by Ethan Johnson
June 27, 2006
All of this sporty talk lately has inspired me to actually get off of the sofa and shoot some hoops. Or more accurately, play "shot-put basketball". Sheesh, when you're out of practice (and shape), 'tis a humbling experience indeed. Since there are no random acts anymore, only content, here is what I learned by shooting baskets over the last few days:
Some activities attract more smack talk than others: Think the hardest thing to do is be a prominent blogger, business owner, or politician? Constant criticism, second-guessing, and armchair coaching, right? A quicker, cheaper method for experiencing this level of scrutiny is to step onto the local basketball court. The world stops, man. And stares. And laughs and points.
Not everything is about you, even when you're convinced otherwise: Upon my return to the basketball court after a hiatus of several years, I was dismayed to see that the volleyball court was filled to capacity with boisterous 19 and 20 year-olds. They all stopped playing volleyball to loudly opine about the quality of the practice on the basketball court. I tried to block them out and concentrate on my shooting. Or more accurately, my heaving of the basketball in the general direction of the backboard. I had to chase the ball along the grass amid a shower of insults and laughter. I didn't acknowledge the mob, and kept at it. Finally, I took a deep breath and decided to listen to what the mob was saying. It turns out that they were commenting on the one-on-one game that these two 10 year-olds were playing. One of the players, who apparently knew someone on the volleyball court stopped for a moment and growled, "I'm not playing mean." The mob returned to their volleyball game. Their laughs and insults as I chased the ball down were merely coincidental.
Passive observation is no match for hands-on experience: Come back, Shaq, all is forgiven. All throughout the NBA Finals, I ripped on Shaq and his still-dismal free-throw percentage. Then I stepped onto the line. Brick. Brick. Airball. Brick. I got frustrated and stood as close to the rim as I could get. Brick. Airball. Brick. WTF! I finally broke through "the lid", but I really stuffed myself on crow. Then again, I'm not being paid millions of dollars to play basketball, so Shaq isn't completely in the clear.
Practice makes improvement: I was kicking myself over my horrid 10% free-throw average as I thought back to the good old days when I would practice free throws for hours on end, and hit shot after shot. What happened to that accuracy and consistency? Well, I stopped practicing and apparently thought that thinking accurate thoughts would be good enough. Uh, no. I am aspiring to my former ability. And at that, I never was all that good at basketball, height be damned.
Make it more like play than like work: I need to exercise more. Period. But the thought of toiling away in the gym rots my brain. I was trying to think of a way to exercise my whole body without paying for a gym membership. Bingo! Free-throw practice. There is the upper-body work (dribbling, shooting), cardio (chasing the ball), mental (doing the math to figure out my free-throw percentage, anticipating where the ball will come down), and so on. Plus there is more social tolerance of solo free-throw practice than there is of solo soccer-ball kicking and chasing. If you want to hit something and chase it, alone, and maintain social acceptance, practice golf. Anyway, 30 minutes in the gym used to be a small eternity. Last night, I went 45 straight minutes on the basketball court and could have gone another 30 minutes or so had I not opted to pace myself and come back later. I'm feeling the creaking and groaning today but in a good way.
If you play defeated, you will be defeated: I reached a point of severe frustration last night after a long dry spell of not making a basket that I was just mindlessly heaving the ball up and thinking "another miss" as the ball left my hands. Hey! Off to chase the ball down again. I finally pulled myself together and decided not to beat myself up about my free-throw percentage. Swish. I decided to end practice on a high.
Challenge your assumptions: For most of my practice session last night, I had the court to myself. I made up a game where I shot 10 free throws at one end and tried to meet or exceed that percentage at the other end. For some reason I dislike the net on the south end of the court. I shot a soul-crushing 0%. On the north end, I was shooting 30%. My best shooting percentage of the night was 60% (hey, better than Shaq!), and it was on the "bad" south end. Now the challenge is to meet or exceed that on the "preferred" north end.
Set realistic goals and reach a little further: I have been shooting sets of 10 free-throws (easier to calculate shooting %), and resisting the urge to raise the bar, such as "now sets of 20". I'd rather improve my sets-of-10 shooting percentage, then raise the bar. Otherwise I can't get much of a groove on and know that I've achieved the desired results. Going 0-for-10 in one set says that I'm not ready to shoot for 20. If anything, the progression will be 10-15-20-25 (etc). We'll see how the summer goes. <EM>
