You've got your final today and even just walking into the hall feels a little bit different.
You've a got a few different feelings about you, driving to the hall, walking to the hall,
things just didn't really feel the same, did they? It's not like any other match you've
played during the season. What's going on?
Try to think back to the last time this happened to you. What sort of feelings can you remember?
I'll tell you some of the things that happens to me. So firstly, I start to get a bit of
a funny feeling in my stomach. I might even get a bit tingly in my fingers. My mind starts
racing at a thousand miles an hour, I'm starting to think about all the things and the possibilities
that could happen. What's going to happen if I win? What's going to happen if I lose?
The mind starts going way too fast.
I can feel my heart start beating faster and sometimes I can actually feel it pounding
in my chest.
It even affects my legs. My legs start feeling a little bit wobbly and shaky. Not that I'm
going to fall over but just that they're not functioning properly.
I might even start to feel a little bit hotter and certainly the palms get a bit sweaty.
These are all just signs that something important is happening to you. They're not necessarily
bad things because the adrenaline that's starting to rush through your body can actually help
you to play better.
It can become a problem though if you go over the top with anxiety and you start to get
too nervous and your body doesn't function properly. Your mind starts to race and your
thinking becomes unclear.
The key to all of this, is to start to think back and recognise the signs of when you played
well and the feelings that you had. What did you feel like in that last match when you
were absolutely brilliant? Or, how did you feel in that match when you played absolutely
terrible?
From my own experience, these are the things that helped me to recognise when I was playing
well. I was seeing the ball really well, everything felt really smooth, it felt like I had a lot
of time to play my shots. I was feeling really calm in myself and my movement was also really
smooth and fast.
I wasn't focusing too much on what was going to happen at the end of the match, whether
I won or whether I lost. Everything felt like I was in a bubble and I was there in the moment
playing some great table tennis.
When I was playing badly, I just didn't have enough time. The ball was on top of me before
I knew it. My hand felt really solid, my wrist was tight, my whole body felt really tight
and I couldn't play my strokes properly. My mind was all over the place, I was thinking
about what was going to happen in the future, whether I was going to win, whether I was
going to win this game, lose this game, what happened in that last point when I lost it,
I started to get angry, my heart started racing too much. Everything became blurry and unclear.
Even how fast you're moving around the court can be an indicator to yourself. For me I
know that when I was walking around the court slowly that I was in a better frame of mind
and was more likely to play good table tennis. When I was rushing around like a mad man,
I knew that I was racing too fast.
So your anxiety levels can be a little bit different. Some people play better when their
anxiety is up a little bit higher, some lower. But the key thing across everyone is to be
able to stay in the present. So not thinking about what is going to happen, and not thinking
about what did happen, but thinking about what is happening right now. And the best
indicator for you in table tennis is the table tennis ball. So if you are tracking the ball
perfectly, you are then right there in the present.
So your homework now is to think about two matches. One that you played utterly brilliantly,
and one that you played poorly. I want you to write those two games down and underneath
them I want you to write down the feelings that you had for each one. So playing utterly
brilliantly, and playing poorly, and write down the feelings that you can remember having
during those matches.
In our ask the coach section I get a lot of questions from players asking me about how
they can play as well in matches as they do in practice.
The first step on this journey is to recognise the feelings of when you're playing well and
when you're playing badly. It's important that you go away and do the homework that
we've set in this video.
In upcoming videos you'll use this knowledge to help you to reach your potential.