Rabu, 26 April 2017

Jalu's Coaching Diary: The First Of Many

My first tournament went well. we ranked third with three wins and two losses in a tournament full of good teams with more experienced players. To simplify things, we have a quite good tournament.

We had a game where we came back from a 5 - 0 to 5 - 6 game. all six runs came in a last inning thanks to some great strike zone discipline and good control by the guys and some key clutch hits to wrapped up the runs. We shook the tournament by scoring three runs against the best team in the tournament and the eventual champion even though they scored nine. Overall, the new guys looked like they'd had some good futures ahead of them and now it's my job to make them more useful for tournaments to come.

Unlike some baseball countries, baseball in Indonesia is just a way to have some fun on the weekend with your friends. We don't take baseball too seriously. Therefore, we only had like two to three tournaments per year, and only five to eight teams compete in those tournament. That's why we can never achieve what Japan and Korea achieved as they had competitions all year round. Competition gave young players experience they need to go to another level of expertise. Seeing pitches is important for new players as their brain hardware haven't got used to seeing things their eyes can't see. Hitting is projecting the motion of the ball, and our eyes could never do that, it's not designed to do so. By seeing more pitches, the brain can make up memories of ball trajectory so the brain knows when and where to hit them. Hitting is more like seeing the future rather than the present as the ball travel so fast, our eyes couldn't catch them.

The process of going to expert from adept is the hardest thing in every aspect of life including baseball. Teaching kids how to throw and catch is easier than teaching them how to do a double play, teaching them double play is easier than teaching them double play in a desperate condition. Teaching them how to act in some conditions is harder than teaching them techniques. Baseball is 80% mental and 20% Technique. Some Coaches in Indonesia only teach their players how to throw, not how to throw in a two out, last inning, tied, final game. Therefore, lots of error came in a more demanding situations. Teaching players to be calm is also a problem because every person deals with their stress differently. As i said in the previous entry, every person is a different. Now i say every person is different and every person deals with their problems differently.

We could never dismiss the human factor in every players, that goes for the coach as well. Every player is a human and every coach is a human too. Every player deals with their stress differently, so does every coach. By adding the human factor to the training, every players can function themselves as humans, not robots. Coaches have to realise that they are human, and they are dealing with another human being. Baseball is a game for human, and humans made errors when they get stressed. That's why coaches have to teach their players how to deal with stresses in every condition and every play. I see lots of good players made bad judgements in a final game when they did well in games before. That's because usually final games are more mentally demanding than pre-final games. That's why mental training is important for players and coaches.


Ordinary players play with their muscles. Good players play with their hearts. Excellent players play with their brain. Combine all three and you'll have an unstoppable players ready to tackle all kinds of obstacles ahead of them.

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