tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61373923651467867972024-03-19T05:31:48.017-07:00David Donner - Sports Vision ExpertDavid Donner Bsc MBCO is a fully qualified and practising Optometrist with more than a passing interest in Sports Vision.
This blog looks at this captivating science and David relates his expertise in Sports Vision to the big sporting events happening around the world today!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-35832124593493622672017-07-20T08:11:00.001-07:002017-07-20T08:11:27.073-07:00IF YOUR CHILD IS A TALENTED CRICKETER<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<u>IF YOUR CHILD IS A TALENTED CRICKETER</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> I was
listening recently to a discussion between Jonathan Agnew and Simon Hughes on
Test Match Special. They were discussing the fact that more and more top
batsmen are left-handed. Five of the top ten run-makers in Test cricket of all
time are left-handed - Cook, Border, Sangakara, Lara and Chanderpaul – and
eight out of the top twenty. Yet only 10% of the general population are
left-handed. The percentage of top baseball batters being left-handed is at
least as high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Scientists
have discovered that the corpus callosum – the bundle of nerves that connects
the two halves of the brain – is thicker in left-handed people than in
right-handers. They speculate that because this may allow the two halves of the
brain to work faster and more efficiently, left-handers have faster reaction
times. Specifically, they have more time to make late adjustments to their bat
when playing fast deliveries or deliveries that deviate shortly before arrival.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> That’s
interesting, because there have been studies which have shown that elite
cricketers do not have especially fast reaction times in general, but have more
time to play their shots because they are better able to anticipate where the
ball is going to be than lesser players. It may be, however, that there is a
difference in reaction times when more complicated actions are required, such
as playing a cricket shot, than making a simple reaction to a sound, such as
pressing a button. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> The
discovery about the corpus callosum refers to people who are completely
left-handed, whereas many of those who bat left-handed are actually
right-handed – they bowl, throw and write right-handed. One answer, discussed
in the program, is that when they bat left-handed their right hand is at the
top of the bat guiding the stroke, and this could lead to cleaner hitting than
when the dominant hand is at the bottom of the bat. Sachin Tendulkar, the great
Indian batsman, is left-handed but batted as a right-hander, giving him the
same advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Another
point discussed was about eye dominance. If you are righthanded and right-eye
dominant, you need to have a more square-on stance to face the bowler, whereas
batting left-handed has your dominant eye with a good view of the bowler even
with a side-on position. Apparently, Alastair Cook is left-eye dominant, which
may explain his more open stance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> I
thought one of the most interesting comments came from the former South African
captain Graeme Smith. He is right-handed but was a left-handed opening batsman.
He says that normally he feels more comfortable using his right hand, but if he
is using the two hands together, such as when batting or playing golf, it feels
more comfortable left-handed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> “Aggers”
wondered if you have a young batsman, whether you should establish their eye
dominance at an eye examination, and I would, of course, say that would be a
good idea. But I wouldn’t be too prescriptive. Encourage the child to
experiment batting both right-and left-handed so they can discover what feels
best for them. And if they can do both, they’ll be great switch-hitters. </span> <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16272219706968512404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-13693548410519454352017-05-25T03:10:00.000-07:002017-05-25T03:10:06.564-07:00Colour deficiency problems in cricketers. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Yorkshire and former England cricketer Gary Ballance</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> is in the form of his life, having already scored 1,000 runs in all
competitions this season. However, his hopes of an international recall this
summer are reduced because England are playing three day-night tests with a
pink ball in the next 11 months.</span></div>
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The problem for
Ballance is that he is colour deficient (a better term than “colour blind”
because he can see colours, but sometimes can’t distinguish between them), and
has particular difficulty distinguishing between pinks and greens. The pink
ball would probably be quite clear against a white sightscreen, but may be very
hard to pick up when it bounces. It may also disappear when he’s fielding as
the ball could get lost against the background of a crowd in the stands. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are tints
that can enhance certain colours. For instance, clay-pigeon shooters find a
light purple colour can enhance the orange of the clay against a background of
trees. But there are also tints designed specifically for those who are colour
deficient.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One such is the
Chromagen contact lens. In 2000, an experiment was done to test the
effectiveness of Chromagen lenses in real life for 14 colour deficient
volunteers. 13 out of the 14 expressed interest in wearing the lenses on at
least an occasional basis, though only two were prepared to pay the full
cost. I remember fitting these lenses
many years ago to an electrician who had difficulty distinguishing red wires in
poor light. He found the lens useful for that specific purpose: I suppose he was
highly motivated not to electrocute himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For a cricketer, a
contact lens is likely to be better than a spectacle tint because spectacles
are often impractical under a helmet. The vision will seem strange initially,
so it will be a question of trying it for a time to see if it helps.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Colour
discrimination isn’t just a problem for cricketers. A number of top snooker
players - Mark Allen, Peter Ebdon, Mark Williams and Stephen Lee – are also
colour deficient. Their biggest problem is usually distinguishing the brown
ball when it’s amongst the reds. A red-enhancing tint may help, but it seems
that these players generally get round the problem by asking the referee if
they can’t see where the brown is.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16272219706968512404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-41317519672082818622017-02-16T04:41:00.001-08:002017-02-16T04:41:54.602-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>How to become great at just about anything</u></b></h2>
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<b> This was the title
of a podcast I was listening to recently.</b></div>
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It featured Professor K Anders
Ericcson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, Tallahassee.</div>
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His main idea is
that what we call talent depends on many hours of “deliberate practice”; that
even someone considered to be a child prodigy, such as Mozart, actually only
became a genius thanks to starting very young and training long and hard. As he
says, “If you compare the kind of music pieces that Mozart can play at various
ages to today’s Suzuki-trained children, he is not exceptional. If anything,
he’s relatively average”. This is, in part,
because standards in most areas of human activity have risen over time. To
stand out as a genius today requires a higher standard than it used to. This is
particularly noticeable in sports where achievements can be measured, such as
athletics. Ericcson is the
originator of the idea that you need to practise for 10,000 hours to become
great at something. He was studying the most accomplished musicians at German
academy, and found that, on average, they had practised for more than 10,000
hours by the time they were 20.</div>
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Ericcson
distinguishes between “purposeful practice”, where you train on one particular
aspect of your performance that you want to improve, and “deliberate practice”.
The latter is based on proven techniques to improve skills that have previously
been established, and involves specific goals to improve some aspect of the
performance. Feedback is also important, so you can tell what adjustments you
need to make.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another key
component of deliberate practice is that it requires the student to push
themselves so that they are constantly trying to achieve things that are just
beyond their current abilities. As Ericcson says, “It demands near-maximal
effort, which is generally not enjoyable”. It relies on the fact that you’re
making errors, and then finding ways to eliminate those errors.<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">But Ericcson stresses that 10,000 hours isn’t a
magic number. That number of hours will make you more experienced, but will not
necessarily take you to expert levels without the other elements of deliberate
practice.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Dr Ericcson’s research seems to be focused on
individual activity, and I think that in team sports the evidence is slightly
different. We know, for instance, that someone who has played many different
sports in their youth needs far fewer hours to reach expert level in a
different team sport.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">It also seems that in many team sports, “deliberate
play” might be a better description of what’s required. Many elite team players
will describe having spent many hours of their childhood playing games such as
football with their friends or relatives, often in a nearby park. They will
often imagine that they are their favourite team or player. And I’m sure they
would describe those times as anything but “not enjoyable”. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16272219706968512404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-76896754201170936332017-01-19T04:10:00.000-08:002017-01-19T06:23:54.826-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: yellow;">Tackle laws 2017</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6kwtk5J_0aOdoGFSnHQ4Ayigq3PxRTbm6Q8uxKrwEB2mdJP4wpGmmfvYX83shTX4PDEbrTh6S5s0eDDhHcQrm1wzeZWRu04qwCM5ONrx4Nh8LKlv6t21QYYn3mAsxROFKP_o7iMX_Xpi/s1600/Rugby+player.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: yellow;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6kwtk5J_0aOdoGFSnHQ4Ayigq3PxRTbm6Q8uxKrwEB2mdJP4wpGmmfvYX83shTX4PDEbrTh6S5s0eDDhHcQrm1wzeZWRu04qwCM5ONrx4Nh8LKlv6t21QYYn3mAsxROFKP_o7iMX_Xpi/s1600/Rugby+player.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><o:p> </o:p>World Rugby have ramped up the punishment for high tackles,
that is tackles above the line of the shoulder.
It’s expected that there will be a spate of red and yellow cards in the
next few weeks, making it even more important for players to have the right
technique when tackling.<br />When people think about aiming in rugby, they tend to think
about kicking, and maybe passing, but often forget that aiming is also a
crucial part of tackling. One of the reasons for high tackles is that the
tackler has not aimed at the target area sufficiently accurately.<br />The target area is usually the thigh, although some might
aim for the chest in order to dislodge the ball. But human beings naturally
look at another’s face, so the tackler often doesn’t get in position early
enough, and may just instinctively stick an arm out, catching the ball carrier
in the head.<br />Whilst averting the eyes to the target, it’s essential to
keep the head up. Another mistake made by tacklers is that they drop their head
so they’re looking at the ground, misjudge the movements of the ball carrier
and end up with concussion themselves due to a knee to the head. As the tackler
enters the tackle, they should focus past the ball carrier, and this can help
to keep their head up.<br /> As with all aiming, the more accurately you aim the nearer
to your target you’re likely to be. At international level, at least, the
shorts tend to have an emblem on them which would be at about the right height
for the tackler to aim with their shoulder. Otherwise it could be the pockets.<br />Video is always helpful, so the coach can ensure that
tacklers are keeping their heads up, making small steps and continuing to drive
through the tackle. The key is to make sure that youngsters have the correct,
safe technique from the start, minimising the risks to themselves and to
others.</span></h3>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16272219706968512404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-34074263502213392742015-10-08T08:44:00.000-07:002015-10-08T08:44:21.722-07:00Rugby World Cup 2015 - Back Row<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All rugby players need to be able to tackle, but the back row probably put in
more tackles per game than most other players. So it seems reasonable to talk about
the visual requirements in tackling for back row players. These would also be
largely the same for other players, though the backs might be more likely to
find themselves isolated in a one-on-one situation. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Some of the most common mistakes made in tackling include: planting the
feet; not getting close enough; not driving in with the shoulder; tackling too
high; and getting the head in the wrong position.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The tackler will take responsibility for guarding a channel, so will be
looking out for potential ball carriers running into that channel. Once that
ball carrier has been identified, the tackler should immediately switch their
focus to the ball carrier’s core area (around the stomach), because where the
core goes, the player goes. The tackler might also start visualising the
tackle. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Visualise” in this sense means much more than imagining what something
will look like: it’s more about imagining the feel of the shoulder making
contact with the target area. An early switch of focus to the core means that
the tackler will be able to react to a change in direction from the ball
carrier, but the initial visualisation might for instance involve the right
shoulder driving into the right thigh of the ball carrier level with the bottom
of the shorts. This clear preparation should ensure that the head is safely to
the side of the ball carrier, “cheek to cheek”. If the tackler drops their
head, or gets it on the wrong side, serious injury could result.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are all naturally drawn to look at other people’s faces, and this is
why tackles are often attempted too high. So in training, it’s important that
players make sure that they make this early switch in focus and visualisation
each time, whilst ensuring that they do not drop their head.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At non-elite levels, you often see players planting their feet quite
wide apart, sometimes stretching their arms out to the side, supposedly making
themselves a more difficult target to avoid. But it’s very difficult to get any
power into the tackle from that position, and it’s also very difficult to react
to any late movement from the ball carrier. The tackler often ends up having to
dive to make a tackle. This is likely to be ineffective if high, and runs the
risk of their head getting in the way of a stray boot if the tackle is low. The
tackler is also vulnerable to the hand off if the ball carrier runs straight at
them because they are in such a weak position. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The tackler should aim to get their feet in close to the ball carrier,
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imagine a hula hoop around the ball carrier, and if the tackler is aiming with
their right shoulder, they should try and get their right foot within that
hoop. Another tip when training is to get the tackler to keep their hands in to
their chest, and to push against a ball carrier without extending their arms,
which again ensures they’ve got in close. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As the ball carrier gets in range, the tackler dips the shoulder
(dipping the shoulder too early can expose the head), but it’s still essential
to keep the head up. So the eyes focus on the target before contact, and then
past the ball carrier when contact is made. The feet must keep moving with
small steps to drive through the tackle as the arms close around the ball
carrier. If the tackle is made from the side, the ball carrier’s own momentum
should cause them to fall over with the tackler on top.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David Donner</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-15893166714774076282015-09-30T09:00:00.000-07:002015-09-30T09:00:13.301-07:00Rugby World Cup 2015 - Props
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It is essential for their own safety that props have the correct body
alignment before the scrum engages. They can check, for instance, that their
back is straight by crouching alongside a mirror, at home or in the gym. They
can do this with their eyes closed, and then look in the mirror to see if the
correct position has been achieved, and the forces from the players behind will
be transferred forward in a straight line.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wWcSPS6ncVNwem0hNmLqXht62scgLi2isRcVViwgq-nsZP4m5zDJ3qIh2jyTFvFh0nlzbwuf0zeCbYe-XjlJtitDcd4GLksstCQRFFdnWkAxE1Iv6zsCeWaTEZS3vr7r2FAsFIKzHw/s1600/article-0-06E4F900000005DC-523_468x357.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wWcSPS6ncVNwem0hNmLqXht62scgLi2isRcVViwgq-nsZP4m5zDJ3qIh2jyTFvFh0nlzbwuf0zeCbYe-XjlJtitDcd4GLksstCQRFFdnWkAxE1Iv6zsCeWaTEZS3vr7r2FAsFIKzHw/s320/article-0-06E4F900000005DC-523_468x357.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It can be really helpful to video one versus one scrums, so you can
check that they have maintained the correct position on engagement. The players
can view it themselves so they can confirm that there sensation of body
position matches the reality. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The position of the head and neck are vital as it’s very easy to get
into an unnatural position, and serious injury could result. Once the player is
in the crouched position, you can get him to stand up straight, but making sure
that his head and neck position are unchanged. Do they remain in a natural
position? If the neck is unnaturally forward or back it is in an unsafe
position.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One suggestion for finding the correct head position is to wear a pair
of sunglasses. In the crouched position, you lift your head up until you can
just see over the top of them. You check this as before by standing up and
seeing if it still in a natural position.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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One technique that can be really useful for props to get maximum power
in the scrum is centring. This is a visualisation technique that involves
putting the focus on the centre of your body. This makes the player more
balanced, and therefore increases power, especially as the focus is on the area
where there are larger, more powerful groups of muscles.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Getting into the correct body position is also very important in
lifting at the lineout. A common fault is to allow the head to fall forward, so
that the arms cannot lift straight up but at an angle, with the resulting loss
of power and direction. Lifters also need to make sure that they keep forwards
to their fellow lifter. If they look up, they are almost certain to tip back a
bit and lose the ideal strong position for maximum lift.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David Donner</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-90403423341896729682015-09-10T07:56:00.000-07:002015-09-10T07:56:44.288-07:00Rugby World Cup 2015 - HookersIn honour of the rugby World Cup, I thought I’d do a short series on the visual requirements for some of the different positions starting with the hooker.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
When people talk of visual requirements, they usually refer to the visual requirements of the player - things like having good visual acuity and peripheral vision. I tend to approach it another way, by looking at the visual requirements of the sport itself.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
For a hooker, one of the main requirements is to be able to throw a ball into a lineout in such a way that it can be caught by the intended player on your side, and not intercepted by the opponents. Of course, it’s not always the hooker’s fault when this doesn’t happen, as it’s very much a team effort between thrower, lifters and catcher, and also depends on the ability of the opposition to defend.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViCToda7mnlqDoanHhv8oXwzZkY9nz1rrFKI8dIkAMa5jLQilhuhWaq9Mqr1PC7OMC8eS7kMbSpVfeWa1e6DV4yhIGknTlVzFwNvpklbyj9jGnhAlK8aCrr2l-YCWfx430FO1Stuy1w/s1600/Avant_touche_ASM-AB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViCToda7mnlqDoanHhv8oXwzZkY9nz1rrFKI8dIkAMa5jLQilhuhWaq9Mqr1PC7OMC8eS7kMbSpVfeWa1e6DV4yhIGknTlVzFwNvpklbyj9jGnhAlK8aCrr2l-YCWfx430FO1Stuy1w/s320/Avant_touche_ASM-AB.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
One of the main difficulties for hookers is that they don’t actually have a target to aim for. They’re aiming for a space above the catchers head. But if it’s a throw towards the back of the line out, they often have to throw the ball in a parabola to evade the opposition’s catcher in the middle. If that’s someone like Devin Toner, who’s nearly seven feet tall before he’s lifted, that’s not an easy task.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
You can get hookers to practise their throwing by aiming at a mark on a post, and that would certainly be better than nothing. But the best way to practise getting the correct trajectory for deeper throws would be to throw the ball through a hoop. The hoop would be set at the height of the opposition’s front jumpers.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
I’ve seen this done with a tyre suspended from the cross bar. But ideally you’d want this to be hoop on an adjustable stand, and you’d want a second one set for the height of your tail catcher. The hooker then practises getting the ball through both hoops. This can be done as an individual practice, just with one set of forwards, and as fully contested lineouts.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
The hooker should also spend some time throwing whilst blindfolded, giving the brain a chance to concentrate on the kinaesthetic (muscle) feedback with each throw. The position of the hands holding the ball, especially the little finger, must be identical each time (see earlier blogs).<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
The visual requirements of hooking the ball are minimal, certainly at elite level, because there’s hardly any hooking these days. Put-ins are still as straight as a dog’s hind leg, so it’s more important to push than to hook the ball. I read that Sean Fitzpatrick used to practice with his eyes closed, so he could still hook the ball even if he couldn’t see it because he was pushed out of position by the opposition scrum. Unless or until referees insist on the put-in being straight, I can’t see many people practising that today.<br />
<br />
David Donner<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-83885005742327792652015-07-30T03:11:00.000-07:002015-07-30T03:11:41.678-07:00Facing a 90mph Fast Bowler<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A recent Test Match Special podcast featured Simon Hughes talking to
Jonathan Agnew about batsmen’s eyesight, and in particular how batsmen cope
with facing a bowler bowling at 90mph.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Any regular
readers of these blogs will not be surprised to hear that elite batsmen don’t
follow the ball all the way. In fact, they don’t even attempt to. Instead they
make a jump or “saccade” to the part of the pitch where they expect the ball to
bounce. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Saccades are
nothing exceptional. If you are reading a book, every time you get to the end
of a line your eyes will make a saccade to get to the next line. During that
period when your eyes are making these jumps, your vision will be blurred, but
this is suppressed by your brain so you don’t notice it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There are
several people researching this area in both the UK and Australia, but in my
opinion the foremost paper was by Mann, Spratford & Abernethy (2013). They
found that elite batsmen make two distinct saccades: the first one to predict
where the ball will bounce; and a second one to the predicted contact area
between bat and ball. This enabled them to align their gaze with the contact
area on 100% of good length deliveries, and 90% of short length trials. By
contrast, sub-elite batsmen could align their gaze to the contact point on only
13% of good length deliveries (and 80% of short length ones).</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9hyphenhyphenXM8ARTUu1TLIRyB1rroxFNvWDxC2J17oMrh91fZkwreK8XoE5kfn1kyor5VTLFfOuj4gxIbWJrRpREDR7ebt8QTo7fE0-EbLChof2PE51iAhLYUPIVwJQLMt-hLPs73HDCzPwLg/s1600/James_Anderson_bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9hyphenhyphenXM8ARTUu1TLIRyB1rroxFNvWDxC2J17oMrh91fZkwreK8XoE5kfn1kyor5VTLFfOuj4gxIbWJrRpREDR7ebt8QTo7fE0-EbLChof2PE51iAhLYUPIVwJQLMt-hLPs73HDCzPwLg/s640/James_Anderson_bowl.jpg" width="172" /></a><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The authors suggest that these saccades don’t just
happen because the ball is going too fast to be tracked by the human eye. In
fact, Croft, Button & Dicks (2009) found that even when the ball was bowled
at speeds low enough to be tracked, batsmen still made saccadic movements to
the predicted pitch point. It’s suggested that this enables elite batsmen to
use their peripheral vision to concentrate on the path of the ball either side
of the pitch point. By observing closely how the speed of the ball varies
before and after pitching, as well the bounce of the ball after pitching, they
are better able to predict the position and timing of the contact point between
bat and ball.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">One important distinction between elite and club
batsmen found by Mann et al was that whereas club batsmen aligned their eyes
with the ball (less saccadic movement), elite batsmen aligned their head with
the ball. They use the analogy of a miner’s lamp attached to the head, which
would shine on the ball throughout its path for the elite batsmen, but not for
the club batsmen. So for the elite batsmen, if they didn’t make any saccades,
the ball would stay in the centre of their vision, assuming they kept their
eyes still as their head followed the ball.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Even when the elite batsmen do make saccades, their
head still stays in alignment with the ball, despite the ball being in the
periphery of their vision. The authors describe this ability to couple the head
to eth movement of the ball as an “important hallmark of expertise in batting”.
This may be related to the fact that there are neurons in the brain that
respond to the position of an object relative to the head, regardless of where
the eyes are looking. The suggestion is that these elite batsmen can use this
information about where the ball is relative to their head to predict where the
bat/ball contact will be, so they only need to concentrate on when it will
happen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zy476fr)
contains some suggestions from the likes of Graham Thorpe as to how to prepare
to face bowling of 90mph. One suggestion is for the coach to use a side-arm
thrower, which is a cricketing version of the ball thrower used for dogs in the
park. What’s needed is a smaller version of this that fits onto a bowler’s
hand, so the ball can be bowled with a normal action, but comes out much faster
(without being a beamer).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Then, the answer to the question of how to face a
bowler bowling at 90mph, would be to practise facing a bowler at 95 or even
100mph.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-31023787653693949272015-06-30T08:45:00.000-07:002015-06-30T08:45:11.325-07:00Mind The Gap<div class="MsoNormal">
A new batsman comes to the wicket. He surveys the field,
making a careful note of the fielders’ positions. After blocking a few
deliveries, he starts to play some more expansive shots, and hits them,
unerringly, straight to the fielders.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From a ruck, the ball is passed to the first receiver who
runs forward a couple of steps before being driven back in the tackle by two
defenders.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A succession of crosses and corners fail to beat the first
defender. When the winger does finally manage to locate his centre forward, the
latter isn’t able to generate enough power in his header to trouble the
goalkeeper.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s going on? The answer is that each player is telling
his subconscious brain to pay attention to the position of the opposing players
(or his own player in the last example). The brain is then told what skill to
execute. The task is then carried out using those visual cues as targets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if you told your brain something like “Don’t hit the
ball to the fielder”, the subconscious brain, which doesn’t understand spoken
language very well, just hears “hit – ball – fielder”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Yy6Zb9uMAsYvfU8S8M6ZVWEVStMf217arizm4NIM9WeJOBh7Qmq6KM3ne-n4tZt7mcWTAA4qs-STLY0oBO517hVjHnTQ63IisocFXG2QlfgifOhsYJiVwzU7MKy6rfdlQsBFLj_GuQ/s1600/m48S3wL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Yy6Zb9uMAsYvfU8S8M6ZVWEVStMf217arizm4NIM9WeJOBh7Qmq6KM3ne-n4tZt7mcWTAA4qs-STLY0oBO517hVjHnTQ63IisocFXG2QlfgifOhsYJiVwzU7MKy6rfdlQsBFLj_GuQ/s320/m48S3wL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The answer, if you’re a coach, is not to tell your players
to look for where the fielders/defenders are, but to look for where the gaps
are. So a new batsman would survey the field looking for those gaps, and maybe
start visualising hitting the ball into those gaps. In net practice, you can
put markers on the net to indicate fielding positions. But if the batsman
doesn’t seem good at avoiding them, you might want to highlight the gaps between
them using coloured markers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You might also want to remind your players that cricket,
rugby and football pitches are pretty large compared to the size of even
adults. If they were a bird flying over the ground they would see lots of gaps.
So in cricket, if there are few gaps in a ring of close fielders, they need to
think about how they could safely hit the ball over them into those gaps.
Imagining they were high above the ground looking down might help them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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In sports such as football and rugby, the task for coaches
is to get their players to think of themselves as “space invaders”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Donner</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-32468766329523941602015-06-10T06:44:00.000-07:002015-06-10T06:44:50.026-07:00The Problem With Cricket Nets<div class="MsoNormal">
A few years ago I was umpiring a junior cricket match when a
young man came out to bat when his side was in trouble, having lost early
wickets for not many runs. He scored a rapid 50, which at least put his side
back in with a chance of winning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr3v_EIp0J807pHtDvC7cDdD2hBhtTbtPg1rgkPrTJkL4tunScAJ_4Hlr5X2i8x1bkChhmk5pdfFlZXs9j9SCB5-H64z7-5EtgrGHmnf3F7nTsyBSZ7kdWrLLMjz6SDqIEzBP-WY6rA/s1600/ShivajiPark_Mumbai_Cricket.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr3v_EIp0J807pHtDvC7cDdD2hBhtTbtPg1rgkPrTJkL4tunScAJ_4Hlr5X2i8x1bkChhmk5pdfFlZXs9j9SCB5-H64z7-5EtgrGHmnf3F7nTsyBSZ7kdWrLLMjz6SDqIEzBP-WY6rA/s400/ShivajiPark_Mumbai_Cricket.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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You might think I’d be impressed by this innings, yet I felt
it encapsulated what is wrong with a lot of traditional coaching. Because
whilst there were a lot of impressive strokes to the boundary, there were also
a lot of horrendous misses and streaky edges (as well as a couple of dropped
dolly catches).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seemed to me as if nearly all his shots were
pre-meditated, and I just had the impression that this was someone who spent a
lot of time practising in nets, especially against a bowling machine. He
clearly had a good eye, but had no idea how to build an innings, and wasn’t
using all the available visual cues that are required for good decision making.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The great players in the past have generally learned their
cricket by playing games in the street, park or beach. This meant that they
could spend many hours developing their technique by self discovery, rather
than learning to play in the way that a coach thought they should. But also, by
playing games these players were able to develop the mental side of the game, as
well as the ability to deal with unexpected challenges. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One cricket academy that tried to introduce a more
game-centred approach was the Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence in
Brisbane. They reduced the field of play to a 30-metre circle, marked by a low
net. This meant that they could play games in which everybody was involved, but
it also meant that they could put in a variety of conditions to challenge the
players and develop their skills. For instance, the batsmen would have to hit
the ball into specific zones in order to score runs. They could alter the sizes
of bats and the types of balls, and make any number of changes to the rules of
the game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This type of approach can be used in most if not all sports.
Although the method of learning is self discovery, the coach still has a
crucial role to play, not least in setting up the game conditions, but also in
using techniques such as questioning and feedback to aid that process of skill
development.<o:p></o:p></div>
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More on feedback in cricket next time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Donner</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-83391608860291262822015-05-22T05:59:00.000-07:002015-05-22T05:59:48.128-07:00Why Passes in Rugby Go Astray<div class="MsoNormal">
Why do so many passes in rugby go astray? Even at higher
levels of the game, many promising moves break down because the receiver has
had to reach up, or even reach behind him (or her), to take the ball.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPixPWqSzqqQrUen1BNM9Y3KzIbb7U8IjUwyoBlBah9L9tMxHvwGcX5JIIRlVidBZ1fLLhszUjq-aqP2SNKclEKI3woY3VA_mYGK1BDXIQgVffrOilQukPKlJEHTrHjzMviIxbK6rxtA/s1600/Bath_Rugby_v_Bristol_Rugby_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPixPWqSzqqQrUen1BNM9Y3KzIbb7U8IjUwyoBlBah9L9tMxHvwGcX5JIIRlVidBZ1fLLhszUjq-aqP2SNKclEKI3woY3VA_mYGK1BDXIQgVffrOilQukPKlJEHTrHjzMviIxbK6rxtA/s320/Bath_Rugby_v_Bristol_Rugby_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes, there will be technical reasons, such as passing
off the wrong foot. Often, the pass from 9 to 10 will go high because the 9 has
been imbalanced at the point of ball release. This can particularly happen if
the front foot has come too far across. In an effort to maintain balance, the
head comes back and up, with the result that the pass has an upwards
trajectory.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the main reason that passes go astray is that they have
not been aimed properly, and this generally happens because rugby players are
human beings. If one person is looking to see where another person is, it is
natural to look for their face, just like you would look for somebody’s face in
a photograph. But if you are looking at the receiver’s face when you pass the
ball, it’s likely that the ball will go in the general direction of their face.
If the receiver is running forwards, the ball may well disappear somewhere
behind their head.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other problem is that receivers like to read the
intentions of the players inside them. In particular, they might want to see if
the ball carrier is looking in their direction, so they can anticipate when the
ball might be coming in their direction. In order to get a good view of the
face, they come up almost level with the ball carrier. This means that the ball
carrier has only three options, all of which are poor: a forward pass; a flat
pass that the receiver can’t run onto; or a pass behind the receiver.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The answer is to train players, ideally from a young age, to
use their vision effectively. How many coaches drum into their players that
passes should be made <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i></b> the receiver and not <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to</i></b>
the receiver? How many explain where the ball should be aimed, and how this
varies according to the speed of the receiver? How many tell the receivers
about being able to see the number on the back of the ball carrier’s shirt so
they don’t overrun the ball? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Above all, are coaches using realistic opposed drills, so
the players can put all this in the context of the timing of the pass, and
whether to pass or not? If you are, then asking the right questions, even with young
players, can lead to the players working out the answers for themselves. For
instance, what are they looking for in the defenders that tells the whether to
pass or dummy? What can they do in their footwork that would make them more
effective?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But if players are taught in a mechanistic way, then you
might as well just pick bigger and bigger wrecking balls, and not bother about
the fact that they can’t pass a ball. Some would say, we’ve reached that point
already.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
David Donner</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12322414531475251076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-76947529271557431882015-04-27T07:41:00.000-07:002015-04-27T07:41:26.168-07:00Sports Vision Casebook - Rugby Place Kicking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There are two main visual components of place kicking in rugby:
alignment and visualisation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There’s not
going to be one correct method for alignment or visualisation for everyone, so
there’s likely to be a certain amount of trial and error, for instance in
choosing the type of kicking tee that suits you best.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_t3fNuuYljVGm3CaXhubjr4syMkqaokdp6KOral5iUExPiEm17j7N2ZElMa8ITL_qxu_1eHwIBNtsho1b-5Mr43NdB1_XUhiKyeJA0DDehSv7hNw1s6lhUASxX6V0hm5u-rb1fEu7fYA/s1600/220px-ST_vs_RCT_2012_12_Jonny_Wilkinson_kicking_a_penalty_(cropped).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_t3fNuuYljVGm3CaXhubjr4syMkqaokdp6KOral5iUExPiEm17j7N2ZElMa8ITL_qxu_1eHwIBNtsho1b-5Mr43NdB1_XUhiKyeJA0DDehSv7hNw1s6lhUASxX6V0hm5u-rb1fEu7fYA/s1600/220px-ST_vs_RCT_2012_12_Jonny_Wilkinson_kicking_a_penalty_(cropped).jpg" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_701515319"></span><span id="goog_701515320"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The first part of alignment is to align the tee, and
then the ball on the tee. Leigh Halfpenny aligns the tee with the centre of the
posts and the seam of the ball with the right hand post, taking into account
the natural draw for a right-footed kicker. Similarly, Jonny Wilkinson tilts
the ball a little to the left, and Dan Carter at the start of his run up, aims
for the left hand post.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">As you move forward to kick the ball, the focus
should be on the precise point of the ball where you want to make contact .This
means picking a spot within the pattern of the ball, as small as a dimple, and
keeping a constant fixation on that spot.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Some players have a tendency to lift their head as
they kick, to watch the path of the ball. Lifting the head too early will
result in a loss of power and control. If this is a persistent problem, you can
try keeping a tennis ball under your chin to keep your head down.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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When
Johnny Wilkinson was taking kicks for England, he’d imagine that there was a
lady called Doris whom he could see through the posts sitting in the crowd. I
think at one time he imagined she was reading a newspaper. Then he imagined she
was holding a drink which he would try and knock out of her hand. He would then
have an imaginary line, like an imaginary wire, the ball would follow on its
way through the posts to Doris.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Leigh Halfpenny
visualises a third post in the middle of the other two. He aims to hit that
middle post. If it’s a windy day, he moves that imaginary post slightly to
compensate. He imagines that the sweet spot of the ball is attached by a piece
of string to that third post. He looks back from the post down the piece of
string.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A combination of
these ideas might be very effective: for instance, you might imagine a real or
fictional character sitting on top of the imaginary third post and pulling the
string. Your aim would be to knock that character off their perch.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Visualisation can also be
effective in dealing with the pressure of taking the kick. Halfpenny, for
instance, always imagines his old training ground of Gorseinon, even when he’s
in the Millennium Stadium.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then it’s just a question of
practice, and more practice. If you practice the more difficult kicks, it will
make most of the match day kicks seem easier. Halfpenny even takes kicks form
the try line to hit the post as a test of his accuracy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
David Donner</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-64773160690517800552015-04-10T08:22:00.000-07:002015-04-10T08:22:47.312-07:00Sports Vision Casebook - Scrum Halves<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The rugby players I’ve worked with most have been scrum halves, but I
think I’d use a similar process for a player in any position.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We began by doing some profiling, which was something some of the
players had done and some hadn’t. We looked at the skills required to be a
great scrum half, dividing them up into technical, tactical, physical and
psychological categories. We used this to work out which areas would be most
useful for the players to work on so they could progress to the next level of
the game. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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I also tried to work out some of the visual requirements for being a
scrum half. Whereas most people in this field would think of things like
peripheral vision and visual acuity (seeing clearly), I wanted to concentrate
more on how these players should use their vision in game situations. So I came
up with a list that included things like identifying and focusing on targets
when passing and kicking; scanning both sides of the field for overlaps and
mis-matches; searching for areas of space behind the defence to attack; and
analysing defenders at the ruck to aid decision making.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The players wanted most to work on their passing skills, which we
narrowed down to speed and especially accuracy. I started off by getting them
to pass a series of balls against a marker on a goal post. This was done from
both sides, initially with balls on the ground. Some competition was introduced
by timing them against each other. We then set up simulations of passing from a
ruck (they had to dig out the ball from under my foot), and from a line out (I
would toss the ball over my head for them to catch before passing). <o:p></o:p></div>
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This was all fine, but you’re not passing against a post in a match. In
order to do this I needed a receiver, but I wanted to keep to the same levels
of accuracy. So I’ve introduced a rule which begins by saying that the receiver
must maintain the same body position as he moves forward to catch the ball: no
stooping or jumping up allowed. Next, the receiver is also only allowed to move
their arms below their elbow. And finally, they can only move their hands to
catch the ball – no other arm movement is allowed. The scrum halves score a
point for each pass that is successfully caught under these conditions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I also videoed the players’ passing. It was interesting to see that one
player kicked out his back leg as he passed the ball. He had clearly fallen
into the habit of doing this in order to keep his balance, and was
understandably reluctant to change his technique. I did feel, however, that
this was a sign that he was inherently unstable when he passed, and this
explained why he would sometimes lift his head when he let go of the ball. This
also helped to keep his centre of gravity more central, and stopped him from
falling over. Unfortunately, it also meant that the ball would fly over the
receiver’s head. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
David Donner</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-57071014476897630752015-03-13T09:48:00.001-07:002015-03-13T09:48:12.653-07:00Sports Vision Casebook - Rugby Centre<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few years ago a rugby coach asked for my advice about a young centre who kept dropping the ball. I was able to give some suggestions, but I didn’t actually see the player, so I wasn’t able to see exactly what the problem was. And since the player moved on shortly afterwards, I couldn’t tell how effective the advice might have been. Now I’m actually working at a rugby club, I’ve thought about what advice I’d give to a coach now in the same situation.<br />
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The first piece of advice, of course, would be for the player to have their eyes tested, in case there is a fundamental eyesight problem. Assuming the result is normal, the likely explanation is that the player is either taking their eyes of the ball, in response to movement by the opponents, or that the player hasn’t prepared properly to catch the ball.<br />
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Meir (2005) implemented some visual training into the players at Gloucester Rugby Club. The coaching staff had found that problems with passing and catching in drills occurred because players often simply failed to either identify the target when they were passing, or didn’t look at the ball when receiving a pass from a teammate.<br />
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To improve concentration on the ball in volleyball, Vickers & Adolphe (1997) marked the ball with numbers. The receiver had to call out the numbers when they could perceive them in flight. This could obviously be adapted to a rugby ball being passed, and this was indeed one of the training methods that Meir used, along with patching one eye. This meant that the player had to turn his head round in order to focus on the ball or the target. He also got players to train with “agility balls”: these have an uneven shape, so bounce in unpredictable ways.<br />
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If your passing practice is carried out unopposed, it’s more likely that players will take their eyes off the ball when faced with opposition in a match. So doing a passing drill in a confined space with opponents trying to win the ball should help with passing under pressure, quick hands, communication and concentration.<br />
<br />
More on rugby in due course.<br />
<br />
David Donner<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-51706198575522715212015-02-16T08:38:00.001-08:002015-02-16T08:38:29.518-08:00Sports Vision Casebook - Putting Part 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The other aspects of putting are reading the greens and visualisation. It’s much easier to judge the distance of a putt accurately from the side rather than from behind, but you can also get a good judgement by walking the distance.<br />
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Judging the slope of the greens is also aided by using proprioceptive information from your feet. If you stand with your feet pointing uphill, the further back towards your heels that you can feel the weight, the steeper the putt. If you are standing upright and you feel the weight on your heels, that means a slope of about 4%; if the weight is on your toes, it’s about a 1% slope.<br />
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To get the aiming point, I like the method shown here: http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/spider.html<br />
For the strength of the putt, you should aim for a point about 9 inches behind the hole on the path you’ve decided.<br />
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Some people use visualisation to judge the line of the putt. One technique is to imagine that the hole of full of water which starts to overflow. You just have to note the path of the water, and this will be the path for your ball in reverse.<br />
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When Tiger Woods was a toddler, his father Earl had him put a ball in his right hand and roll it to a hole. Then he had Tiger close his eyes and roll it into the hole again. He asked Tiger what he had “seen” after he had closed his eyes. Tiger replied that he had seen a “picture” of the hole. Earl told him to always “putt to that picture” before he struck the ball, creating a picture in his head of where he wanted the ball to go. So Tiger’s focus wouldn’t be on the mechanics of the shot, but simply what needed to be done to the best he can visualise. Once he was comfortable with the instant pre-play in his mind’s eye, he’d play the shot.<br />
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Jack Nicklaus cited visualisation as the number one secret to his success, and even visualised every shot during practice: “First, I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I see the ball going there: its path, trajectory and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there is a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality”.<br />
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Everyone will have their own type of imagery that works best for them, but it all comes down to creating some kind of pathway in your head, and then you just have to try and get the ball to follow that pathway.<br />
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Talking to the two pro golfers that I’ve seen recently, I got the impression that visualisation was an area they could improve. With practice, it’s possible to make it almost as realistic as the physical act of putting itself.<br />
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David Donner</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-36837459158042625832015-02-02T07:19:00.000-08:002015-02-02T07:19:11.188-08:00Sports Vision Casebook - Putting Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’ve recently seen a couple of professional golfers in my practice. Interestingly, they were both right-handed and left eye dominant. They were consistent in their dominance, so this didn’t explain why one of them was tending to miss his putts to the left.<br />
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Ideally, when you are checking the line of the putt, you want your head right over the ball and parallel to the ground, so your eyes can look straight out of your head and onto the ball. If your head is tilted up, you will have to look down your nose a bit if you right over the ball. This is likely to result in you hitting the ball to the inside of the correct line (to the left if you are right-handed). You don’t notice this when you are aligning the putt, because when you look to the hole, your eyes will look up, imperceptibly to you, so you’ll think that you are in perfect alignment.<br />
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Conversely, if your head is tipped down, so your forehead is below your chin, your eyes will have to look up towards your eyebrows, and you will tend to hit the putt to the right.<br />
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You can have your head tilted up a bit and have your eyes looking straight out of your head, but you eyes would need to be a bit away from the ball: it’s not ideal, but you can still putt straight in that position.<br />
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But if your forehead is flat, with your dominant eye looking straight down at the target (usually a dimple on the back of the ball, where a line from the target through the ball would come out), when your head swivels towards the target, your eyes should move in line, as should your hands when you make the putt.<br />
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You can check this by creating a hole with your hands as if you were checking eye dominance. Start by looking through the hole to your target point on the ball, close your eyes and then move your head towards the hole (which obviously you can’t actually see)and swing your arms as if making the putt. Open your eyes when you think you’ve reached the point that you can look through the gap in your hands to see the hole. You may have under- or over-shot, but are you still aligned with your putt? It takes a lot of practice to achieve alignment, because it’s very easy for imperfections to occur, such as your chin coming towards your body as you turn. When I tried this on my professional golfer, we found that when he looked through the gap in his hands, he was to the left of the target. <br />
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The other aspect of putting is, of course, reading the putt in the first place. More of that in part 3.<br />
<br />
David Donner<br />
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References:<br />
Geoff Mangum (The Putting Zone)</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-88747341756089149112015-01-12T06:28:00.000-08:002015-01-12T06:28:45.691-08:00Sports Vision Casebook - Putting - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Following on from my previous blog on eye dominance, I want to talk about vision and putting, starting with more on eye dominance. One of the first sports vision assessments I did within my practice was a young golfer brought in by his father because he was missing a lot of putts.</div>
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Having established that there was nothing wrong with his eyesight, I decided to have a look at his eye dominance. I had two golf balls, so I placed one on the floor and got him to stand by it as if he were taking a putt. The other ball I placed on the floor at the end of the room to simulate the hole.</div>
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I asked the young man to put one hand over the other to form a small hole between them. I told him to hold his arms out straight and to look through that hole to the ball next to him and to close each eye in turn to see which one stayed in alignment. I then asked him to do the same for the ball at the end of the room. </div>
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It turned out that when he fixated the ball, he used his right eye for alignment, but when he fixated the hole he used his left eye. It’s not surprising that is you’re aligning one task with different eyes that you won’t be very accurate.</div>
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These were early days in my sports vision career, so I wasn’t entirely sure how to advise him to correct this problem, but I think just explaining the problem was helpful. I told him that he needed to make some kind of adjustment, either in the position of the ball or in the angle of his head when he looked at the ball or hole, to ensure that he was consistent with his aiming eye. </div>
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I would also have checked his dominant eye in the more conventional fashion of making a hole with his hands and looking through it to my nose. I can’t remember now which his dominant eye was, and whether the non-dominant eye took over when he was looking at the ball or hole. But I also suggested that he might find it helpful to begin with by closing the non-dominant eye so he could get in a position where he could be sure of aligning with the dominant eye.</div>
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Since then, I have learned rather more about aiming when putting as I’ve started to see some professional golfers...more of that in Part 2. </div>
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David Donner</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-26536732381793135762014-12-03T07:02:00.002-08:002014-12-03T07:02:19.170-08:00Eye Dominance and Clay Pigeon Shooting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A friend of mine recently told me that he’d been invited to do some clay pigeon shooting. He was concerned that he wasn’t sure which eye he should be using when aiming.<br />
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This brings us back to our old friend, eye dominance. If you are aligning one object, such as the end of a gun, with another object, such as a clay pigeon, you can only do this accurately with one eye – the “dominant” or sighting eye – as the other eye will be slightly out of line.<br />
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If you are right-handed and right eye dominant, there’s no problem. But if your gun is in front of your right eye, and you are aligning with your left eye, your shot will slightly off target. So my first piece of advice was to check his eye dominance in something that approximated a shooting condition (some people, including myself, use different eyes to align depending on which arm is pointing). He could do this with a simple stick, held as if it were a gun, and pointed towards a distant object such as an aerial on a roof. He simply closes each eye in turn to see which is in alignment.<br />
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He discovered that when he closed his right eye he was aligned, but not when he closed his left. As he is right-handed, this would mean that his shots would be a bit to the left of the target. He could counter this by aiming slightly right of the target if it’s coming overhead. You normally need to aim in front of the clay to take into account its movement after the shot. But if the target is coming from his right he should aim straight at it; and if it is coming from his left he’d need to aim even a bit further ahead of the clay than usual.<br />
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If all that seems too complicated, a simple answer would be to close his left eye, although that’s not ideal as you do lose some perceptual information. It can, however work as a quick fix. In the event, my friend used a combination of these strategies, and he seemed to feel he got on pretty well for a beginner.<br />
<br />
Somebody who is shooting regularly and has this “cross-dominance” problem may be able to learn to shoot left-handed. Otherwise, there are some products available. “Shotspot” is an opaque circle that you put on the centre of the lens of the dominant eye. This distorts the central image enough to make you use the non-dominant eye. Some wrap-around sunglass suppliers offer a choice of interchangeable lenses, so you can have a yellow or clear lens in front of you non-dominant eye, and a dark lens in front of your dominant one. The yellow lens might be more effective than the clear one because it will enhance the contrast, especially in poor light conditions.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For more advanced levels, there is a product called “Easy Hit!!” This is a fibre optic bead that is attached to the gun barrel. The idea of this product is to encourage the non-dominant eye to align, without disturbing the vision of the dominant eye as the shooter naturally aligns their non-dominant eye with this fluorescent bead. This therefore seems to give a more natural vision, and for £30 seems good value.<br />
<br />
David Donner</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-13511186906465618832014-11-10T08:37:00.001-08:002014-11-10T08:37:25.662-08:00Watch The Ball<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was recently alerted to an article by former England batsman Ed Smith. He described an occasion when he was chopping some wood with an axe. He found that when he concentrated intensely on the intended point of contact, he became clumsy. But when he relaxed and let the axe swing, whilst only casually noting the target, he landed the axe on exactly the right spot. This led him to the belief that in cricket, we talk too much about watching the ball.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP7MF2CuVIxwfsLkG_kzMeog4kH_3HAHIlVJ8tfTahcirXpwpdGddZwVEynyMTd5FvV83MtLmdE277PdpoLeJrROlnWCHQblcm7rRxPAFi1waOPfgLCCMkWX_SIpocBbmoI2wdBHk7Qo/s1600/32492.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP7MF2CuVIxwfsLkG_kzMeog4kH_3HAHIlVJ8tfTahcirXpwpdGddZwVEynyMTd5FvV83MtLmdE277PdpoLeJrROlnWCHQblcm7rRxPAFi1waOPfgLCCMkWX_SIpocBbmoI2wdBHk7Qo/s1600/32492.2.jpg" height="400" width="196" /></a>My first reaction was that chopping wood is rather a different task to batting. Although when chopping you need to fixate the target to begin with, once you’ve made some incision into the wood you need to repeat the same action using muscle memory. When batting, however, you are not simply looking to repeat the previous action, as each delivery from the bowler is likely to be slightly different. Each shot must be tightly related to the path of the ball, although it’s not uncommon to see a beautiful looking drive that misses the ball by a considerable margin.<br />
<br />
And then I recalled a match involving Old Tonbridgians that I umpired several years ago. Tonbridge were chasing a fairly modest total and, having lost an early wicket had a fruitful second wicket partnership. One player seemed full of confidence and talent, and was soon hitting seemingly decent deliveries all around the ground. By the time he was out, for about 40, the game was more than half won. The other player I recall as being older and taller and extremely courteous and polite. I thought he was a rather nervous player, as he was constantly asking for his guard to be checked (I know a few umpires who would have been very fed up with that). He really struggled at the start of his innings, being dropped off a sitter early on, and making numerous streaky shots. Once he got past about 40, he started making some nice drives, and took his side to victory with a score of about 60.<br />
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After the match, I was told that Tonbridge had an ex-England player, and I assumed it was the batsmen who had smashed the ball everywhere, but it turned out to be the other one. It certainly didn’t look the innings of a professional cricketer, let alone an international one. But maybe he hadn’t been playing very much and was quite rusty, so took a while to find his rhythm. And that’s really Ed’s point, that rhythm, both when batting or bowling, can be at least as important as watching the ball.<br />
There are some good reasons why players are told to concentrate on watching the ball, apart from the obvious one that you need to know where the ball is in order to hit it. One is that players can pre-meditate a shot. A slow bowler floats the ball in the air and the batsman is looking towards the pavilion, where he expects the ball to go, head up as he players his shot. Soon he finds himself back in that pavilion.<br />
<br />
The other reason is that players can easily be full of distracting thoughts and nerves, and that telling them to watch the ball gives them something to concentrate on that’s both essential and can block out the other distractions.<br />
<br />
At the start of the innings, or when facing a new bowler, there are a lot of variables for the batsman to deal with. Batting is all about anticipation, so it’s essential to watch the bowler’s action and the release of the ball. Focus then jumps to where the ball pitches, and the speed and bounce off the pitch need to be noted as each cricket pitches are quite variable. It’s usually only once batsmen have been in for a while that they can accurately anticipate what the ball is going to do, and then get into a rhythm. At that point, they may say that they are “seeing it like a football”, which suggests that they are still concentrating on the ball. They are anticipating so effectively that the ball is exactly where they expect it to be at contact, and may even say they can see the maker’s name on the ball.<br />
<br />
To bat effectively, you need both concentration and being relaxed in your movements. Some batsmen, and our “streaky” international may well be one of them, have great difficulty in getting relaxed and may actually find that the instruction to concentrate on the ball keeps them tense. And you can’t make smooth movements when you’re tense. So for those players, whilst they still need to watch the ball, it may be better to give them a word or phrase that stops their body from freezing up, and allows their subconscious brain to carry out the well-practised task of playing shots without the conscious brain trying to take over.<br />
<br />
So whilst I would maintain that watching the ball is still essential to batting, there is never going to be one coaching instruction that will be the best for everyone. And, in case you’re wondering who that former England player was, it was indeed Ed Smith.<br />
<br />
David Donner<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-21346765983573593302014-10-17T07:24:00.000-07:002014-10-17T14:17:14.741-07:00Sports Vision Casebook - Catching<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I recently received a call from a lady whose 14-year old son plays in the school cricket team. She told me that his coach had noticed that he had difficulty with balls above eye level and thought he might have an eye problem.<br />
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I assumed from this that the problem was when he was batting, dealing with short-pitched deliveries. So when he came in for his appointment, and after establishing that he had no significant prescription, I asked him if he had problems dealing with bouncers. He replied that he had no problem, as he always ducked out of the way. He did, however, have some difficulty with balls that were angled into him. It turned out that the coach’s remark referred to trying to catch a ball that had been skied in the air.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
I wasn’t sure whether this was a problem of technique or of being afraid of a hard ball, so I tried to come up with a strategy to cover both. I explained that it’s easy to lose confidence once you’ve dropped one or two catches, and you can start hoping the ball doesn’t come to you. This means that when another does come your way you are slow to get into position, and you are nervous, which makes your body stiff and the ball more likely to bounce out.<br />
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The important thing, therefore, is to build up confidence by starting with easy catches using a tennis ball, but with prefect technique. There are two ways of catching a high ball, and I think that optically the better of the two is the “reverse cup”, also known as the Australian method, in which the hands are reversed with the thumbs are interlinked. The advantage of this method is that you can watch the ball right into your hands, whereas that’s almost impossible with the “Orthodox” or English method (little fingers interlinked) when the ball is dropping past your face. Another advantage of the Australian method is that if the ball does bounce out, it’s easier to grab it again before it hits the ground. Some people actually manage to watch the path of the ball through the gap between their thumbs, which can give this method a third advantage.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
People often talk about “soft hands”, but you don’t want them to be too soft and floppy. It’s more important that your shoulders aren’t tense, and shoulder tension is a major reason for the hands not “giving” when taking the catch.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
The idea is to gradually increase the height of the ball which can be achieved by getting someone to hit it up with a tennis racket. Then you can move on to catching a cricket ball, again starting with lower heights.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
When confident with catches that are straight to you, you can move on to catches for which you have to run. It’s essential that you look carefully at the point when the ball is at its maximum height, so your brain can tell (instinctively) when gravity will bring it down to a catching height. As you run to take the catch, the aim is to get in such a position that the ball looks as if it’s going in a straight line towards you, and not off to the side. It should also appear to be going at a steady speed: if it looks to be accelerating upwards, you need to move back; if it’s accelerating downwards, you need to me forwards.<br />
<br />
When you do take a good catch, you need to take time to recall it in as much detail as possible, and to use this as part of your visualisation practice and match preparation. If he takes all this on board, our young cricketer should soon be hoping the batsman will sky a shot in his direction, anticipating and relishing the chance to impress the coach.<br />
<br />
David Donner<br />
<br />
(images:cricketweb.net)</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-712146500651484672014-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:002014-09-01T06:40:41.381-07:00Sport Vision Casebook: Eye dominance in golf<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
Much of my early work in sports vision was in golf. I was once part of a team that did some vision screening at a golf academy in Sussex. At that time I was still thinking like an optometrist, looking for eye problems that could be solved in a conventional way, for instance with contact lenses.<br />
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We found no problems with the eyes of nearly all the students. There was just one young man who’d always had a weak eye (if I remember rightly he had a small squint). His problem was reading the greens. Apparently, when he had another player read the greens for him, he’d won a tournament. It was only some time afterwards that I thought that if I had an expert telling where to aim, I still wouldn’t win any tournaments, but I’d play an awful lot better golf than normal. </div>
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There’s no doubt that being monocular would be a disadvantage for professional golf. But at the risk of seeming harsh, I did wonder if this chap was starting to see lack of binocular vision as a reason for failure, rather than being determined not to let it hold him back.</div>
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<div>
Since then, my focus has shifted more to the “software” side of vision: in particular, how experts use their vision in sport. One “hardware” issue that often crops up in golf, however, is eye dominance. Over the years I’ve seen many golfers, from the very young to quite elderly, who feel their eyesight is letting them down when they’re putting. </div>
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putt</div>
<div>
It’s always necessary to do a full eye examination to rule out problems with their prescription or eye health, but the next thing I do is to check their eye dominance. I get them to place their right hand over their left, leaving a little gap between their thumbs and forefingers. Standing a few feet away, I get them to raise their arms and to look at my nose through the hole they’ve made. It’s easy to see which eye they are using for alignment. I then get them to repeat the test, but with their left hand over their right. If there’s any hesitation or inconsistency, I get them to do this a few times. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I then put a golf ball in front of them and get them to set up in their normal putting stance. I put another ball on the floor about twenty feet away. I ask them to put their hands together, roughly as if they were holding a club, but in such as way as again to leave a small gap they can look through. I ask them to line up with the contact point on the ball. If they close each eye in turn they can tell which the aligning eye is. I then ask them to play an imaginary shot to the other ball, and again see which eye is aligning. </div>
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<div>
I’ve found on a number of occasions that they are aligning with different eyes for different parts of the stroke, and I believe that this can cause their shot to stray slightly off target. If they’ve shown consistent eye dominance in the first assessment, I try and get them to use that eye all the way through their putting. It usually just requires a small change in head position to achieve this, and people report greater putting consistency as a result.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
If you have a sporting problem you think might be vision-related, you can email me at donneroptometrists@gmail.com</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-80935601109781701452014-08-04T01:25:00.000-07:002014-08-04T01:27:35.950-07:00Culture of Success<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I recently came across an interesting quote: “Culture eats strategy for
breakfast”. The quote has been attributed to Peter Drucker, a management
consultant, but I am far from the first to see its relevance to sport. <o:p></o:p><br />
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The idea is that
if you want to build lasting success, just changing a part of the set-up is
unlikely to bring that about: you have to establish the right culture that
permeates through to every part of the organisation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are two
parts to bringing this about. Firstly, there’s a dream (a sports vision, if you
like); then there’s getting everyone else to buy into that dream. It’s the
second part that’s usually the most difficult. So the club owner should have a
vision of where they want the club to be, and get the coaches to work towards
that end. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A major part of
creating a culture of success is to establish some core values, which will be
the basis of that success. The US secret service, for instance, has 5 core
values: justice, courage, duty, honesty and loyalty. Rugby coach Eddie Jones
has three core values: respect (for team mates, fans, game and referee),
discipline (doing things in the right way at all times) and courage (both
physical and mental).</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Coaches need to
exemplify these values themselves, as well as reinforcing them to their players
by rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour, mostly by making them
factors in selection. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Of
course these values need to be realistic, which depends on the level and
personal circumstances of your players. Successful teams also usually have a
range of personalities: especially useful are those who may not appear to be
the most talented, but seem to bring out the best in others. A prime example of
this is the “Butler Way” – the philosophy of the Butler University “Bulldog”
teams (especially basketball) that was established nearly 100 years ago. Their
key is to find players who not only fit into the culture of the organisation,
but are driven to achieve success through inspiring their team mates. As they
take to the court, they see the word “catalyst” to remind themselves of the
chain reaction that will lead to victory. In the past decade alone, Butler
teams have captured 26 conference championships in four different leagues. That’s
a culture of success. </span><!--EndFragment--><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">David Donner</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-14276143363359026422014-07-24T01:39:00.000-07:002014-07-24T01:49:54.658-07:00Patching<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I was recently listening to a cricket podcast. The expert panel was
asked about the benefits of vision training, especially for late developers.
The experts agreed that generalised vision training was of little use, except
possibly as a psychological boost. Vision training that was done in the context
of the sport, however, might be helpful. Needless to say, those views echo my
own precisely.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One coach said
that it could be useful to patch one eye when practising bowling, batting or
fielding. He has got his batsmen on occasion to wear a patch over what he
called the “motor eye”, which is the eye that leads when we are tracking a
moving object. The idea was that this would “strengthen” the other eye. I think
he was on stronger ground when he suggested that because this was putting his
batsmen in a challenging position, so it would help them deal with other
difficult situations that they might encounter in a match, which is why his
players found it both challenging and useful. I’m certainly all for making
practice highly demanding, so that you are mentally and physically prepared for
the challenged that will come your way on match day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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I was reminded
of an experiment on eye dominance and tennis that I’ve discussed before. It was
found that blurring the non-dominant eye of elite tennis players had a
deleterious effect on performance, whereas fogging the dominant eye did not. This
rather paradoxical finding was explained by suggesting that the non-dominant
eye was essential for depth perception. Whilst this may well be true, I’m no
longer sure that it explains the findings as the dominant eye must also be
essential for really accurate depth perception.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I therefore
suspect that what happened in these tennis players was the same as happened to
the cricketers: when the dominant eye was blurred, it felt really strange, so
the players had to concentrate harder on the ball. In doing so, they were able
to perceive monocular cues such as image size, which meant that their depth
perception wasn’t actually too badly affected. When the non-dominant eye was
blurred, however, because the effect on vision was less noticeable, they made
little or no adjustment for it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So, patching the
dominant eye can be a useful exercise, but it probably needs to be used sparingly.
It’s likely to result in adjustments to the body, such as a head tilt. If a
player doesn’t have really strong eye dominance, they could start switching
during competition, and if they don’t make the necessary compensatory
adjustments their timing and other judgements could be all wrong. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not sure how
this relates to late developers, but I suspect it depends on why they are
developing late. It could help with getting them to concentrate on the ball as
it leaves the bowler’s hand, or help them get into line better. But if they are
late developers because they haven’t played much cricket, you would probably be
better leaving them to work this out for themselves. If the idea is to make the
practice more challenging, there are other ways of doing this, such as using
smaller balls and/or bats, or getting them to read markings on the ball as it
approaches. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Patching can be
useful in a number of sports. In golf, for instance, it could be used to ensure
that the player maintains eye dominance when switching from the ball to the
target. In rugby, you might notice that some players are not paying enough
attention to the passer’s hands as he passes the ball. This means that they are
late in reacting to the ball as it appears in front of them and therefore drop
it. One solution would be to patch the left eye for passes coming from their
left, and the right eye for passes coming from their right. This would then
require them to turn their head towards the passer so they pick up the flight
of the ball at the earliest stage. I would probably still be inclined to
achieve a similar effect by using smaller balls, balls of a dull colour that
are harder to see, or balls with numbers or letters on that the players have to
read out before they catch them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Patching
both eyes, otherwise known as blindfolding, certainly has a place for enhancing
kinaesthetic feedback. But that’s for another day.</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">David Donner</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-38537301142806038552014-07-22T08:11:00.001-07:002014-07-22T08:11:00.323-07:00Retinal imaging able to detect Alzheimer’s<a href="http://www.opticianonline.net/retinal-imaging-able-detect-alzheimers/">Retinal imaging able to detect Alzheimer’s</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6137392365146786797.post-18332006077286188812014-07-15T02:50:00.001-07:002014-07-15T02:50:04.940-07:00The Chimp Paradox<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’ve talked a lot about the conscious and subconscious parts of the brain, but there’s another part known as the limbic system. I tend to think of this as an alarm system: all sensory information goes to this part of the brain first and is scanned for potential dangers.<br />
<br />
This system was great when our ancestors were living in the jungle and could be eaten by a predator at any moment, but can cause problems in our modern lives. So an opening batsman preparing to face a fast bowler will have made a conscious decision to play cricket that day. The precise movements required to play a shot at the right time to hit the ball successfully depends on the subconscious brain. But as the batsman watches the fast bowler marking their run-up, the limbic system may well be sending out alarm messages, such as “He looks big; the ball’s likely to be coming at me very fast; I didn’t do very well when I played here last time”.<br />
<br />
In his book “The Chimp Paradox”, Dr Steve Peters refers to this limbic system as “The Inner Chimp”. As Dr Peters acknowledges, it may not be anatomically or philosophically correct to describe the inner chimp as a separate entity from the “human” brain. But it seems to be an incredibly powerful and useful way of thinking about it. The book also has chapters on achieving success, confidence and happiness, so it really could change your life.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
If you find that you have over-reacted to a situation with an emotional response that you later regret, you can blame it on your inner chimp. But it’s like having a pet dog: although you aren’t your dog, you are still responsible for how your dog behaves. So you have to be able to control your inner chimp as you’re responsible for it.<br />
<br />
It probably won’t work if you just try and ignore your chimp. You can manage it, however, by setting up default behaviours such as pre-shot rituals in sports such as tennis or golf which enable you to carry out the task before the chimp starts acting up. <br />
<br />
Recent examples of sportsmen whose chimps seem to be out of control include Andy Murray and Luis Suarez. Of course, since Dr Peters has worked with Suarez, he’s not exactly the best advert when he carries on biting players.<br />
<br />
In the end, though, the player has to decide to help himself. Unfortunately, in the case of Suarez, he decided to help himself to a piece of Chiellini’s shoulder.<br />
<br />
David Donner</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0