to just let it go.  Back came the speed and movement again.  And guess what?  The accuracy wasn’t so bad either - Lesson learned!  I will continue to work on this with her however others may need to be schooled on this approach, to ensure she isn’t confused by mixed messages.

Once we finished our workout, I began working with another pitcher.  Whilst we worked, the rest of the squad did fielding practice.  Practice finished about 1830pm.

Friday:

Although tomorrow is yet to come (does it actually come?), our schedule is similar to the last two days.  I will be meeting the first pair of girls at 0800am.  I will throw some batting practice to them with plastic balls.  Once they have hit with me for an hour, they will go next door to face coach who will throw more live pitching for 30 minutes.  This will go on all day until 1545pm, when the whole team will meet at the field where will once again scrimmage for a couple of hours.

After all this, we have the weekend off in its entirety and practice will begin again on Monday before three days of games next week: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

So as you can see, its pretty serious business at this level of play!  Keeping in mind these girls also have full study loads, it’s a pretty full on for the girls.  If you are wondering if they get tired, the answer is definitely.  Some girls more than others, some girls more than others on one day over another.  But they turn up and put in their all and therefore I must do the same to support them in their endeavour.

On the weekend I am thinking of getting a massage and hitting an out of town mall.  Oh and the obligatory reading.  But more on the book I am about to finish soon.

D

                             Oh and this is one of the Farmville locals :-)

Motivation

Hi all.

First of all thanks to everyone who is reading my blog.  I am ecstatic to find that there have 402 views of my blog and not all of them are me logging in :-)  Perhaps I need to thank my mum for logging in so often, mums are good like that :-)

As I sit here it is 8 degrees celcius!  The expected minimum is 2.  The max today was 13 but it was 4 when I left home for todays game.  It is expected be a max of 11 tomorrow with a minimum of 1.  Sunday is expected to have a top of 3 with a minimum of -3....uuummm and snow!!!!!!!!!  what tha?  Apparently we are having an unexpected cold snap.

So my question today is how do you motivate 16 individuals to play their hardest for 7 innings of a softball game?  I say 16 as we began the season with 17 and one of those 17 quit the team on Monday.  It was a sad occurrence.  For the team it was a real blow, but for the individual, it was a courageous decision.  She knew she no longer loved the game and did not have the motivation to do the things required to be good.  So she made the decision to walk away.  I imagine that individual is now one relieved and happy individual.  Because she made the right decision for her.  Unfortunately I think she did come on to the team this year for the wrong reason, i.e., the expectations of others.  Who are those others, well at this stage in life it is usually the parent's.  Although most likely loving and best intentioned in their hopes for their child, some parents fail to truly read their children or even simply ask the child if it is in fact what they want to do.  It was interesting to watch the whole thing unfold.  There was blame placed elsewhere for her troubles, including at me, as well as a a drive to make others cut her.  You know the old story of knowing you want to break up with someone, but instead of just being honest, you drive the other to dump you instead...well it was kinda like that.  In the end when none of these strategies worked, she came to an honest decision to walk away on her own terms.

Like I said, bad for the team, but great for the individual.  The coach in me is frustrated, however the budding psychologist applauds the individual.  Afterall, as much as we push for selflessness in society, mental health comes from doing whats best for the individual in many circumstances.

So back to today.  We came out for a double header against one of the Ivy League schools, Cornell.  From everything we knew about them we are a much better team.  Watching them warm up, I was confident of this.  BUT first game came and went and we lost 4-2 in extra innings.  Our two runs came from 2 home runs.  This is a game we should never have lost and if we want to achieve the things we want to achieve this year, we can not afford to drop games to teams like that.  I for one was very disappointed.

We have spoken a lot about game time intensity and carrying that intensity through to the end of the game.  Not only have I/ we talked about it a lot, I have been pushing the point ever since Florida when I noted how we were pumped for the game against Notre Dame (top 20 team) and then had little intensity the next day against good, but lesser teams.  Same thing happened in Hawaii, we were pumped for our games against Hawaii, another top 20 team, and then down again for games against the next 2 teams we played.  I asked the team if we needed to pretend every team was a top 20 team?

So today we came out against Cornell after a massive week on the track, and put in a very low intensity performance.  I say this as a reflection on the whole team, however it goes without saying that some players have the right level of intensity whilst others do not.  What you generally see is a team of people waiting for someone else to 'do it' instead of each individual working to make it happen.

So in between games, I cringed as we walked to the club house where I knew, coach was going to hand out a colourful display of the English language.  She did not disappoint in the slightest.  And I must say on this occasion I didn't blame her.  She did not call on me to speak and I didn't mind because although I am always trying to keep it positive, I simply did not know what message to go with.  I did eventually have a couple of points but I was able to highlight those points after the second game.

So going out to the next game, a couple of changes were made and we smashed them 9-1 by mercy rule.  One of our girls hit a home run that was a frozen rope over right centre to finish the game....WOW!

So my question to the team was whether they are sick and tired of being yelled at and does it really take coach to open up a can of whoop ass on them to get them to pump up?  My two points to them were that they must, as individuals and as a team, find whatever way works to get to an acceptable level of intensity to play EVERY game.  I told them it did not matter how they did it, but they must do it.  And of course, each individual will need their own individual routine to get up for games.  For me I always wanted to win, so I actually needed quiet before a game...I didn't want to speak to anybody!  You basically couldn't talk to me before the first pitch of a game.  I was just so focused.  For others, it requires yelling and screaming, others a hard core song, for others a bit of argy bargy!  BUT whatever it takes each individual needs to find the way that works for them!

The second point I made was less to do with psychology and more to do with standards.  We must hit strikes and leave balls.  This is very important for our team.

I must say before I played softball in the USA in 1996, I was less interested in winning as I was in ensuring I played a good game.  My motivation at that stage was a fear of failure and a need to impress.  Probably both one and the same thing, but also both not ideal forms of motivation.  But once I began playing the USA, I learnt the meaning of playing to win.  Americans are all about winning and that is the only acceptable outcome of any game, although not everyone can win.  In Australia, I believe the motivation is different.  Competition, hanging out with mates, enjoyment and the inevitable party after the game.

Everywhere we look there are reminders of how important winning is!  I have a poster at home of a runner sliding into second base with the caption "Winners don't wait for chances, they take them".  I remember my favourite "No Fear" poster which says "Second place is for the first loser".  And there is the immortal words of Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh from Bull Durham who said "I love winning, you know, its like better than losing".

Motivation is a massive aspect of sports psychology and a lot of research goes into finding ways to motivate people.  We speak of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and have decided intrinsic motivation is the key.  Extrinsic motivation tends to create anxiety as we tend focus on outcomes outside of our individual control such beating the opposition, winning the race, winning the trophy, outplaying our opponent.  Why are these outside of our control?  Well, what if the opposition is better?  What if someone else is faster?  What if our opponent is bigger, faster, more skillful or simply better than we are?  We have no control over these issues.  Therefore if our motivation is extrinsic and we get an outcome outside of what we were aiming for, it can be incredibly disheartening and may lead to ultimate withdrawal from the activity as we feel far to anxious or hopeless.  We saw an example of this this week with our team mate quitting.  However if we have an intrinsic perspective, we are competing against tangible entities, against entities within our control.  These entities would include ourselves in beating a previous time, swinging the bat better than we did last time, learning from a strategy imposed by the opposition and not allowing them to beat you that way again, devising our own strategy to overcome some aspect of the game or devising a game plan and executing it.  We can control these things.  Therefore anxiety during competition is minimised and we are motivated to compete against outcomes that are achievable.  A simple intrinsic motivation may simply be to play 100% by our own very high standards.  This is something I am looking forward to challenging our team with.

Having extrinsic motivations also create expectations.  Expectations may be out of our control, such as beating the opposition.  Expectations are also imposed on us by others, such as our coaches, our parents, our friends, our team mates, our significant others.  Ever heard your parents tell you they expect your home work to be completed by 6pm?  Well for any athlete, the sun is still shining at this time and we want to be out kicking the footy or playing cricket.  So the whole time we are sitting in our room studying, we are pissed, we are continuously thinking about being outside and are not necessarily concentrating on our work.  However what if we could complete our home work under our own standards?  What if we knew we had to complete our homework at some stage before school the next day.  Perhaps we would get our drive to play sport out of the way during daylight hours, come in for dinner and then do our homework in our own time at a time designated by our self?  I would imagine the anxiety would be much less and the drive to do the homework a lot stronger as we had no competing thought processes.  This is the same for playing sport.

We need to play for our own reasons, we need to have our own motivations.  But those motivations must be enough to fit in with our own team goals or, dare I say, stay home and don't play.  At the elite level, winning is going to always be the major goal of any team and of any individual.  If we can agree on that point, we can then put that point aside and move on.  So assuming everyone is ultimately there to win, then each of us needs to find a way to have the right mindset to put in the best performance possible on any given day.  I say the best performance possible on any given day, because without doubt, we are going to be more motivated and feel better on some days more than others.  I must also add, that we as individuals have ultimate control over how we approach each game.  We have control over how motivated we are on any given day.  I would be the first to say that having a bad day, an argument with a loved one or a car accident on the way to a game would be a serious impediment to getting our minds where they need to be at game time, however we do have control over how we react to those incidents.  We do have skills for compartmentalising one part of our lives from another.  No matter what happens, that incident has happened and cannot be changed no matter how much we obsess over them.  But we do have control over what happens next.  One thing we also have control over are our own personal standards.

So even if we have a challenging experience that has the potential to distract us from our game or simply that we do not feel great before a game, we can still give one hundred percent commitment to our own personal standards for playing our sport.  What could our personal standards be?  Well to begin with they are issues directly under our control.  Take a hitter for example.  If we had an extrinsic mindset, or worse still, feel the pressure of expectations from others, such as get a safe hit every single at bat, then we are setting ourselves up for anxiety and failure.  Softball is a sport of imperfection.  If we hit .333 over a season we are considered great!  Therefore expecting a base hit every at bat is setting our self up for failure.  What we can control is our mindset going into our at bat, learning how the opposing pitcher throws the ball, watching the pitch out of the pitchers hand, selecting a strike to swing at and how we swing the bat.  I wouldn't even say hitting the ball is a standard as some pitchers will be better than others.  However if we stick to good standards every single time, we give ourselves a much greater chance of hitting the ball.  We may also set ourselves a standard of doing each of these things better each at bat as the game goes on.  This would in fact be a motivating factor as the game progresses.

So this is the challenge I am going to set our players tomorrow.  To work towards making each at bat better than their previous at bat.  Only they will know if they have achieved this goal, as their marker will be their own personal standard.  For some this may be watching the ball more closely for another it may be improving on their swing technique.  By attempting to better their last at bat, there are three positive possibilities. 1) this goal has a motivating (intrinsic) factor. 2) This goal gives the individual increasing focus as the game goes on and 3) It gives the individual strong standards (i.e., adherence to their hitting routine) by which to work by.  I recently came up with the following saying, if we stick to our standards, we can expect to reach our goals.  Another conversation can be had about setting standards, but that is for another time, when we have time.

I believe in this challenge, however the issue still remains, there must be buy in from each individual player, or dare I say, enough individuals to ensure the team can have success.  So I put the challenge out to each player, are you ready to play?

D