Just Jot it

If I could give young athletes one piece of advice for individual performance it would be to journal. But not only when things are going bad, which is incredibly helpful, but when things are going well. Because pretty soon you’ll be half way around the world, away from friends and family, and you’ll be wracking your brain to remember what your assistant coach said on that one Tuesday in November about passing float serves in position 5. Many of my intrinsic dialogue queues are from university coaches or teammates. Much like studying in the library with a friend and you create some sort of pneumonic device to remember the 5 (I think its 5) layers of the epidermis, I did the same thing to help with my volleyball skills. I probably would have forgotten a large chunk of them had I not written them down but being able to go back and see, in your own words and writing, a queue that you know helped in the past is better than any new information or teaching method. The feelings and memories that flood back when I joke about eating a “reach-more bar” with Brodie before passing a spin serve will forever be more beneficial to me than hearing a coach say you need to relax when passing serves with heat. Ya thanks coach — I'm trying. Writing “i relaxed” today while passing is not going to help you 4 years down the road when you’re in a gym with no windows, surrounded by people who don’t speak your language, using an unfamiliar ball. Try relaxing when you got a head ache, your bank account is running low, and you wore the wrong shirt to training — good luck. But I bet you'll be able to unlock your old serve if you can hear your Keith Urban looking assistant coach in your mind yelling “give yourself a toss kid” from the bench. Or Pearce Eshenko urging you to “give em the beans” while you start your approach. Those are the things we need to capture, record, and revisit frequently. 

J