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mental attitude

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Re: mental attitude
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2009, 01:19:41 PM »
Okay, I will butt in on this thread since I consider myself to be a strong mental player.

Another way to look at Todd's quote about fear. Surely you have heard about the quote about keeping your friends close but keep your enemies closer.

Fear is your enemy, but you must learn to embrace it. It must become your best companion. Once it does, you will start to thrive on this feeling because once you realize fear is only a state of mind, it can't hurt you anymore. You now know how to deal with it because you know everything about it.

You see it all the time. There are players that play great when they have a comfortable lead, they are tough as long as they are in the lead but put some heat on them and they start to crumble. These players have not embraced fear because they fear losing that lead and start to freak out and stumble on what they should be doing to finish a match because they are not comfortable with that feeling.

Learn fear and it keep it close, that way if it approaches you, instead of asking can I help you, you say excuse me, coming through, you're in my way.

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2009, 10:01:34 PM »
This is all good and I like and get your post, Iceman. I guess my point was Fear>play not to lose. Desire>play to win. It's how your built and how you look at things. For me it was about overcoming fear and I felt I did that in a way that really put me on an emotional high so I brought it here to my buds and shared.

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2009, 11:06:03 PM »
Anyone want to get deeper in to this

Professional golfers pay sports psychologists big bucks to teach and coach them on the mental game. In my 15 yeaars as a playing professional I spent considerable time and money on the mental game because it became obvious at the start that the "big boys" knew something I didnt. All the stuff i learned was really interesting and can be applied to foosball or any other part of life. I cant tell you how many times i said "if only I had learned this 40 years ago"

Successful players, executives, musicians, mothers or whatever have a certain attitude that allows them to deal with the adversities inherent in every task. The best way I have found to describe this attitude is that they seem to know HOW to have fun and they know HOW to let whatever happens be ok.

The secret to being successful (or unsuccessful) is what you focus your mind on. Your subconscious mind is a powerful computer that is capable of creating anything you ask of it. You make representations (pictures, dialog) in your conscious mind that tell your subconscious mind what you want. But there is a "glitch" in this process. Your subconscious mind only understands these pictures. It does not understand words. example; when you make pictures of "make this pull shot", your subconscious mind (your genie) sets out to figure out how to make it happen. If you have given it enough of these "pictures" of successfully doing the shot (practice and tournament experience) it will give you the shot you want. But if you make representations of "dont miss this pull shot" you have to make pictures of missing this pull shot. Your subconscious does not understand the dont. It thinks "he wants miss this pull shot, we can do "miss this pull shot " and it figures out how to give you what it thinks you want. Focusing on what you dont want, with the intention of avoiding it, is the kiss of death. Unfortunatly most of us learned, at a very young age, that we must avoid danger. And so we focus on what we dont want, which you now know only creates more of what you dont want.

When you are experiencing fear, its always because you are focusing on something you dont want, with the intention of avoiding it!

Ive got much more of this "heavy" stuff if anyone is interested

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2009, 08:21:51 AM »
Very nice Zeek! That part about, a picture of what you don't want to happen, really gets down to the heart of the matter. I never heard it put that way but as I read it I realised you were right on. By all means delve into it. I think this plays into the calling of a timeout. I know I've set up a shot and then suffered from doubt. To back off and reprogram the visualization certainly can't be a bad thing.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2009, 08:41:54 AM by Old Meister »

Offline bbtuna

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Re: mental attitude
« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2009, 03:48:33 PM »
Ice, that was great, I have a new quote or two that is for sure...

"Learn fear and it keep it close, that way if it approaches you, instead of asking can I help you, you say excuse me, coming through, you're in my way."

Zeek,

Thanks, that is great stuff...you can't say too much or get to deep...this stuff becomes part of the archives of "training" foosers pick up and reference here and there.  I am a collector learner/teacher so I am after stuff all the time and someone else has done nearly the same only made it available on a website.

thing is, there is very little (relatively) foosball training and no current books available specfic to foosball this century and beyond.

sooooo, keep it coming my friend, good for the foosball community

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2009, 06:46:33 PM »
So Zeek, I've been thinking a lot about what your saying about the subconscious receiving images. I mean, that makes so much sense to me and think it has real implications not only in play but in practice. All of this game can be broken down into images, even defense. Thinking is too slow, imagery is right now. To me it seems that that concept gets right down to the bare basics of execution. I really like what you posted. It just strikes a chord with me. I want more,,,
« Last Edit: March 09, 2009, 06:54:58 PM by Old Meister »

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #21 on: March 09, 2009, 11:21:54 PM »
I love talking about this kind of stuff.

I spent 15 years learning most of this stuff. Most of it comes from a man named Bill Harris of Centerpointe Institute in Portland Oregon. bill believes that knowing what or why you should do something is useless if you dont understand HOW you actually do it. His Life Principles Integration Process, a 36 week course, gets deeply into the actual mechanics of how your mind, your computer, works to create your reality. Its really interesting stuff. But i have found that certain personality types just cant get into it. Its very detail oriented. And theres a lot of it.

So ill start with a little introduction, and if you girls and guys get sick of it, just let me know.

    Knowing what you are supposed to do in foosball is just interesting information. Knowing HOW to use this information is what the big boys know.
    Having a shot that works for you is very important. But if you play any amount of foosball, I’m sure you know a few players who have a somewhat unusual shot, and a strange passing game that can still manage to beat you somehow. And you have wondered what makes the big boys the big boys. If you are like I was (for many years in golf) this can be the source of a lot of grief. You know you can shoot and pass as well as they can. You practice as much as they do. You have the best equipment. The only thing you don’t do is beat them on a consistant basis. HOW do they do it? If you don’t know where to look, you can spend a lot of time, effort, emotion and money trying to figure this out. I did.
    What the players in the previous paragraph know is how to run their minds in a way that allows them to get the most out of the game they have! Chances are they do not  know that they know. They just learned a way of thinking, based on previous life experiences, that helps them get what they want. Successful people in any walk of life think this way. Most if not all the PGA professionals know this way of thinking. And they know they know. They work as hard on their mental games as they do on their swings. It is not something you either have or you dont have! It is very learnable.
    Concepts are ways of looking at something that are not necessarilly true. You might say they are different ways of looking at something. Many concepts are useful and resourceful, many are not. Here are a couple of useful concepts from Eastern philosophies that are very useful when striving for a particular goal.

Time
    Western civilization has an interesting way of looking at the concept of time. In the western view, you have a string of memories or events stretching out into your past, and a line of yet to happen events going into your future. The western belief is that all the events in your past somehow determine what will happen to you in the future.
    Example: when you first started playing foosball you probably missed a lot of passes and shots. From the western view of time these missed shots are a part of what makes up you in the present. You may, then, have developed the belief that you are a bad shooter based on those past missed shots. And this belief will affect the way you shoot in the future.
    Some eastern philosophies have a different and much more useful way of looking at the concept of time.
    The only time that exists is NOW. When the universe was created (big bang) it was now. When Columbus discovered America it was now. When you were born it was now. As you read this it is now!
    From this point of view, the past is only memories of now moments (stored in your mind) that no longer exist. And their only value is as references to guide you in creating your future now events. From this view, all past events lose their emotional power over you. They exist only as useful information in your computer.
    This is one way of looking at "stay in the moment".

The Gap
    Using an unattainable goal as a “must reach” target is a good way to be disappointed. Society is constantly measuring us to perfection, and then making us feel somehow inadequate because we don’t reach it. From this point of view, we never get to feel good about our accomplishments.
    Successful people use a different measuring stick.
    Consider the horizon. If you start moving toward it, no matter how fast you go, you can never reach it. This has been called The Gap. If you are in New York and you start walking west toward the horizon, after some period of time you would end up on the west coast. You would never reach the horizon, but walking from New York to the west coast would be a hell of an accomplishment.
    Successful people measure their success by what they have accomplished! Not by whether or not they have reached perfection. They use perfection as motivation, but they realize it is an unattainable goal. They measure their success by their progress, and this allows them to stay motivated and feel good about themselves.


Re: mental attitude
« Reply #22 on: March 09, 2009, 11:39:05 PM »
Zeek, you cannot possibly stop with a teaser like that! I'm all ears(or eyes). This is just too good of stuff for those who recognise it. When you think about what this game is really about, I mean it is so cerebral ,and it is really important to recognise that and put into practice those  disciplines, well it is the difference isn't it?
I also think that your last sentance or thought directly relates to Todd's take on what we are talking about. I think I got to hung up on the terminology rather than the actual intent of his thoughts. A player has to understand the fact that he never can be perfect, I think THAT is huge! So then there is room to manuever and have room to HAVE FUN!
« Last Edit: March 09, 2009, 11:49:05 PM by Old Meister »

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2009, 11:44:15 PM »
Ill work on some more in a day or two. Old Meister, are you from the northwest? I spent a year up there working with ts in 1974. I have always wondered what happened to Larry Folk. do you know?

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #24 on: March 09, 2009, 11:55:17 PM »
Zeek, I'm south of a small town of Stayton, 15 miles east of Salem, Oregon. I'm an old schooler that got back into the game about 1 1/2 years ago after a 20+ year lay-off. I'm making foos trips up there(Portland) every other week. I'll ask around about Larry Folk as I don't know him.

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #25 on: March 10, 2009, 09:03:40 PM »
Charles, I would imagine you are playing the Missouri State championships and on Warrior tables. SOOOoo buddy, your backpin game should serve you well on those tables. It would be nice to hear that you did good. Good luck, think good things and give'm h--l!

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #26 on: March 11, 2009, 06:36:39 PM »
Let WHATEVER Happens be OK

As i started thinking again about foosball recently, I realized that all the stuff i learned
about the mental game in golf applies equally to foosball (and actually life in general).
          Golf has pretty much dominated my life (except for the 7 years I spent playing
foosball. I started playing golf when I
was 9 years old.  I decided  to become a professional golfer when  I was 45
years old. I started learning how to play golf when I was 50 years old.
           For  the  first 40 years or so I thought the secret to golf was a perfect
swing. I spent endless hours, thousands of practice balls and a ton of money
working on proper grip, left arm straight, slow take away, pause at the top,
start down  slow etc etc etc.  I was among  that 97% of golfers mired  in  the
mechanics of the swing. Hey, that’s what I was told from day one!
           I developed a pretty good swing  (only  took 40 years). Actually even
as a kid I had a pretty natural swing. My first instructor was a man named Jr.
Hardwick (don’t remember his real first name) who was the pro at Webb Air
Force base  in Big Spring Texas.  I think Jr. and his brother Billy had some
moderate  success  on  the  PGA  tour  back  in  those  days.  I  have  also  taken
lessons,  at  one  time  or  the  other,  from  Jack Mann,  Steve  Johnson, Hank
Haney, Jackie Cupit, and several other professionals.
           The point of mentioning all these great teachers is to say that I have
learned a pretty good understanding of  the mechanical swing. Give me ten
minuets to warm up on the range and I can still beat the driver to the fence
and hit wedges into the barrels. And I’m 61 now.
           Around age 45 I decided to pursue my dream of playing professional
golf.  I  played  the Texas mini  tours.  I went  to Florida  several winters  and
played  the Tommy Armour Tour  and  several  others.  I went to the Senior Tour Qualifing
school three times. I made it to the second round once. I  played  some  decent
rounds. I played some not so decent rounds. I worked hard on the range and
I worked hard on my swing.
           After  four  and  a  half  years  of  grinding  hard  on  the  mini  circuits,
here’s what I learned. I learned that I was getting beat by guy’s who did not
swing any better than me. They couldn’t hit it any farther than me and they
couldn’t hit it any straighter than me! They were not better putters than me
and their short games were not better than mine! Were they just luckier than
me? No (although I must say I thought that sometimes) The only thing they
did better than me was score! wtf! Maybe I’m not pronating my left arm on
the backswing.
           It  became  obvious  that  I  wasn’t  playing  with  a  full  bag.  All  my
coaches had  touched on  the “mental game” at one  time or another, but  for
some  reason  the  importance  just never  stuck. But  something was missing.
So, six months before my fiftieth birthday, I changed the way I had thought,
for nearly forty years,  about golf. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was
when I started learning how to play golf.
           We’ve all watched golf on TV. I have for as long as I can remember. I
always watched  the  swings  and  listened  to  the  commentators  describe  the
shots. “Notice how  the club  face  is open”, “See  the  left shoulder go under
the  chin”,  “Notice  that  the  crease  on  the  left  pant  leg  is  pointing  toward
Jupiter” ad infinitum. And I would be on the practice tee the next day trying
to figure out which direction Jupiter was. I had never tried to figure out how
the  great  players  were  thinking!  Once  I  changed  my  attention  to  their
thoughts, I came up with a whole new set of questions.
           What were the top players thinking just before a shot (routine). What
were  they  thinking  during  the  swing? And most important, what  were  they
thinking  after  the shot? How was it that they seemed to handle the “bad” shots so well? 
           The more I watched in this new way, the more obvious it became that
they  all  had  sound  games,  but  they  also  had  a way  of  thinking  that was
producing  the  results  they  wanted! More  importantly,  they  had  a way  of
thinking  that  allowed  them  to  deal with  the  adversities  of  a  round. They
might show a little disgust at a “bad” shot, but I noticed that the displeasure
was almost always gone within a few seconds. How cool would it be to not
be upset at a “bad” shot? (not to let it carry over to the next shot)
How cool would  it be  to walk off  the eighteenth
green  feeling  as  peaceful  as  you were on  the  first  tee? Even  if you didn’t
play as well as you had hoped! I could see that these guy’s were, somehow,
doing  this. The best way  I’ve  found  to describe  it  is  they were having  fun
and they had learned how to let WHATEVER happened be ok!
            So what does let whatever happens be ok mean? Lets start with what it does not mean.
It doesnt mean you dont care what hapens. It doesnt mean you shouldnt have goals
and work hard to get what you want. It doesnt mean you shouldnt have fun and enjoy
what you are doing. It simply means that you can choose not to experience all the
negative emotions that go with unwanted outcomes. Once you understand that negative
outcomes are not your enemy, your ready to climb the ladder.

Next - The Game of Black and White

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #27 on: March 11, 2009, 07:45:49 PM »
I sounds like the NFL phrase,"Let the game come to you". You know, this stuff could be really maddening to someone who's worked their arse off practicing everything under the sun only to hear you say, " let whatever happen be ok". I got into playing pool for a while and I found this book, "Pleasures in Small Motions". The biggest point made was about how we have to remind ourselves why we are in the sport we play, because we enjoy it, it's fun. Play is fun and it is the best when it is fun. And then, myself, I have to remember that it is the most fun to win as I sometimes seem to lose my drive to win. Maybe it's my age. I'll be looking forward to The game of Black and White. I don't know if anyone else is enjoying your posts but I love this stuff.

Re: mental attitude
« Reply #28 on: March 11, 2009, 08:16:48 PM »
did you read the last paragraph? Working your arse off is how you develope the "software" you need to execute. But what the big boys know how to use that software. I have a good schtick on how to get the most out of parctice. gotta lay the ground work first.

Offline bbtuna

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  • TS, Dynamo, Tornado, Warrior, & Fireball
Re: mental attitude
« Reply #29 on: March 11, 2009, 10:42:04 PM »
good foundations for a foosball book...keep it coming friend