shooting free throws
today, i went in to the gym to shoot free throws. a friend of mine asked me why. i don't play on the basketball team. i'm not really good at shooting free throws. i certainly had other more important things to do. but i explained to him that it was a relaxing process. like throwing a frisbee with a friend, only without needing the friend. over and over, the same shot, the same goal. striving for consistency, perfection. a tangible reward awaits when the ball falls through the net. it's success that can be measured. failure that is quite apparent.
i noticed some interesting things in shooting free throws. i shot 150 of them, and over the course of the time i did it, it was essentially all i thought about. when i read kant, when i write a blog, when i watch tv, when i read a book, my mind always drifts in and out of the task at hand. at the charity stripe, however, i was thinking of nothing else but what i could do to improve my percentage. i was striving for rhythm and melody.
i realize this has only ever really happened to me in sports. even when i played the violin, i could go through the music and find that i had played a passage perfectly despite the fact that my brain had been multitasking all along. i could play a concerto while thinking of lunch or run through a solo with my eye on my girlfriend across the section.
when i pitched in baseball, i focused on everything baseball and nothing else. when i play ultimate frisbee, i go two hours without thinking of ANYTHING else. no thesis. no girls. no worries about my future or my plans after i graduate. nothing but the competition and the focus. the same is true with free throw shooting, which is odd because it isn't even a sport at which i excel, or a sport that i play competitively.
another thing i noticed was that most of my misses were consecutive. if i missed one shot, chances were that i would miss the next one, rattling off three misses in a row until i took a deep breath and finally found the bottom of the net. then i'd go back on a streak of makes. this kind of shake in my focus is exactly the reason i should shoot free throws more often. rebounding from a mistake is something we all have to be able to do. in ultimate, if i make a bad play, i need to be able to recover quickly so that i can succeed in the future. in life, we can't let our setbacks push us to the point that we are unable to right the ship before it sinks.
finally, i noticed the difficulty with commitment. if i started a series of 50, but missed the first 5 shots in a row, i would usually start the count over. this is quite obviously detrimental. it would speak more to my character if i could bounce back from that and sink the next 10, sending my percentage up to 66. however, i always find that i lose interest in a specific task if i don't do as well as i would like. i would be better off if i could rebound from my mistakes, improve from problems, and react such that i come out better in the end.
so i'll continue to go into the gym alone. i'll put a few dribbles on the floor, and shoot free throws until my arms grow tired. i just want to get better.
i noticed some interesting things in shooting free throws. i shot 150 of them, and over the course of the time i did it, it was essentially all i thought about. when i read kant, when i write a blog, when i watch tv, when i read a book, my mind always drifts in and out of the task at hand. at the charity stripe, however, i was thinking of nothing else but what i could do to improve my percentage. i was striving for rhythm and melody.
i realize this has only ever really happened to me in sports. even when i played the violin, i could go through the music and find that i had played a passage perfectly despite the fact that my brain had been multitasking all along. i could play a concerto while thinking of lunch or run through a solo with my eye on my girlfriend across the section.
when i pitched in baseball, i focused on everything baseball and nothing else. when i play ultimate frisbee, i go two hours without thinking of ANYTHING else. no thesis. no girls. no worries about my future or my plans after i graduate. nothing but the competition and the focus. the same is true with free throw shooting, which is odd because it isn't even a sport at which i excel, or a sport that i play competitively.
another thing i noticed was that most of my misses were consecutive. if i missed one shot, chances were that i would miss the next one, rattling off three misses in a row until i took a deep breath and finally found the bottom of the net. then i'd go back on a streak of makes. this kind of shake in my focus is exactly the reason i should shoot free throws more often. rebounding from a mistake is something we all have to be able to do. in ultimate, if i make a bad play, i need to be able to recover quickly so that i can succeed in the future. in life, we can't let our setbacks push us to the point that we are unable to right the ship before it sinks.
finally, i noticed the difficulty with commitment. if i started a series of 50, but missed the first 5 shots in a row, i would usually start the count over. this is quite obviously detrimental. it would speak more to my character if i could bounce back from that and sink the next 10, sending my percentage up to 66. however, i always find that i lose interest in a specific task if i don't do as well as i would like. i would be better off if i could rebound from my mistakes, improve from problems, and react such that i come out better in the end.
so i'll continue to go into the gym alone. i'll put a few dribbles on the floor, and shoot free throws until my arms grow tired. i just want to get better.
posted by Fish at 7:46 PM
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