Welcome back to Finding the Edge Podcast.
I'm Garrett Boyam, joined with Robert Frey.
And today we have on two wonderful guests and two former
guests of the podcast and Chad Longworth and Bill Miller.
And we today talk about especially what it is in
ecological dynamics, you know, how the role of a coach and we
talk a lot about or what this conversation stemmed from, was a
tweet. By Chad talking about of being
like a farmer in coaching, you know, tending to your crops and
things along those lines. So this will be a very good
conversation. Then piping in Bill with it to
talk about how he kind of tends to his athletes, kind of from a
facility perspective, yeah. And as you can tell, we follow
Chad's stuff quite a bit. But that being said, I felt like
today's topic really fits an ecological lens and what is the
role of a coach? And so we're super excited to
have both Bill because I was having a conversation with Bill
and a lot of what he was talking about in terms of how he sees
what he does as a coach, being very dependent upon the, you
know, the work that the athlete puts in.
Like it's a it's a Co adaptive relationship between the coach
and the player and there needs to be some level of reciprocal
effort put in in order for the athlete to truly become the best
that they can. And so I thought this this idea
and this concept of being a farmer really played well with
that, that you know both Bill and and Chad would be able to
contribute to having a good discussion which we we did.
So anyways, enjoy today's podcast.
So to me that the thing that I wanted to cover today was, Chad,
your tweet from a while ago on being a farmer, and I think that
ties in really well with like an ecological approach and the
whole idea of being a facilitator.
I know, Bill, we were talking more recently and you're you're
saying some sort of sentiments that echoed that as far as, you
know, how much, how much, how much is it on the coach to
develop a player and how much is it the player's job to develop
as a player? I feel like that's kind of a
little bit of a a theme that you were describing when we were
talking. So I kind of wanted to.
Throw that out to you guys and kind of hear what your thoughts
are on what what it means to be a coach, I guess I think is is a
better starting question. So I I guess I could start
because I do have a good thought on this.
So after we recorded our last podcast, I was talking to
somebody about like, just some of the stuff that we had spoke
about. And the one thing that, like, we
had both agreed on was how important it was to just shut up
sometimes as a coach. And he had given me a link to,
like, you know, a video of a guy named Trevor Moad.
I think he died a couple years ago, Rest in peace.
But he was, he was big on like, you know, mental strength for
players like he worked with like Russell Wilson, stuff like that.
A lot of different teams. But the one thing that he had
talked about was how like, there was like a lasting impact.
That like when you say something negative, it stuck so much more
with people. And he had different like
research things that he cited about that and how when it was
like set out loud like the probability of something bad
happening as a result was much higher than if you simply said
nothing at all. And obviously when hitters are
working in the cage, if they're really doing something
challenging, probably 50% of their swings, if not more, are
going to have a bad result attached to them.
So if you're just simply like neutral, if you don't say
anything at all, or if you don't know there's nothing negative
said, you're probably going to help that athlete out a lot
more, help them get through those tougher rounds of BP so
that maybe by their last round. They're starting to hit the crap
out of the ball the way that you would hoped.
And those drills that you're doing that are challenging are
starting to work as opposed to. I mean I see it all the time
where it's like a dad with his kid or just like an
inexperienced coach or sometimes an old school coach where
they're just like you know, got on the kids ass the whole time.
Just you know, hey you got to throw your hands at the ball.
You got to do this, you got to do that.
You need to, you know, improve this if you're all the time on
the kids ass. It's probably not going to be
great for their development long term.
Yeah, I would. I would second with that.
I mean when you think about it like especially at the younger
age like the Little League World Series going on right now.
You know there's at those ages. You know if if the parents or
the coaches on their ass like Bill said, it can lead to burn
up and the kid will be like I don't, I don't want to play
baseball anymore. It leads to that situation where
it's like. I I don't want to play because
it's it's not one, it's not fun and two it's it's, you know if I
do anything, I'm going to be, you know talk to about her
giving a lecture about it like here here's what you need to do.
So yeah, I mean that that does bring up great points.
I mean in in my experience with with kind of the handling of
negative emotion like. Then you you start, if you you
know like during a game, you strike out and you're told hey
you know you got to do XYZ. It leads to a negative emotion
which then leads to like playing scared if you will, and then
playing scared in that sense. Then you know you you're not
trying to say hey you know what, What can I do to solve this
problem? I'm now my thought processes,
what can I do to not mess up? And that becomes a whole, whole
can of worms. On that end where you're asking
the question, OK, you know how how can I not mess up, how can I
not mess up? And then at that point it's, you
know you're you're timid and then everything you work towards
it's, you know leads to community.
And we can even think about it in terms of like, you know,
maybe you, maybe you don't, you don't want to swing because
you're like I if I swing, you know something, something bad
might happen or. You know, if I in the field, you
know, a ground ball that's maybe not hit right at me, but I have
to go for it, I'm not going to go as much harder, 'cause then
it's be like, oh, I didn't get it, 'cause it's out of my reach,
you know, that's that's that's OK, but things like that, So
then, you know, then it becomes a very negative process where
then you're playing scared and then you're not exuding
confidence and then you're not playing it the best.
Yeah, and obviously, Chad, like you could speak 'cause it's your
tweet, it was golden, but. The one all, the one other thing
that really comes to mind when I think about that tweet is how
there's so much about, like, in order to really develop as a
hitter or anybody really in, in athletics, you have to put in so
many days, so many reps, hundreds of thousands of reps,
you know, in the cages and stuff like that.
But at the same time there's like so it seems almost infinite
how many days we can get in the cages with these guys.
But then in the opposite side, it's like they were actually
kind of limited because we only get maybe a couple months with
them at a time before their season start.
You know whether it's fall season or spring season what
have you. So it's both limited and
limitless and if you can just put in as many high quality reps
as you can and and almost allow that athlete to get those high
quality reps more often. Then they're going to make lots
of improvements with those tons and tons of reps that we hope
they're going to put in. But if you are constantly going
backwards, constantly negative, constantly playing scared or
hitting scared in the cages, etcetera, you're probably not
going to make that progress even with thousands upon thousands of
reps. I guess, Chad, you could talk
more about that, but that was like the other thing that really
stuck out to me. Sure, Bill, It is nice to meet
you. You and I have actually.
I don't think ever spoken in person but I'm a big fan I'm a
big fan of your work. We've we've we've implemented
several of the things that you guys do in your facility in in
our process as well. I think the thing about this
tweet and I think The thing is that that a lot of coaches and
and. I think the pressure in youth
certainly is put on coaches to to perform to some expectation
of what coaching should be. You know correction of mistake,
everything that you guys have highlighted, correction of
mistakes, errors, movement errors, technique, reinforcement
of technique, whatever. I think the thing that people
are going to have a hard time, coaches and parents drawing to
this suite is they don't quite understand what what building
the whole. Athlete and player looks like it
doesn't. You know you come to my facility
and and I stand and often times feed a machine or beat on the
computerized machine to make sure it's feeding balls
correctly or or you know setting radar guns up, fixing
technology, whatever. I don't like coach a lot quote
fingers coach a lot. This is an audio podcast what
I've done and and you know what what you guys have done.
Is is you know you you build the environment for the athlete to
grow in and this is where this tweet originated from.
Obviously is is much like a farmer, you know builds the
builds the system to where to where the to where the
vegetables are going to grow. And he waters them and and and
and you know he takes into everything that is going to help
the plant grow. He just can't make the plant
grow. He can't, he can't yell at it.
It's not going to grow. He can't.
He can't coach it to grow faster.
He can't. He's just got to wait, you know,
And I think a lot of times with athletes like you said, and I've
had this thought driving in my car because it seems like that's
all that I do these days. I take my kids to practice every
day and then I'm back and forth and.
You know, I draw this comparison too.
Is is you can study the technique, Beethoven's technique
of piano playing, and you can study music notes and you can
look at the sheet and you can do all these different things.
But unless you get in front of a piano every day and put your
keys on, the fingers on the keys and play, you're never going to
become that good and be like you said if you don't get in the
cage every day. We can study techniques who are
blue in the face. We can talk about it, we can
correct it. And I think a lot of times what
people are looking forward, much like a farmer would be looking
for is how do we make this plant grow faster.
I put the seed in the ground. How do I make this corn tomorrow
and it and it's just not going to happen.
It's just not going to happen. I think people know that, but
they continue to look for that, that, that Ave. of what's
quicker, what's going to save me the time and work to put in, you
know? Just like the farmer I am living
out in the middle of the country.
You know farming is something that that I see often.
It's people that I interact with all the time.
They're patient people. They have to be.
You know, they have often times coaches, parents, players.
Patience is not. Patience is not because because
quite frankly, the way the system is built at the youth
level and and this is where I interact most, because I'm
chasing my kids around all the time, now is.
You know, the comparison to other players, like I want what
he's got and you know he's successful and I want my kid to
do that. And it's like, man, I don't know
how to get you. I mean, I know what that player
does. I know what that player's output
is and and I know what yours is. And the only way you're going to
close the gap is through time and effort and again, nurturing
the environment. Like like the Tweed the Farmer,
something that coaches maybe not exactly familiar with is is
building the the environment. Around the athlete, Not
necessarily like pounding whatever into the athlete.
That's the point. Yeah, it it makes me wonder too,
like if you plopped me out in the middle of the country and
you said, all right, Bill, you're going to have to be a
farmer now, Like how I would, like, absolutely suck at it and
how, like I would be very impatient and, you know, those
sorts of thoughts come to my mind.
So it's kind of the same idea like if you're.
Maybe a dad that's a volunteer coach and your kids on the team
and not saying like, you know, if you can't do that job well,
but you almost have to think a little bit more deeply about it.
So it's not going to be, you know, the way it is at a nine to
five desk job where I want this to get done, this is my
deadline. It gets done on time.
Development in sports isn't like that.
So I do think if you are maybe a less experienced coach, you
almost have to give it that extra time and give yourself.
A little bit of leeway and learning how to coach.
Don't expect it to be perfect so much is just kind of enjoy that
process. And yeah, I think if people
approach them more like that, like not just that the players
developing, but me as the coach, I'm also getting better.
If you approach it more like that, I think you're going to
see really good results long term.
To your point though about you moving to the country here and
you're not familiar with farming and whatever.
You could roll up on somebody's farm and see this field of corn.
Be like, I'm going to do that. And so you go and you plant your
own corn and it's like, God, this takes forever.
When you showed up and you thought, man, I can probably do
this faster. It's like, no, no, you can't.
That's what parents think. You know, they come in and they,
they see these players and and it's like, I want that, OK, I'm
going to put my kid here next week.
He's not like that. It's like, oh, well, where's my
tall corn? It doesn't necessarily happen
that way. You know, it doesn't necessarily
happen that fast. It doesn't necessarily happen in
the time we want it to happen. All you can do and to the point
of the tweet, and there's several points here, Irrigating,
fertilize, planting the best soil, water, like all of these
things, all these environmental things that go into farming.
It's the same thing for athletes.
You know, Bill, you're one of the best guys on.
You're one of the best guys on Twitter or whatever we're
calling it now. I don't really care Elon Musk
app. I still like it a lot.
You're one of the best guys at building like rotational
capacities, you know, rotational power and strength and all these
things, things that aren't even in the cage.
And people would be like, what's that?
Well that's that's like fertilizer, man.
Like he's pouring fertilizer on these cubes, like as soon as he
puts them in the soil. Where they're going to grow and
develop the cage, quote fingers, the cage it it.
What they're going to be able to do is going to be much better.
You know, and I think people may be I I don't I don't ever try to
bring and this is a different platform so I can say it, but I
don't ever try to bring like attention to like Fry or teacher
man or any of these guys because they're doing their thing.
I don't care what you're doing, whatever doesn't matter to me.
But you know. It's that, you know, they kind
of bag on. It's like, well, you know,
whenever fry particularly, it's like, well, you know, he doesn't
even have a bat. I learned to hit with a bat and
it's like not everything that you need to do to develop the
capacity to, to produce power. It's going to happen with the
bat, you know, just as well as not everything that you would do
as a farmer growing the plant is necessarily like the plant
growing. It's like water.
You know, it's like I got to put this granular fertilizer down.
Like that doesn't have anything to do with the plant.
That's just just feeding the machine, you know, and Bill,
your work is amazing and like feeding the machine so that when
you do put it in the environment that it's going to compete in,
it flourishes, it grows and you know it competes well.
Yeah. The other thing that comes to
mind now that you're mentioning that like about a lot of the
rotational power stuff I do or just strength and conditioning
in general, you know, people, OK.
So the one of the big reasons that I like strength and
conditioning is because it helps us gain bat speed and exit
velocity. Those things are vastly
important. And if you don't have good bat
speed or good exit velocity, you won't be able to really play at
those high levels like a lot of kids dream of.
But the problem is, if we try to gain bat speed ASAP, which is
just take the bat and swing like a caveman as hard as you can,
it's probably not going to yield very good results of becoming a
hitter. So rather than just putting on
like a blast sensor and telling a kid swing until your hands are
about to bleed, try to actually like gain bat speed very
gradually over time. So rather than like. 5 mph a
month, I want 5 mph in like a two year span.
That to me is much more conducive with all right now my
swing feels the same. It's something that I can
translate well to a game and just steadily over time I can
apply it to machine training, live at bat training and all
those other things that we feel are valuable.
And and then, you know, so it rather than it being something
that's instant gratification, look at me, I can hit a ball 5
mph off the tee. It's actually like, wow, I could
not hit a home run over a fence two years ago and today and live
at bats. I hit 1 / a fence.
Like those are the types of games that me as a coach and I
know all of us here would love to see.
But a lot of parents and people on Instagram, you know, whatever
else social media wise. A lot of times people don't get
enamoured by those types of gradual gains.
And I think too there's go ahead Chad if you want to hop in
there, good. Keep going.
Well, I think too like there's there's multiple elements to it,
right? Because it's not just like, OK,
quick growth sometimes, you know, a small tweak here or
there, like there's some sometimes really low hanging
fruit. That you can get more out of the
body by moving in more mechanically advantageous ways.
But when it comes to just like raw output to your point of like
this is the other element of strength and conditioning is the
conditioning side of it. You may be able to output high
levels of force and like increase that neurologically,
but does the tissue have the capacity to handle that and you
doing that at A at a high volume?
And so that's the other element of it too is when we do more
gradual growth, the body is able to adapt to it a lot better and
you're going to stay healthier for longer when you do it that
way. Because I I I think about it
from the standpoint of throwing whenever a guy has a huge jump
in velocity, especially top end or like the the higher levels
like the upper 80s into the 90s like.
Your risk of injury goes up substantially when you make big
jumps because the system hasn't, the structures hasn't hasn't
actually necessarily adapted yet to be able to handle that new
force that you're able to output.
And so that's where I also think, like the whole reason why
I want to have this conversation is this, this idea of, you know,
coaching is like being a farmer because you can take this idea
and you can go in all sorts of different directions with it.
So for me to to kind of slightly take this in a different
direction, where does the. Because I for me, it's not all
about just not saying stuff to the athlete.
You know, I think there's a spot for that of like, OK, when we do
use our words and and talk to the athlete, what, what way do
we want to think about that? And to me part of that is
removing the weeds and helping guys like understand their own
thought process, how to handle failure.
And so to me that's that's that's removing weeds.
And the other element of it too is like helping even the players
start to think of it like being a farmer as well what they're
doing. Because the other thing too,
going back to the to the growth piece is I heard this really
great analogy. Like, I mean not all the kids
are going to be growing beards if they're if they're younger.
But you know, like do you, if you wanted to see your your
beard grow, if you're staring at your face you are you going to
see the growth or is it while you're doing things later on you
come back and you're like, wow, look at how much it's grown.
And so I think that's the same thing is true when it comes to,
you know, like for me, like when it came to lifting, it took me
years to be able to see where I notice any growth in terms of
like changes to my body. And that's why I really like
like like this farmer idea and helping guys to understand or
even coaches begin to think in this way.
Because for me, a lot of times I have to remind myself that when
stuff is like in a in a within a session, things aren't
necessarily progressing as as fast or as much as I want.
I have to remember well, especially working with college
guys, I I feel like I definitely have the freedom to do this
well. What they are right now in the
fall is not what they're going to be in the spring.
And so just because they're not doing something exactly how I
want right now doesn't mean I need to get it all bent out of
shape. Or if a coach is working with
them and doing the exact opposite of kind of how I would
do it. It doesn't really matter right
this moment because I got to think about the long term
growth. And what what if too?
Because this to me is like what's also great about this
tweet is that I think it helps remove the ego a little bit more
when you begin to think of it from this perspective.
Because to me it's about like, OK, what?
What is, what does the athlete need right now?
And if you know an old school way or a way that I don't
necessarily, this is not the way that I would interact with the
athlete. But if the athlete is finding
success right now, later on when?
Because the the struggle is always going to happen at some
point, so later on, then I'll be able to echo what the like.
To me, this is right. The whole idea of being like an
adaptable and dexterous coach, taking what the other coaches
said or what they've heard on the Internet or whatever and
then finding a way to utilize that and like tweak that so that
it's more adaptable and dexterous for that athlete and
how they can properly place that in their their process for being
successful on the field. And I think that's that's the
other element of you know how you tend to you could say you
are crops you know and and caring for them.
It doesn't always look like necessarily taking a hoe out
there and like digging big holes but it can sometimes be like OK
doing like small little things and kind of cleaning things up
and and all that sort of stuff. So anyways, that's that's for me
is why I I like. I love this idea and this
concept because you can take it in so many different directions.
No doubt. I've been a big fan lately,
especially with fall ball starting up.
I've had like good conversations with a bunch of kids that are
going out to their colleges this fall, and I've been telling
them, OK, pick three goals that you can hit this fall while
you're at school. Obviously I'm not going to be
there in the cages with them and stuff like that, but it's almost
like, OK if you let the athlete pick their own goals.
Like I want to hit X amount of barrels and live at basses.
This fall or I want to, you know, hit X bat speed by the end
of the fall or something like that.
If they are able to almost police themselves and continue
to strive for a goal on each day, then their practices and
everything like that are going to be at least, you know, 1%
better by the end of the fall as opposed to.
So I know how it goes. Especially as like an incoming
freshman, you have no clue what the practices are going to be
like. You have no clue what you're.
You know time in the cages could be and what drills they're going
to be doing. So if you just have your own
goals and whatever the outside, excuse me, outside factors are,
you can continue to still make progress and almost like keep
growing upwards even if the situation that you're in this
fall or wherever isn't necessarily optimal, if that
makes sense. I think too, you know you you
brought up. You brought up like a blast
sensor or something a few minutes ago and and like for a
guy going off to school that you're not going to be in front
of something like a a blast sensor because, you know, we're
talking about back speed and we're talking about X
philosophy. We're talking about the the
physical capacities that it takes to do that.
A guy that's going off to school that's lost like that?
A bat sensor on your own can be a good tool to to Am I keeping
up with my gains that I got with you?
Am I maintaining my, am I maintaining my you know am I
losing? Am I going backwards?
Because again I I've been a technology and data guy for for
for many years and I think it's implementation sometimes gets
misrepresented all over the place.
But that information from players.
Can drive conversations with coaches, with you, with me, with
whoever. It's like, hey, man, like, I
don't know. My bat speed is down 3 miles an
hour and now my output is not good.
What are you doing? Are you sleeping?
Are you eating? Are you, are you, are you
lifting or all of these things that drive conversations?
It's not necessarily about the five mile an hour gain that you
get out right out of the gate because you just decided to
swing harder. You know, it's just about the
the information that you can collect.
On your own process, that's kind of off the topic of of the
farmer. But, but I think all of these
pieces can go into, we're talking about communication with
players driving communication from, from an objective
standpoint about their performance.
Not necessarily because you come off less judgmental.
You know it's not, it's not as just subjective and judgmental
that you aren't meeting my approval.
No, it's not about that. It's about, look, your
performance output or your performance capacity is down.
If your performance capacity is down, then we need to figure out
why. Because if you're a if you're a
player going into college like you're speaking about, your your
performance capacity needs to be at peak as as often as it can
be. You know and and if you're away
from your your coach or if you're away from whoever you're
comfortable with talking about these things with that little
piece of information can can can drive some amazing
conversations. Garrett, I'm I'm curious because
Bill and I both work in different industries than you
do. Players come to you in college
with some dependency, dependency, dependency on the
coaches going to give me. The coach is the gatekeeper of
knowledge and the coach is the coach is going to give me the
wisdom I need to to to be a a player.
How do you take a kid from the dependency of of, from a on a
coach because that's quite frankly the the, the, the
environment that they grow in to to kind of independent, you know
independency, freedom of their own process, you know supportive
but certainly. You know, to get them to problem
solve on their own because all the way to college that, I mean
that's that's kind of what they come to expect.
I would imagine in your world, you know a lot of the guys that
I work with in in, in in big schools, they get incoming
freshmen who just, you know, it's it's like they're waiting
for someone to tell them they have no problem solving or
creative thinking skills for themselves.
I mean I think though it's it's this the system that they grew
up in right, like a lot for for our area travel ball is is quite
big And so a lot of the kids that we get have been in some
sort of travel program, not all of them if we get a kid from a
small town, but even too I think some of the times they've played
in some club organizations. And so since the clubs are
always trying to help them get to a college program, they're
usually at some level have been inundated with this idea that
like the good program gives you lots of instructions.
And so I think, I think it, you know, it's it's kind of the the
water that they swim in. So like that is I I think you
know why it is that a lot of guys come in expecting that and
I do think there's. Sorry, Rob, how often do you see
the excuse of lack of instructions the for the reason
that I'm not successful? I mean maybe it depends like, I
mean I think that happens a little bit.
I mean you'd only find that out in in an exit meeting or after a
guy, like a guy leaving from another program to come to your
program. You know, like I mean I I
sometimes hear about that, but it depends because it's all
contextual. Like if there is not a whole lot
of instruction going on and there's not any like we're
talking about shaping of the environment, you know, setting
up problems for the athlete to solve, then you know not saying
anything and not giving instruction you're not doing,
you know you're you're letting again it's it's like letting
things grow wild right there. If you have the right ecology,
you can get sometimes get like guys can really thrive in that
or really, you know, develop some really good functional
movement behaviors, but there's still going to be some rawness
to it. Because again, this goes back to
the whole farmer analogy. There's different, there's
different forms of farming, right?
There's your traditional farming that you see the cornfields.
But then there's also this new idea that I've been looking into
a little bit too. It's called like permaculture,
where you actually have the the whole ecology is about
regenerative farming. And so this is kind of to me why
this analogy is so awesome is because again from an ecological
standpoint or like it, it fits with ecological psychology
because again the player is because when you think about it
too from an S&C standpoint. And I'm getting off your
question Chad, I want to come back to the other the
second-half of your question. But right the the human body is
a is is biological right. And so it operates like a like a
plant. And so when when we're talking
about like developing a skill or even getting stronger and seeing
more output, it operates, the growth operates exactly like a
plant. You don't the the growth is
happening when you're not paying attention.
That's where a lot of the growth happens, is in the in between
and through the working. And you don't necessarily notice
it in the moment, but it's kind of like when you're traveling,
right? Like you don't really feel like
you're making progress, but when you look back and you all of a
sudden you go, whoa, I've actually traveled quite a bit of
distance. I didn't even realize it.
And so that's where to me though like going helping one coaches
and two players. But I think it's just as
important to help the players because I mean like we're
getting to Chad, you're you definitely experienced this.
You get to a point where the guys that you've coached are
wanting to be coaches. That in some way is how things
are going to actually we're going to change culture moving
forward as far as that is like the new, the new coaches, the
new crop of coaches that come in, Is that an old?
Joke potentially that's that's going to be is.
That a your well joke. Which part?
The part. Where you said I've definitely
experienced my players wanting to be coaches.
Oh yes, it is however saying. I turned 40.
I turned 40 Garrett this summer, so it's a bit raw steel.
That's fair. I mean, I've been thinking about
like, when my kids are going to start playing baseball at a,
like a an interesting level. And I'm like, man, I'm going to
be old, right? Like when my kids are in their
teens. I I coached Nick.
Gaskew. So just let that let that simmer
for, right. Well, I mean, but that's The
thing is like, I've coached enough guys that have graduated
from high school and then like even graduated from college and
you're like, man, I I was a young, I was a really young
whippersnapper back when who who is Bill?
How old are you? 323232 Robert How old are you?
I am. 27. The young buck.
Oh my. God, I am.
Yeah. By a lot.
Keep going on your point though. Sorry, I just No, no, it's my
old. Man vibes here.
Well, you hope as as you get older, you get wiser, right?
Kyle turned. 40 this year too. Kyle and I are like a month and
a half apart. Birthdays.
Kyle Bode, I mean, I think no, the.
O GS I think that's super interesting just to see like the
growth of the field. But anyways I I I mean going
back to I think it's like so the other element of this is, is is
also transporting this these ideas to the players of like
trying to change their mindset on how they they see their own
growth and development. And so this actually ties well
into your second-half of that question of like, OK, how do you
interact with a player or and help them kind of understand a
different way of of growing. And so for me, it's about
setting the environment and putting the idea or planting the
seed, right, of this idea of I actually want, I want you to
become your own coach. Essentially.
Like, that's what I tell them is I'm going to give you a
framework and give you, you can say, tools, and I'm going to
teach you how to use these tools.
And really at the end of the day, where I want you to get to
is that you're able to do a lot of this stuff on your own.
And I'm only here for when the problem gets too complicated for
you and you need extra perspective.
And then I come in alongside you and I go, hey, let's try to
solve this together. And so that to me is so I I
spend a lot more time trying to and I'll even tell like I've
I've said this to several players, when an opportunity
comes up, we get into a conversation because we're not
in full team practice yet. And so I'm trying to like set
the stage early for them setting them up for some of the
activities we might do in the future of hey, this is the goal
for what it is. That how I see hitting and what
what I would like you to see hitting as and how to begin to.
Because to me it's about I want you to learn how to be a good
hitter that understands how to make the adjustments in real
time. And like, I want you to really
understand the problem and have mastery over this craft and so
or no hitting And so, I mean, I think that's even true though
for any part of the game you don't have to.
I mean, we're all hitting guys here.
But what's great about this is you can transfer it to pitching,
to an infielder, to an outfielder, whatever part like.
And it's softball. Pitching.
I've become a softball pitching person.
It's amazing. Because the same principles
apply to your point, right? And I guess I'm struggling.
I don't know, Jack. Swat about ideal techniques of
softball pitching, but the same ecological techniques and
environmental constraints and all these things still apply.
So just it's again, it's about, you know, to your point, this is
kind of expanding on your point of becoming your own coach.
I think when people here becoming your own coach, they
think they need to go out and they need to follow.
The 10, the 10 best Twitter accounts and and and digest
their words to them right. They need to learn their
terminology so that they can coach themselves.
And it's like it's not. Coaching is not terminology and
it's not. I mean, they may have
interesting perspectives and they may have interesting ideas
but but coaching yourself isn't about learning more words.
We're going and reading The Science of Hitting.
And and then reading the art of hitting 300C Lau and you know
going and following the you know I'm not we're not going to bring
back up the the the hitting people but but it's it's not
that just as much as it is trying to to to find your own
just just trying to find your own search process really you
know and it is my it's my environment conducive to to
growth that's going to to go into the game.
You know, it's to to the point of to the point of ideal
technique and softball pitching like, I don't know crap.
But it's like what is your attention where, where is your
attention and and where is your intention.
You know that that's one thing that I try with young people.
It's like are you connected to the task where you're trying to
to to to accomplish, you know, in softball pitching, I'm trying
to throw the ball hard. I'm trying to throw the ball in
this accurately in the strike zone.
Two things. We're going to build the tasks
around that. That's it.
We're not trying to make our
left femur go 14 degrees this way.
We're not trying because we're not going to divide our
attention to things that don't really matter to the task.
Like task matters, hitting, you know, back to the hitting
conversation, attention and intention.
Like what is your intention? Or am I trying to swing the bat
with some speed? Am I trying to hit the ball in a
particular trajectory? Am I trying to hit the ball in a
particular direction? Do I even need to think about
those things? You know, those are those are
conversations that I have a lot, man.
Are you connected to to to the intention of this thing or you
just hacking? Like, what's going on here?
So to that point, this is a really interesting thing that
happened to me. I was taking some rounds in the
cages with the guys and they're facing.
We have these light flight balls that have a little bit of rise
to them. When you throw them really fast
out the machine, it's coming in like 95 mph and I'm getting
absolutely blown up. And so like about 5 swings in
after swinging and missing five times in a row, I'm like, what
would I tell myself if I was coaching right now and everybody
else started laughing at me? But it's like, you know, it is
extremely hard while you're doing the reps to also think
about something. You know what I mean?
Like when I'm facing this really challenging machine or if I was
in a alive at bat scenario or something like you can't really
think about stuff. Maybe you can have one focus of
attention, like I'm going to drive this ball into my pull
side gap or opposite field gap. If it's as simple as that I feel
like it could work but that was like a wake up call to me is
like there is you can't really think about, like you said you
can't think about 15 degrees left femur or whatever it is
like you cannot think about stuff when the hitting really
gets tough because it's it's not going to work.
I can promise you that. And so if there's anybody
listening to this podcast that has the ability to do so without
getting hurt, step in the machine that's throwing 90 plus
and tell me what you think. Tell me what you feel and and
you'll be absolutely shocked at how obviously how hard hitting
is, but then how hard it is to like you know, to what you're
saying before Garrett about how you know being your own coach in
the batter's box, it's really tough and and so to to all the
players out there that are actually doing it, like you have
my respect because that's it's not easy.
But I mean I think at the end of the, you know to the just.
Go ahead, I was just. So I'm just going to make a
point real quick about my son. He's 9, he's in this youth
baseball world. You know he he has to deal with
because I don't coach his team. And this is to to Bill's point
where he's he's pitching the other day, we're doing live a BS
in the cage. He's throwing 2 hitters and he
throws 3 or 4 balls and I'm standing behind the net where
he's pitching from. And I said, look, man.
At this point in the game, your coach is going to be yelling at
you that you need to correct some movement, get your arm up,
you know, get better, whatever, OK?
It's not going to make this thing better.
If, if you're thinking about getting my arm up now and now
I'm now, I'm having to to think about the task of throwing a
strike, too. Now I've divided my attention
and we cannot under any circumstance.
This is me talking to my 9 year old.
You can't divide your attention to the task while your coach is
trying to help you. He's doing, he's he's not a bad
guy for trying to help you and tell you these things.
You cannot divide, divide your attention between the internal,
get my arm up and the external of throw the ball hard in that
strike zone. You have to take a deep breath,
you have to step back. You have to lock your eyes on
that target and just move fast at it.
And wherever your arm is in space, it'll be in space.
And if you throw a strike, your coach will say C and take credit
for it and everybody will be happy.
But you cannot divide your attention, whatever you do.
Like he needs to know these things when he goes out there.
It's not he needs to know my words of how to get his arm up
or my, you know, I saw a tweet yesterday about strength
conditioning about two guys that were saying the same thing.
And Guy #2 thinks he's really smart because he uses different
words. And it was a It was a post about
vanity. You know, it's like the vanity
of my words don't matter any more than the vanity of your
words don't matter because we can't.
We can't divide the attention to the hitting point.
And 9590 to 95 miles an hour, you don't have time.
You don't have time to to have these collective thoughts about
what What's going on? So why train?
Why train that way? Why train it all that way like?
And they would say, well, you're not coaching them.
It's like we're back to the point of building the the
capacities, the environment, the things for the for the players
and the plants to grow in so that they can have one external
focus of attention and go try to be on time and apply whatever
physical capacities you have to to to accomplish the task to the
task to the main task which is hit the ball hard, hopefully
well, I think. No, it's good.
Part of where I'm at too is I think it's important for them to
like like like what you're talking about Bill to put
yourself in their shoes. And so there's there's an
element of OK, they need to learn when to make an adjustment
and what to be focused on and and like what things work
because I've had it where I've experienced it of man, I I
wasn't thinking at all and I've even and.
I'm not having success. So then it's like, OK, well,
they say, well, you know, when guys hit really well, they're
not thinking at all. Well, I'm not thinking at all
and I'm not having success. And then you ask a player a
question. Have you watched you?
Watched the PGA Tour show on Netflix.
What have you pulled out of that?
You haven't watched yet? OK, so Brooks Brooks Koepka in
the show. Like there.
There's like a whole episode on Brooks Koepka.
And like the self doubt that he has at this moment in time about
he's not even sure if he can play golf anymore.
You know, he's had some injury, he's thinking about his swing
and he just can't do all of these things and he just he's
just not even sure if he, the self doubt he has about whether
he'll be able to even play Professional Golf anymore.
And then, you know, he just goes back.
And I and I make this point. No one's ever gotten better by
by thinking more about their swing.
Brooks Koepka is That's a great episode to that point of no
one's ever gotten better, no one that you've never heard anyone
say. You know, the more I thought
about my swing during the game, the better I got.
Like no one's ever said that ever in the history of baseball
or in a golf or any bat sticking ball sport.
That's hard. You know, The more I thought
about it, the better I got. And to your point, it's like the
more mindless I became about it, the better I did, you know?
My playing days are getting further and further away, but I
always go back to I. It was my first year rookie
ball. We're on the road and my parents
are coming to the game and I'm like one for my last 40 and I'm
searching for. I'm searching for anything.
I've never done this bad in my life.
You know, I'm a I'm a I'm a small town kid, single, a high
school in Virginia. I've never, I've never done.
I struck out like three times in high school for in four years.
Like I've never done bad before. But I but my parents were coming
to the game that night and I and I and I'll never forget that.
It was like that night. I was like, I've tried
everything tonight. I'm.
I'm just going to see how little I can care.
And I got like three hits that night.
Just I'm going to try to swing just whatever.
And not even think about anything.
And I got three hits that night. My parents were like, what you
do differently. I was like nothing.
I mean, I I just didn't because it's hard when you break into
pro ball to to not try to like keep the gas pedal pressed to
the floor and try as hard as you can.
You know, because you want to become a big leaguer.
You know you, you, you've you've realized this step in your
journey and and and you want to become a big leaguer.
But like pressing and thinking more about it for me.
It didn't help me and doesn't help anyone else, back to your
point I mean. Because this is, this is where I
think I'm kind of trying to describe the nuance here because
for me, I've done both of like, OK, I've thought way too much.
And then on the other end I was like, well, let's just go to not
thinking and I didn't see improvement there either.
I still sucked. And so there is a level of
because this goes back to what you talked about before Chad
intention. And attention, So what are you,
What are you attending to and then what's your intention?
And so but some of it too is like what I try to help players
do is assess what is going on, like what adjustment.
So for example, well, I want to use that one second so the the
first one is like, OK, what what's going on?
Am I swinging missing under like what?
OK, so if I'm swinging missing under what kind of type of
adjustment do I have to make to try to not be under the ball?
Or and and so because this is where, for example, ecological
dynamics helps me understand that the system is dynamic.
So for example, it's more about what's the current state of the
system and what is right for you right now based upon the current
state of the system. So for example, Chad, you've
been trying a whole bunch of different things.
Also too, you're really talented, hence you're there and
so sometimes you need to let the talent naturally come out or
maybe all those things that you are trying.
Like changed and nudged your system to put it in a really
great spot to be able when you go to not thinking at all or not
caring depending upon like what was the constraint right and you
take that constraint off that actually affords success, then
all that stuff naturally comes out.
And so for me it's it's about trying to help guys identify or
rather help them direct them more towards what is going to
make them successful, right. So when a guy is struggling,
swinging and missing. Often times what I'll say to
them is like, hey, I just like check swing, just touch the
ball. And even my college coach found,
like hitting off the machine like that.
If I could just touch the ball one time, usually, then I could
ramp it up and I could hit it square just simply because I
touched it. Ecological dynamics tells me,
well, that's a calibration issue, right?
So by touching the ball you're becoming more calibrated.
And This is why, for example, at least to me, when I watch the
pros. And a guy wants to go challenge
a guy with a fastball and just is going to ride their fastball
and a guy falls it off, falls it off, straight back, throws it
again, falls it off, straight back, throws it again, falls it
off, straight back, throws it, boom, single, right.
To me, that's like they're fine tuning their calibration and
getting more dialed in. And that's kind of the same
thing of because if you look at like the concept of calibration,
well, it's just your body's mapping to where things are
relative to you. And so when you can get that
tighter of a one to one relationship of OK, where I'm
swinging is where where I'm intending it to go like that the
the error between that gets minimized.
So to me that's that's one element of it Like I'm just
simply trying to help guys assess like OK what what thing
do you go to. So for example, I think like I
talk a lot and I've had there's a whole podcast on this about
the importance of exploration. Because when you begin to
explore and you try different things, especially based upon
the current state of the system, Let's say you're more fatigued
today. OK, there are certain days where
your nervous system just isn't primed because there are
certain. Let's go to the opposite.
Let's go to the ideal Your nervous system is super prime.
You can literally do anything that day and you're squaring
balls up. You can be super relaxed, you
can have it a little thought, distracting thought in there,
and you're still hitting the ball really well.
You flip that. And the things and the ways that
you're operating when you're in a in an optimal condition just
aren't working today, man. Like, I just don't feel it.
It's like, well, today maybe you actually have to grit it out
like you really have to will what you want to have happen
just to get just some sort of positive result.
But you have to be able to this, this whole idea of attunement,
right. You have to be attuned and in
tune with your body enough to know what it needs that day.
What intention do you need that day?
And so that's that's where to me like this whole idea of being
your own coach like again like a really good farmer knows based
upon the weather that day what his his crops need.
And again if the crop is yourself or the players knowing
what they need that day is becomes a skill in and of
itself. And so you only get acquire that
skill through the through the day-to-day work.
And and and taking every day is like, this is awesome.
Today I'm fatigued today I didn't get enough sleep.
Well, what do I have to do based upon that in order to perform at
a proficient enough level to be functional and useful to the
team And so because that right with you, if your goal is to
play at the professional level like and get to the MLB, well,
you're playing a ton and the states of your body is going to
be in over the course of 162 games season.
Like you need to know what to go to when you experience all those
different states that you're going to be in.
And so that's that's where in some ways like every day there's
there's a way to grow and learn and to like to.
Because the way that I look at it is like I want the athlete to
come to know themselves better. And so my job is to help them
get to know themselves better. And that's where like.
So for example, this is a slight tangent.
One of the issues that we thought of why we didn't do so
well last year, especially in playoffs, was that we weren't
mentally tough enough. And some of that mental
toughness comes back to something that our head coach
when I played in college like harped on us all the time, was
you need to look in the mirror and that's super hard to do.
And and and dealing with some of those uncomfortable things and
working through those because when you're struggling that's
that's kind of what's going on is.
Is you have the humility to look in the mirror and be like man
I'm just being a bonehead right now I need I should actually be
trying something different like I'm banging my head against the
wall and I should have done that like 3 swings ago And so that's
where like a small example of like it being tough to look in
the mirror and recognize like I should have made a change I was
being and so anyways these are these are the kind of like the
the things that you don't see they're not the obvious things
on the outside. That you're seeing.
But these are the small inside things that like I see part of
my role as a coach is actually helping them with the mental
side of the game and this process that everybody talks
about. You know like, but the process
is getting into like the like the weeds of it a little bit
more and like building that out and giving them a vision from
what it actually looks like. And so I don't know that's
that's kind of my. Because to me when when a guy is
struggling because I've heard this a lot and so this is this
was the example that I was going to go use before there's been
like we have a really talented player like from high school he
was AI don't know all Allstate you know player type of player
he's really good and he he's struggling we've we've talked
about this whole process thing I like I'll ask him all the time
like hey man what adjustment do you think you needed to make
here or like what what just happened he'll he'll say to me a
ton I don't know. Like come on man, like we've
we've been over this of like what these things are.
And that's the thing like I don't when you get to that spot
of like, I don't know, you need to then ask yourself a different
question to begin to find answers.
It's about the questions you ask And so that's that's some of it
too of of helping guys. And then so the other day he was
struggling in BP and he he's sitting there and he's like
wants to talk. And he's like, you know what?
Never mind. I was like, hey man, like,
what's up? It's like, I don't, I don't know
what to do. Like I'm, I'm struggling.
I was like, in his last round, fortunately for for me, in his
last round he had one really good hit.
I was like, hey man, just do that.
And he was like, OK, But what he had changed is he went to a nose
tribe. So coach was at 30 feet, like
super close throwing BP. And I could tell that guys felt
like the ball was getting on them fast and whatever.
Even though he wasn't throwing that hard and for him that day
was like, no stride was like, hey man, how about that's where
you had success, let's start there.
Your next round, I don't know if you're going to have more
success or not, but you want to try something like we know we
got an indication that, you know, there's more success over
there. And so that's kind of where I
want to help players recognize, OK, today what is working.
And if you can pick up on that become more attuned to that
information and figure out how to utilize that because again
we're in a dynamic state. So it's it's kind of like OK, if
things are out of balance, where is where is that balance point,
How do we move back to that? I'll use the, you know, the
analogy of if you see like those bubble levels, right.
So if we start to the the bubble starts to move too far to the to
the right, well then maybe we got to start moving back to the
left. And so to me, this is where it's
not like. There's not this one answer.
There is a answer for this moment.
It's not always hit the ball to the other side.
It's not always hit the ball on the ground it.
Those are things that you go to when other things aren't working
and it's knowing when to use all these things.
And so for me, that's that's my goal is to to actually help them
master the art of, you know, playing the game.
So another example is talking with another player who has had
a. Who's a lot more smart, I guess
you could say. And he challenged me because I
was like, I I think this is a cool thing that I've come to
understand through ecological dynamics.
Turns out I'm not the first one to think of it, which is no
shocker at all. But anyways, so like what
dictates where the ball goes on the field?
And we're kind of talking about that because he had the ball to
center field and it went like 3, I don't know, 35360 or whatever.
And it's an out. It's an out like rap.
Soto had it as an out. Straight to center field.
I was like, hey man, there's a well hit ball 90 miles an hour
or more, but it's an out, You know, everybody's like, you
know, wants to clap them up. It's like, yeah, you know, if
you were grounding out and barely hitting the ball, I would
like clap you up and be like, hey man, that's good.
But it's like how let's just think about that it went 350 to
360. If you hit that more if you
don't hit it to center field and you hit it to one of the one of
the corners. It's a home run.
It's a double. You hit it to the, you hit the
ball to the biggest part of the field.
They don't get enough distance and enough carry at the right
launch angle and the right exit below.
Those tend to be out, especially the higher levels you go because
the guy out there in center field is really super fast.
So anyways that that's sort of the conversation of like is like
well, how I can't you know determine where it goes was
like, well, let's examine that a little bit.
What determines where it goes? And so we started talking about
bad angle and how like. If you start, if you can
manipulate the angle of your bat a little bit, eye contact, you
can then start to manipulate where the ball goes on the
field. Maybe not exactly but if you if
we don't ever work on it, how do we know?
Right Like Chad, this is something that the argument that
Caleb's been making for like, you know, work on edge pitches.
So anyways, it got us into a long conversation of like, you
know, being your own coach and so.
Where I ended because he started to grasp this idea, I was like,
OK, so where we're going with all this is you need to get to a
place where now you're you're a boxer, you're an expert boxer,
and now you're thinking about strategy.
You're not just thinking about, like, OK, throwing good strikes
and combos or whatever, but now you're thinking about the
strategy within the game within the moment, right?
Because he already picked up early in the conversation like
well you know based upon this situation, this is what I do
exactly. That's where we need to get to
is based upon the situation of the game and start playing the
game. Because when you start playing
the game and understanding what's going on out there, it
will dictate what your intention should be for this pitch, this
at bat. You know now being able to
utilize OK, bat, bat angle like OK based upon this situation and
how what this guy is throwing. I'm just going to.
I'm going to figure out how to drive it to the other field
because that's going to score us to run.
That's going to do something for us in this at bat, you know or
you know what, There's nobody on.
There's two outs. You know, I'm going to go for it
right here. Like there's there's a time and
place for you to just absolutely sell out and go for it.
And so like being able to pick up on those strategies and like
the game like that to me is the highest level of what it is that
I'm trying to help guys get to is like the strategy part of it.
But you have to understand the nuances of of like how to make
adjustments. Because to me, the way that I
analogized it and analogized it to him is think about it like
boxing, right? Like there is recognizing the
strategy within the game within that and how you make
adjustments to your opponent. And that to me is is what it is
I'm trying to help guys get to in being their own coach.
Yeah, the the one thing that comes to mind too.
For me, recently I had a really cool moment.
Where we're doing live at bats and I'm recording like literally
15 feet from the hitter and we're looking at each swing like
in real time between pitches, basically like he's not looking
at it, but I am. And we've been working on
something. You had mentioned it before
about the kid who is going to like a no stride.
So that this hitter that is I'm thinking of has more of a big
stride, big leg kick, big forward move.
And we've been trying to eliminate that in in the cage
like in batting practice. And when we do that, everything
looks really good. He hits the crap out of the
ball, but when he gets in live at that, it kind of goes away
and he goes back to more of an exaggerated forward move.
And so, like, I literally caught it and I wish I had like,
someone filming me with like a mic because it would be a viral
video. But it's like, hey dude, real
quick, take a look. Look at how far you lunged at
that ball. Like it was a take.
And you know, look at how much you lunged on that take.
So let's fix that. And it wasn't like immediate,
but it was like after about four pitches later that at bat he got
an outside corner slider, well spotted pitch and he took it to
right field for a nice like 95 mile per hour single.
And it's like that's something that he couldn't do at the
beginning of that bat. So it does make me think too,
like giving guys something like a real quick feedback with video
or something, whether it's a queue, whatever.
Just hey. Like remember this and then
let's see if they can go and figure it out.
Live at bats are a great, great way to do that.
If you have like a controlled live at bat setting, it's
really, really beneficial I think for hitters to get
something to stick. Because you know, when it's in
the cage it's more I guess easy for it to stick because it's a
such a controlled environment where you have no negative
repercussions at all, whereas in a live at bat scenario
obviously. You can't control where the
pitch is going to go, you can't control what pitch is going to
come. So to me those those types of
live at bat controlled scenarios if you will where you can make
adjustments on the fly is really beneficial.
There is one other thing to like to kind of loop back when guys
are struggling. What I'm trying to do is give
them a process to not lose their width because I think that's
that's the the like to not feel helpless and that's that's where
I think if you have something to work towards then you then you
have some element of control, right.
And that's where I'm trying to get put it back to like where
they don't feel like they have any that they're completely
helpless and they don't have any control over the situation.
And I think that's that's part of the element of like trying to
get them to be their own coach is now all of a sudden I'm
handing control back to them. And because the situation is so
dynamic and you know, in some ways very unpredictable, you
need to give them something to be able to go to.
And that's because. So this is the other thing that
I've been kind of thinking about.
I was, I was there's, you know, I like watching martial arts
videos and there's this one on, you know, should you get
involved in a fight, right. Like, you know, like a knife,
like there's a knife involved, you know, if you like.
Because in in both these scenarios, like it was
interesting to see how people would respond.
And what this guy was talking about is like, you respond based
upon your training. So people who have had some sort
of fighting background end up fighting with a guy with a knife
thinking that they can actually do something where knives are
super dangerous. Whereas, you know, people who
like, don't have any sort of, like, fighting background,
they're going to run away, you know?
And so it was interesting to to hear, like, how much our
training, like, went under pressure, right?
We fall back to the level of our training.
And because things are happening so quick.
And that made me think a lot about the military and then also
made me think about how important our training is.
Because when guys get in these stressful situations, they're
going to default back to what they're most comfortable with
and what their environment has fostered for them and allowed
them to do. And because they're going to
find, you know, from ecological perspective, they're going to
find their most functional way that they could interact with
that in the past. And that's how they're going to
interact with things in the future initially, right.
And so that's where I've been thinking a lot about that of
like, OK, how can we use some of the, the military way of
training people? A little bit, not all of it
because I don't want to take some of like the road stuff, but
there are, there's certain procedures and that you can kind
of standardize. Another way that I think about
is like and giving them heuristics.
There's certain heuristics like Chad, you have some you know of
like, you know focus on the target and then move fast,
right. Those are those are some
heuristics that a player can always default back to right
under stress. And so like trying to come up
with those like big picture things, you know, for example,
like I'm, I thought about like OK, how do I start talking about
adjustments to players in a way that kind of fits this, the way
that I think about it and where I came to is the test, retest
model because that to me is essentially what I'm doing like
a player is doing, is OK You pick something, you test it and
then you you see what happens. That's kind of your retest.
Then you go back and you reiterate on that and if it
works right, you let it rot. And so that's where, you know,
kind of coming up with like these little like these big
picture phrases or ideas that like like the idea of being a
farmer, that they can take in and apply it to a whole bunch of
different scenarios or it can be applied to a whole bunch of
different scenarios. I was going to make the point,
Garrett. That, and to the same point that
Bill made, and I've written about this on Twitter before, is
another another value of representative practice design
and Representative learning environments.
It's not that it connects the physical skill to the challenges
of the game. But it but it fosters the the
one pitch at a time mentality like turning the page on a bad
swing or a bad at bat is a skill in and of itself and something
that we should be that we should do in practice you know and the
closer this you can get it. Bill talks about live at bats.
You know machine 95, that one pitch at a time mentality like
turn the page bad swing swing and miss whatever these micro
failures that that that we have along the way.
Great hitters, great players, turn the page quickly.
They don't dwell on it. They don't.
And if the only time that you're that you're meeting the
challenge of the game is in the game, then not only your your
skills not connected, but but your mind and mentality is not
connected either. And like you say, I try to get
players through this, but if your practice environment isn't
representative enough, then. They never practice this skill
of of turning the pace, getting over, getting past it, moving on
to the next swing, the next pitch, whatever, you know, I
I've said that to our guys is, is if you can't handle like if
you can't handle it here off these inanimate objects,
flinging baseballs at you. Like how are you going to handle
it in the game when there's runners on 1st and 2nd and one
out in the 5th inning and your team is down to?
And you swing in a 55 foot breaking pitch in the dirt.
You're going to beat yourself up in that moment because your team
really needs you to to to to be as good as you can be in that
moment. And if you can't turn the page,
then you're not going to be. I think they.
So that's my that's my point about representative practice
design. I think the other side of that
coin is one of the things that I'm trying to do as a coach is
demystify the success that a player has.
Because I think a lot of times players have no idea why they're
being successful. If you have no idea why you're
being successful, then you'd have no idea how to get back
there. And so that that look at how.
Good players walk on the Internet.
They don't have any idea right but that but they.
Knew they were. So they talk about what works
for them and that's that's going to be to your point I think that
you're making is. That's going to be unique for
everybody. It is but I but and it.
Might be wonky sometimes I think white bogs, white bogs or who
ate chicken before every game? White bogs or or somebody.
It's like if you got to eat chicken before every game to be
good, man, eat chicken before every game have had it.
But I think that, right? Like, that's part of why I want
to try to demystify it a little bit.
Because even that it's like, oh, it's a it's a superstition.
It's like, no, it's a routine, and routines build comfort,
right? And also there's other ideas
like cognitive activation, right?
Like when you do certain things, it prepares you for the next
thing that you're doing because it's associated.
And so, like, that's what I mean by trying to demystify some of
these things for people to understand, like, OK, how do I
do this in a way that's not just superstitious, but in a way that
I am in actually in control of it?
Because it's, to me, a superstition.
You're not in control. The superstition is, isn't, is
in control of you. And so that to me is like kind
of where I think the role of a coach is, is like we spend all
this time we're like trying to learn the truth about how things
really are. And so when a player is getting
jammed up and their their superstition is now becoming an
an impediment for their performance of actually
demystifying that and giving it its proper place again of like,
no, no, dude, what you need is a routine that's that's what you
need. But you also need to understand
when your routine gets broken, you need to have a routine for
that or you need to have a way to deal with that.
And actually what you're looking for is maybe instead like
cognitive activation of like being able to help switch your
mind over and give you something that's that's more durable or
more adaptable that will work in all these different situations.
And so like that to me is we're like the the upper echelon you
could say of coaching is, is like those coaches who really
have a. Because to me that's where like
for example, I mean I don't I don't know for certain.
But I get the sense that like a a coach like at the professional
level like Donnie Ecker, like these guys or even like other
managers who have been really good in the past, they're really
good at managing the individual and like giving the individual
what they need. And so that to me is like what a
coach it is. It's not about, you could say
like A1 size fits all type deal. It's it's I don't know to go
ecological. It's like being in tune with
with players and understanding where their current state is and
being able attuned to the specifying information that
they're giving off to know what they need.
And so that that to me is like going back to the, it's like a
farmer again being attuned to your crops knowing what your
crops need or what what's going to produce the the best yield
for you that season. So we've we've gone for a good
minute, we can keep going but it seems like a good, a good spot.
So is there any place that you guys would like to land the
plane on? I am, I guess.
For me, go ahead. Bill, you're good.
Sorry, go. Ahead, Chad.
All right. But I would say, I guess for me
that the one sticking point that I could give for listeners is,
you know, when you're in the cages or you know whatever
you're working on, it's easy to go the negative route.
It's easy to say things I don't know.
I don't know how to fix this. I can't fix this.
Rather than that negativity, try to just be neutral.
Try to just either shut up, don't say anything, or say
things like. I am going to figure this out.
I'm going to get this next pitch.
I'm going to. You know I'm going to not.
I can't. To me, that's the best way to go
about laying the foundation of all the words that we use as
coaches and as a player, trying to self talk or self teach.
Whatever you're doing, Dad, you you were going to jump in there.
OK, I got. Nothing else.
I got nothing else. I got to get on the road.
I got to do a couple things before I get on the road.
We don't talk about Marvel movies or energy drinks on your
podcast. So I mean you can it might like
that might be that might be somebody's thing.
I, you know, I, I, I, I've gone to the fountain, the fountain
Diet Coke. I just, I just feel the fountain
Diet Coke up in the morning. It's like a dollar.
Gives me the caffeine I need. Gives me the sweetness I need
after the black coffee because I love the black coffee.
But other than that, that's my go to in the morning.
Used to be a white monster month.
It's like everything else in the plants gotten so darn expensive.
That stopped the gas station and $5 out of here.
I got a monster in my hand. It's like I can just get the
fountain Diet Coke and it's a dollar and I'm good.
I get the same caffeine and I'm good.
There's a hack for for all those that's always.
Scared. I appreciate how you feel.
Yeah, it was great to meet you. Marvel.
We that's a whole another podcast.
OK. We could we not go down there?
Nice to meet you, Bill. Robert.
Always good. Thanks for having me back, man.
I'm like a veteran of this podcast.
I'm like the. Caleb Abby of of this podcast.
Caleb's been on my podcast like three times.
I didn't get him back on here. I've got to.
Find some time. I got to find some time to get
my podcast. Back going just because, but I
find myself. Building spinners all day every
day now or swing speed stick and and taking my kids to practice
or going to. I'm always going somewhere.
There's no more hours in the day.
I feel ya I feel ya. I guess I, I I did want to at
least wrap with with this of I hope like people's take away is
that we we don't want we want to think of want to think about
growth in in terms of the long term and that it takes time.
I mean I think that to me is like the biggest take away of
this whole conversation and start thinking about things from
like a farmer's perspective at least that's that's what I would
try to wrap on. Robert, you got anything that
you want to wrap on? No I?
You basically took the words out of my mouth.
It takes time. I mean for all of our
individual. Strengths and what we do.
It took time, you know, Bill, for power development, it took
time. Me for coding, it took time.
Chad and Garrett, for ecological dynamics, it took time.
It's not like, oh, you know, I'm going to start reading on
ecological dynamics and then tomorrow I'll be an expert.
It's going to, it's going to take time to be good at
something. You can't like anything in life,
you can't just pick up your guitar one day and just start,
you know, playing like a Jimmy Page the very next day.
So. It's the whole reason why they
say you got to get into the weeds, you know.
And so anyways, hope you all enjoyed today's podcast.