SquashTalk>Training
Room > Use Your Head: Mental Squash 1 |
  |
| Training Room | |
|
| SquashTalk
TRAINING
ROOM
|
 | |||
CURRENT
EVENTS | |||
| |||
| Mental Squash: 1. Overview | |||||
| A series of actions to improve your mental approach to squash. |
|||||
| |
|||||
| By Ron Beck © 2004 , Acton MA USA. March 2004:
The aspects of mental squash that I will address are;
But first — a few illustrative examples: BEING
CONSCIOUS OF MENTAL SQUASH WILL HELP ANY PLAYER, ANYTIME Then on Sunday afternoon, after all the action had ceased, I got onto an empty court and started hitting the ball. I had the memory of all that great play in my mind. I aspired to that level of play. Suddenly, I felt my whole squash game, which was by the way terrible at the time, moving upward to a whole new level. I could feel quite forcefully, how the mental imprint of all those matches I watched, affected my own strokes and my own view of what I could accomplish. I set my goals higher. ITS
A STATE OF MIND In those days of course, as today, there was a team of great undergraduate players over at Harvard University. They didn't mix that often with us players over in the downtown clubs, but Denny used to go over to Harvard's Hemeway Gym every so often to get some different competition over there. Of course most of the Harvard players had no idea who Bourke was, and being the perennial national champions they were pretty cocky as a group. Bourke would go over and Jack Barnaby would set him up to play with several of the Harvard hotshots. Some kid would get on court with Bourke to warm up, with Barnaby in the gallery, and would start out hitting some fancy exhibition shots in warmup. Bourke would pick up the ball and look over at the kid. "Know who I am?" he would say. "No." would say the kid. "Well, I'm Dr. Bourke," he would tell the kid, "... and I never lose to college kids." he would conclude, emphasizing the I. The kid would look incredulous, continue in his exhibition mode. And of course, inevitably, he would lose to Bourke. In fact, this was an almost infallible strategy for Bourke against the Harvard kids. Why? What was happening? It was mental gamesmanship at its finest. By getting the opponent to think about him, and what he had just said, the opponent was losing his focus on his own gameplan and was in danger of losing his concentration. In addition, Bourke was getting at the opponent's confidence in his ability to win. Was it really true? Did this Dr. Bourke never lose to college kids? Well, after Bourke had won a few points it would inevitably beginning eating at that kid's mental focus. TOTAL
FOCUS AT TIME OF CRISIS Take a case in point. The 2001 YMG Capital Classic tournament in Toronto. Power playing in front of his home crowd. Power is behind. The crowd is yelling, is worried, is exhorting their hero on... As any pro player will tell you, learning to gain energy from the cheers of a home crowd is a learned skill. But at any rate, Power is an experienced performer who has the uncanny ability to channel equally the positive energy of a home crowd and the negative energy of a hostile crowd in his favor.
Power was up against Paul Price, a brute-force type of player who had a lot of confidence going his way after reaching the finals of the British Open that year. Price had parlayed his self-confidence into an almost unsurmountable lead in front of Power's home town crowd - he was ahead 14-10 in the fifth and final game. Only one more point and the upset would be in Paul Price's hands. That was probably preying on his mind at that point in time. Power went to work. With total focus. Playing for it all. Playing his drops and spins with no margin for error. A tactic requiring total control and total focus amidst the din. Power focused. Price let the din and the noise get to him.
Suddenly, Power had drawn even 14-14. The match was effectively over now. Price called "no set" and Power gave a big grin. Power went on to win the match by sending Price the wrong way on the final point and leaving him to wonder what had happened in that excruciating moment of crisis. It's the following night. Power is playing his nemesis and most important rival, Peter Nicol. The entire world has been waiting for this showdown on this week in this city. Power against Nicol in Toronto. It's the same script as the night before. Nicol and Power have battled it out for four games, but in the fifth Nicol is ahead 14-8! Remarkably, the same thing begins to happen as happened the night before — Power bears down with total focus. He's hitting his pinpoint shots. He's anticipating Nicol's moves. Nicol falters. Power gets back to 13-14. Then, on this final point Power's drop grazes the tin. It's over. But on two successive nights, Power has shown the remarkable role and power of mental concentration in squash. [Read on, to explore how to begin to address these and other mental aspects of the game of squash] [Mental Game - Part II] |
|||||
The
fascination of squash is its combination of the mental and the physical.
Lots has been written about the physical training for squash - both
the drills to use to improve your skills and the training to undertake
to increase your physical fitness and capacity. Little is in print
that will help you with the mental side of squash. This series will
attack the mental side of squash.
I
used to play, almost 365 days a year, with Dr. Denis Bourke. He
plays out of Baltimore now, but at the time, in the mid 70s, he
held court at the Tennis and Racquet Club in Boston. Denny loves
to explore the mental aspects of squash. At all levels. 
