Separating the Skill from the Self
An interesting phenomenon that I’ve found when interacting with elite throwers (and hitters as well) from all over the world and from a variety of disciplines is that they always seem to refer to their throw in the form of a possessive noun, not as a verb. In a variety of settings and languages I’ve heard sentences like “I need to refind my throw” or “my throw is in a really good spot right now”, which is almost in direct opposition to “I need to throw better”.
To them, the skill is much less of an action that they themselves are performing, and more of a separate entity that they are tasked with caring for and developing. This language used is much more reminiscent of a gardener speaking of caring for a bonsai tree than the reality of an athlete performing a skill. One of the main things to be gleaned from this insight is that all of these athletes have a Platonian ideal of not only what the throw should be, but specifically what their throw should be.
This ideal has been molded by their environment and past experiences. For example, if you were a kid growing up in the pacific northwest in the 2000s , the Lincecum archetype of throwing likely permanently shaped your vision of what “your throw” could be.
This separation of the skill from the self also affords the athlete with a built in level of failure tolerance that is critical to development. When an athlete is analyzing their performance through this lens, they can view the skill more objectively, and not associate failure of the skill as a personal failure. Much like a mother watching her child learn to walk, and patiently giving the child room to trip and fall without viewing the lows of the natural learning progression as a failure as a parent, the athlete can externalize the skill and give it room to develop without experiencing personal crisis.
“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.
We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”
― W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
The fact that this way of thinking is so common in elite throwers is a clear example of survivorship bias. The reason that they’ve managed to become so elite compared to their peers, even when affording for differences in genetic predisposition and training quality, is that they’ve had the wherewithal to view the skill as a separate entity, and the patience to guide that skill through phases of development over a extended period of time. The athletes that either viewed the lack of skill development as a personal failure (as I have in the past), or didn’t have enough of a emotional connection to the throw to view it as a external noun, ended up quitting before having the opportunity to see their throw be what it truly had the potential to be.
“Part of the process of letting go is releasing any thoughts of how you or your piece will be received. When making art, the audience comes last. Let's not consider how a piece will be received or a release strategy until the work is finished and we love it.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
In many well received sports psychology books, things are often split into Self 1 (the judging, or conscious mind) and Self 2 (the doing, or subconscious mind). The main goal should be to separate the judging mind as far from the skill as possible, so that the subconscious can interact with the platonian ideal of the skill in the most unrestricted way possible, with adjustments driven by external feedback from the skill itself. In short - stop thinking, separate yourself from the skill, and feed it what it needs to grow.
Happy Hunting
