Protect Your Process

Protect your process. Excellence flows from process. Dan Brown, author of The Davinci Code, writes 365 days a year starting at four A.M. He finds a spot free of email or Internet and phone and plies his craft. Brown points out that an author should have one key worn more than others - the delete key. Brown tells us to be demanding about our practice and gentle about the results. He once wrote 150 pages and tossed them because 'they were bad'. 

What is your process? That's tricky because there's a "home" process, school process, and volleyball process.

Focus on the volleyball process. A written process beats a mental one.

1) Consider strengths and weaknesses of our 'core four' - skill, strategic understanding, physicality, and psychology. 

2) Write them down. It's your draft. Nobody else needs to see it. 

3) Begin your revision. "I need to work on my outside attack." Be specific. Consider the "Feynman Technique" of Richard Feynman, one of the greatest teachers ever. 

“When Feynman faces a problem, he’s unusually good at going back to being like a child, ignoring what everyone else thinks… He was so unstuck — if something didn’t work, he’d look at it another way.”— Marvin Minsky, MIT

• Name it. 
• Explain it. 
• Research. 
• Review it. 

Author David Mamet reminds authors to "kill your darlings," poorly written or unnecessary content. 

4) Practice it. Coach John Wooden described the learning process - explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition x 5. More quality repetitions produce more quality results. 

5) Review your practice with tracking and perhaps video. 

• Are you contacting the ball too low, allowing more blocking? 
• How good is your contact with the ball? 
• What sound does it make? 
• Are the hard hits hard and are you using "thumbs up" or "thumb down" to direct your attack? 
• Are you getting desired 'spin'? 

Make practice relevant to your role. Anna Burns shouldn't invest much time on spike footwork. She should practice setting and 'out of system' passing, receiving, digging, hitting downballs, and serving. 

All players should work on communication. 

Become the product of your process. 

Lagniappe. This won't be for everyone. 

Lagniappe 2 Fast eyes, fast hands.