The Mad Handballers’ Tweak-Emporium Series: Part 2
By Boak Ferris, WPH Certified Coach and Sports-Psychologist
TOUCHSTONE TO THE ZONE!
Competitive athletes seek consistency, flow, and effortlessness. They want to get into the ZONE, and then stay in the ZONE. Occasionally, however, a noisy voice inside the head, one that keeps narrating lots of criticism, gets louder and louder, and ultimately saps energy and focus. “You do not deserve to be on this court!!”
And then, once athletes miss a shot, or botch execution, they hear that Inner Critic on the amplified megaphone: “THAT SUCKED! That was a total error! You know better than that! Hey, you practiced thousands of hours to get that right! What happened??” Once that inner critic gets your permission to make louder and louder noise, you now have “added” an extra opponent to combat: an opponent from inside yourself.
[INNER CRITIC SIDENOTE]
[By the way, please note, one of my professorial office colleagues was a therapist who specialized in silencing the Inner Critic. So, I will be borrowing his advice today. The best way to silence the Inner Critic is by actually having a pre-match conversation with It at the dining table. Visualize and imagine the Inner Critic as a real-life monster, sitting opposite you, and then say, “You want me to win and to Excel! The best way you can get what you want is by staying silent, by donating to me your energy, and by working with me, together. Stop trying to get so much attention, and making it worse!”
For those who see the beauty of this advice, and enact it, they will experience almost immediate benefits, as the Monster understands too, for a while, at least, and will do as requested. Naturally, over time, the Inner Critic gets lonely, and wants your attention, again, and will start mouthing off. It’s never any help, and certainly does not help you find calm, grace, and confidence, states that lead to belief, and to shot-execution, whether on offense or on defense. And, by the way, the Inner Critic is not the real you. It is a learned voice, taught to you by others. Why honor it?]
NEXT, NAME ALL OF YOUR BEST MOVES!
The next step, to staying in the zone, requires you drilling to groove in your biomechanics. Note, at this stage, you WILL need a little bit of self-knowledge. Do you USUALLY aim for FEEL? Or do you aim to memorize VERBAL or BIOMECHANICAL SCRIPTS?
Here’s the skinny, for grooving in biomechanics: FEEL is intuitive, and what we might call “right-brain” or right hemisphere; while SCRIPTS are analytical or “left hemisphere”. Neither of them are WHOLE BRAIN, however, from where FLOW emerges.
So, to attain FLOW, you need to integrate both hemispheres completely. For FEEL-athletes, you need to find, invent, or create verbal descriptions for your shots; if you are not good at this, find a verbal friend or coach who can help. And for SCRIPTS athletes, you need to convert your verbal or linear scripts into single metaphors, or into single powerful visualizations. Again, you can find a friend who is good at thinking up visualizations and metaphors to help you create a unique TRIGGER-PHRASE!
The direct way to do all this is by drilling, perfecting a move, and then naming it. “LOCK AND LOAD!” This phrase, for example, might be a good name and metaphor for getting both elbows up early, prior to stepping into the shot, and prior to cycling your shoulders into the ball, for example. Katriona Casey LOCKS AND LOADS prior to every shot better than anyone in the game ever, via this technique that has allowed her multiple-match mastery. In Kendo, this technique has its parallel, called “Floating Arms” when translated from Japanese. If you keep your arms down, until you have to strike, you end up too slow, because you have to fight gravity, and thus you rob your intended strike of strength, speed, power, delivery, and smooth follow-through.
For a slightly different technique, I like SNAKE AND FANG, as you might hear when viewing a martial arts film, where this particular NAME carries with it a remembrance to pre-coil the arms and elbows, along with next extending the arm into the shot, and ending with the final “bite” of the hand squaring the ball to the target.
As a note of interest, most martial arts masters learned a long time ago the benefits of naming each move, and thus condensing into a single metaphor the full sequence of thousands of hours of practice on one technique. Westerners might laugh at the Master or Student yelling “SNAKE and FANG!”, but savvy practitioners knew exactly what was meant…. The results are integration of body, mind, and spirit, generating a oneness with mastery.
After time, after integrating the scripts and feel into single metaphors, you will no longer need to utter their name to duplicate perfect execution; your body and mind now act as one, but the metaphor will remain, as a backup, in the event that you experience a low moment in a match, and in the event you may need to elect one special strength or move to recover match domination. Keeping or making notes at courtside during a match, along with prioritized calming thoughts—or coached-tips, is practical.
NOW, WORK ON YOUR PERSONAL POWER-POINTS!
For lack of words, (ha:)), the best I can explain it, is that each of your personal best shot-types “leverage from very specific bodily “power-points,”” provided you first move your feet behind, and then step into, any attempted shot.
Finding your personal Power-Points will lead to finding the right metaphors or names for executing each of your desired shots, to keep you in the ZONE.
Here follow two examples of preparing and leveraging your personal “power-points.” These were borrowed from a handball coaching session where I was working with a top-ranked pro.
The punch to the roof can begin at the inside base of the hitting-side thumb. Think of a power-point as a specific bodily pivot-point that maximizes your power and leverage for a specific desired shot. Once you move your feet and commit to a roof-punch, prepare the base of your thumb as the pivot from which to drive into the ball (also from your hip or rear thigh).
The struck roof-ball does NOT contact at the base of the thumb, but will best strike your hand between the first knuckles of your middle and ring fingers, and partly on the palm. The personal power to strike the roof-shot willpivot from the base of the thumb into that knuckle contact. Boom, to the roof! From anywhere! Let’s name it! The THUMB-DRIVE-PUNCH!
The second example involves an attempted kill from deep court only when serving. This pivotal power-point for many handballers can be conceived of as on the back of the hitting hand! Lift and prepare the back of the hand, to snap forward into the ball, as you go to strike the kill. You will not be hitting with the back of the hand, but whipping the ball through your palm or fingers. But the back of the hand is the “feel” fulcrum or lever; it is the Power-Point you leverage, to execute and snap the shot, effortlessly.
Please note, at this juncture, a huge observation: each athlete’s Power-Points differ from others’. You have to drill, experiment, and find and then feel and then name yours.
If you have gloves with flags/images on the backs of them, the deep-court-kill power-point might be right in the center of that flag/image. With that visualization, we can now name this particular kill shot from deep court when serving: SNAPPING THE FLAG!
Note, since this power-point involves a lot of snap and acceleration, if you use this power point closer to the front wall, you will overhit the kill, and leave it too high.
The kill from mid-court requires a different power-point, perhaps more accurately located around and along the top of the hitting forearm—more appropriately called a Power-Point-Plane, perhaps. This visualization helps level the hitting arm as the arm pivots around the imagined plane, and then the squared-hand flattens the ball from center with modulated power and accuracy. LEVEL THE PLANE!
Not all power points/planes are in the hand or arm areas; and some may be exterior to the body, for some athletes. Some may be located in body-parts not obviously associated to the shot being attempted.
Brady’s Power-Point for his signature up-the-line-pass, for example, once his feet arrive to the pre-shoot position, is located around his teres major, a muscle complex and node at the base of his hitting-side scapula. He knows—or has felt—from thousands of hours of practice that he has to line this point up behind his intended shot, so he moves his feet accordingly. Then he delivers torso rotation originating from this point over his core. This is his primary Power-Point. Would SCAPULATION DOMINATION be too extreme a name for this one signature shot?
Naturally, for you, the right name is about capturing the perfect visualization, and feeling where your pivot-points are best located for any shots, driving from your particular height, build, personal speed, flexibility, and delivery.
Bringing Power-Points Over to Serves:
Try throwing hops, first. Like a pitcher, stand in the service zone, and see if you can simply throw the ball so that it reverses about six feet from the right sidewall, and breaks toward that right sidewall. Once you get some successful throws, now ask yourself, “Where does the power and leverage from this throw come from?”
For one client, the reverse Power-Point pivots along a whole line extending from the bottom of the hitting elbow, down the bottom of the forearm, and right through the bottom edge of the little finger, which is propped by the ring finger. (I.e., keep little finger and ring-finger together. And keep your wrist curled down toward the inside of the forearm, by keeping your fingertips pointing toward the floor, throughout the throw.)
Now try to simulate the feel of your throwing Power-Point-Line with striking the ball. You can adjust trajectory later. If you can FEEL the Power-Point-Line, and hit the ball with just your little finger, you will get a HUGE reverse. If you hit over the ball with all of your fingers, or with just your index and middle fingers, you will get a lesser reverse, but one just as effective against fast players.
For the natural, for righties, try holding your right hand in front of your face, flat, thumb pointing right. The left side of your right hand is the “leading edge of your palm.” That is one good power-point to feel, for throwing a natural, as if you are karate-chopping toward the front wall target. Your hitting elbow snaps around the area of your rear hip—or just behind your navel. If the ball travels through your whole palm, you will get a milder natural, but if the ball hits just your thumb, which you hold above the plane of your palm, bingo! Huge natural!
The natural strike is indeed with a flatter hand, palm up, and fingers slightly curled up. Keep the thumb above the palm plane, hoping to catch the ball entirely on the thumb. The motion feels and looks “like a karate chop.”
A so-called power-point differs from the eventual ball-contact point. I currently think of the PP as the “pivot/fulcrum” from which the contact point will derive its snap and accuracy.
For floor-locations, in the kill-shot examples, if you are farther back, as mentioned, then the power point may be on the back of the hand, Choosing that power point forces you to intuitively have to really leverage early footwork, and your hip-turn, and then your shoulder turn—which may explain why seeking Power-Points and drilling with them becomes so effective.
Closer to the front wall, by selecting or finding a power-point more up your arm, you intuitively make more space between the ball and your hand, while making sure to level your hitting arm with the floor, to keep it down.
Note that power-points depend entirely on your personal level of flexibility. And on your footwork discipline. If like Brady, you race to the pre-shoot position, you can drastically reduce the numbers of Power-Points you may need. If you are flexible, like Ure, and you can bend pretty low on kill attempts from deep, (when serving only, unless ahead on the scoreboard), this bend-ability may require a personal power-point. You can teach this Point to your off-hand, luckily, if you are equally flexible on both sides. If you are not equally flexible, you may find the Power-Point for a specific shot on one hand differs from the one on the other.
As a Power-Point note and observation, current pro handballers exhibit pretty random success-statistics on their paddle-shot attempts, because, unlike Chapman, they have not sought nor found their Power-Points for achieving a consistent Paddle.
The power point for his quick, front court, reflex paddle-shot, strangely enough, was on the back of his hand, between his index and little finger KNUCKLES. He kept his open-handed knuckles-line parallel to the floor, and maintained a straight hitting arm, to achieve consistency of low address. That knuckle-line was part of the hand-pivot. The heel of his palm was also an unconscious secondary power-point for him. He drew his arm back, underhanded, keeping it relatively straight, and then swept his hand toward the contact point, contacting the ball right in the center of the heel of his palm, and rolled the ball up.
He didn’t always bend, as he recommends, but that was because he knew by the opponent’s shot-height and court-position whether he could simply arm it, or if he would have to bend, first.
And then he pivoted his flat-handed strike off the Power-Point pivot of those parallel knuckles—or off the Power-Point pivot of the heel of his palm.
BONUS POWER-POINT
If you want to emulate Chapman’s backwall, you will need to add THE CHAPMAN WING. This Power-Point is simply my nomenclature for what Chapman did with his front arm in order to hit dominating backwall kills. He aggressively cycled his front arm and elbow from down to up, during his footwork into the ball. This rotation was not a forward, side-armed, and outward rotation, as a baseball pitcher might use, but rather a down to the floor, and then up to the front-wall rotation. The Power-Point move allowed him to address the ball very low, with power, or with smoothness, even if he himself was not that flexible. The move gave him perfect balance for his signature scoring shot. You should be cycling your front arm assertively on all your shots, though the direction of the cycle will depend on whether you are going up, cross-court, or down. If you do not so cycle, you choke your torso and shoulder rotations.
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NOW FIND AND NAME EACH OF YOUR BEST SHOTS’ POWER-POINTS, GROOVE THEM IN, ENTER THE ZONE, AND EXCEL!
–Happy Drilling!
Boak Ferris Bio
Boak is a top-tier, certified WPH handball coach and published researcher in sports-psychology, diet, biomechanics, and human neurodevelopment. Originally recruited as a faculty mentor into CSULB’s TEAMWIN Project to help university athletes excel in sports and academics, he coached members of the university’s tennis, water-polo, baseball, basketball, softball, golf, and volleyball teams. In 1992, Boak joined David Chapman’s team as first, part of the entourage, and later, as a bona-fide coach. He traveled with David’s team until about the year 2000. Today, Boak has twelve handball clients, of all experience levels, ranging from 16 up to 70 years of age. Some of these are distance learners, and others are onsite at his local clubs. Boak welcomes questions and coaches free of charge.