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Planet Field Hockey

Off The Crossbar Coaching Series
Visualization is way of thinking that allows you to:
- view (in your mind) an activity from your perspective
- view yourself carrying out an activity
- view situations where you and/or others are involved in an activity

Visualization training will allow you to react to situations that eventually happen, particularly situations that happen for the first time. Since you have trained your mind to react to these situations, you will most likely react correctly when they actually happen.

From a field hockey point of view, you will learn to react to situations that go according to plan and, especially, situations that fall apart. You will train your mind to deal with all of these situations before they happen!

Visualizing an activity from your perspective

1.1 A Beginner's Exercise

You are at home reading a book on the couch. Whilst sitting on the couch, visualize the complete action of closing the book and going to your room, lying on your bed and reading the book in bed. Do this all from exactly what you would see, i.e., you aren't watching yourself do this.

Visualize everything methodically and try to remember it all. Then, go through the actual process and see how accurately you visualized the process. The level of accuracy will teach you how much you need to improve your thinking process.

1.2 Field Hockey Exercises

Visualize what you see when doing a variety of things, e.g., taking a penalty corner, receiving a pass from your left defender just on top of your circle whilst you are facing her, etc. You can mentally go through the many, many situations that you will experience in a game.


Visualizing yourself carrying out an activity

2.1. A Beginner's Exercise

The same exercise of getting up from the couch and eventually lying on your bed and reading the book.

Now you visualize yourself doing the activity. It is like watching yourself on video. As you get better, you can visualize yourself doing the activity from different perspectives, i.e., from in front, from behind, from the left or right or from up above.

2.2. Field Hockey Exercises

Visualize yourself doing your skills, e.g. trapping the ball on the reverse stick while on the run. See yourself from the different perspectives. It will train your mind to make sure that you are doing the skill correctly.

Other examples are to watch yourself running off the ball, setting up to tackle, etc.


Visualizing situations where you and/or others are involved in an activity

3.1. A Beginner's Exercise

The same exercise of getting up from the couch and eventually lying on your bed and reading the book.

Now you introduce other people into the visualization process of watching yourself. For example, you see your mother doing some chores in the hall, you see your father making a sandwich in the kitchen, your brother suddenly comes around a corner, etc.

3.2. Field Hockey Exercises

Watch yourself and other players in game situations, e.g., your team is taking a 25-yard free-hit play in front of the team's circle. You see the whole process happen, and you can learn to see it from different perspectives. It is important to see yourself react as the situations happen, i.e., things go right and things go wrong.

Go through all the different situations that can happen in a game. It is like playing parts of the game before they happen!
Conclusion

Visualization is developed in a methodical manner such as described above. It takes time just as any other skill and must be part of any elite athlete's overall development.

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