Another Centering Breath and Away We Go

At midnight (CST) in St. Louis, my phone rang. It was one of my clients, a college baseball player who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. “What time is it there?” he asked. “Midnight.” I responded. “Is it too late to talk?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, wiping the sleep away. “I am awake now. What is the problem?” “No problem,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know I figured out what I was doing wrong.” The person on the other end of the phone was Mike Beal, a talented third baseman with an unrelenting work ethic. Mike has a fervent desire to play professional baseball and has the makeup to do so. He is coordinated, strong, and smart, and he works diligently at improving his game. Mike had been in a brief hitting slump prior to calling me that evening. He is as physically and mentally prepared as any athlete I have ever counseled. He goes all out in practice and devotes extra time to working on his hitting and foot speed, and he always completes his mental workout before practices and games. Nevertheless, Mike was not having his customary quality at bats in games. He was getting out in front on his swings. (As referenced in Chapter 1, being “out in front” means the hitter is starting the swing too early and shifting his weight from the back foot to the front foot too soon, which usually produces a weak swing.) Mike had been going through his mental workouts prior to games just as he had been instructed, which got him excited and ready to play. The problem was that he was doing a halfhearted centering breath to start the mental workout and forgetting altogether to do a final centering breath at the conclusion. Mike figured out that not doing a good centering breath to start his mental workout was causing him to speed up his visualization a bit. In essence, he was visualizing himself hitting off pitchers throwing somewhere between ninety and ninety-three miles per hour when in reality the pitchers he was facing were throwing between eighty-two and eighty-five miles per hour. Mike was out in front on his swing because he had been visualizing the need for a faster reaction. He also realized that by not finishing the mental workout with a good centering breath, he was entering the games a “little too jacked up.” Mike recognizes that he plays his best when he is feeling calm and confident. When he does his mental workout, he feels “excited and confident,” and that is why his final centering breath is paramount. It is essential for athletes to know how to keep themselves calm and relaxed prior to competition. Mike was so delighted that he had ascertained what needed to change that he just had to call me after the game to share the news. He actually went 0 for 3 that night, but in thinking about how to correct what went wrong afterward, he remembered the importance of using both centering breaths. As advertised, after he started using the centering breaths, he began having more patient, quality at bats. He was staying back longer and started hitting with power again.