In
the twelve foot circle, not at all close to competing successfully,
is TANKING. I don’t think this is a very well known term, perhaps
used more south of the border, but so many talented teams fall into
this category. I describe it as being afraid to win. What? How can a
team be afraid to win? Isn’t that the whole reason for competing?
Good questions. Let’s take them one at a time.
Being
afraid to win is all about taking a risk. Entering a competition is
facing defeat squarely in the face. That’s why short-term goal
setting is so important. A loss on the scoreboard doesn’t
necessarily mean that “all is lost”’. The short-term goal might
have been to eliminate a “big end” plague that has been haunting
your team. You did, but a series of small ends scored by your
opposition did you in. Did you lose? Yes. Were you successful in
meeting a short-term goal? Yes. But, let’s get real. Sometimes that
score- board is all that counts and it’s uncomfortable to “lose”
and as confident as one might be when taking to the ice, there is the
possibility that you might lose. So, teams not wishing to risk losing
start to rationalize their way to a perceived victory. They set a new
standard of success that is not like short-term goal setting. It’s
tanking. It’s being the surprise winner of your club championship
and then realizing that in the zone competition, all the club members
will be watching the results. And worse than that, should the team be
successful at the zones, it’s on to regions and yikes, all the
clubs in the zone will be watching. So, without discussing it, the
team decides that a “good showing” at the zones will allow them
to say, “Well, we won the club title and got to the “C” semis
at zones. Heh, we did pretty well.” In reality, they had just as
much talent as any other team in the zones and could have gone on to
regions but they tanked. They didn’t want to take the risk of being
on stage at regions.
I
use this at just about every high performance camp I do. Everyone
wants to win. Some even know what it takes to win. Few are willingly
to do what it takes to win.
Willing to do what it takes doesn’t just mean the sacrifices of
practice etc. It means being willing to take a risk as well. We have
all tanked at some point or another. For me it was in the last
millennium, in the early 1970’s. I was playing out of a small 4
sheet club in the town of Elmira just north of Kitchener-Waterloo,
Ontario. We won the zones that year and had to play a team from
London Ont. who had already been to the “holy grail”, the Brier.
At that time, there were no regions and the 16 zone winners across
Ontario were paired in a best-of-three competition with the winner
moving on to provincials. The games were played at the Glenbrier
Curling Club (no longer in existence in Waterloo). The London team
knew what they were doing. In the locker room the talked about
provincials, not this silly zone competition, and they wore their
purple hearts. We, on the other hand, sat silent, watched and
listened.
We
played our game to a tee in game one. We hit everything in sight and
only drew if we had the chance. The London squad was not quite as
sharp and we won a close game. Then it happened! We knew that we were
one win away from going to provincials. We knew it meant a trip into
“the Big Smoke” (aka Toronto) to play the other seven inter-zone
winners (which usually meant playing more “big city” teams). So,
what did we do? We played well in the two remaining games. Just well
enough to say that we “did good” (apologies to my English
teachers) and “almost won”. We took on those London sharp
shooters and took them to the brink. Wow, what a great try! We didn’t
realize it then but what we did was TANK! We were afraid to win. We
were just as good as they were and actually, looking back, on that
particular day, we were better. But we didn’t want the risk of
looking silly at provincials, so we folded our tent carefully. We
felt good at the time, but we tanked. I’m not proud of it but I
learned never to do that again. The long-term feeling “ain’t so
good”!
In
the eight foot circle of our imaginary house is ANGER. The poster boy
for anger was John Mclnroe. To this day, many knowledgeable tennis
people feel that he might have been the greatest naturally talented
player to ever live but very few would regard him so due to his
on-the-court outbursts. In his playing days, John Mclnroe’s fan
club could held its annual convention in a telephone booth. He was
not well liked and he didn’t care. He was focused on only one
thing, winning. Unfortunately, he fell short of many of his goals due
to his anger. It was his way of dealing with stress. For those of you
who did not have the “privilege” of seeing him play, John
directed his tantrums at officials (line judges were his favourite
target), media, event organizers, grounds crew, opponents, fans,
locker room attendants, ball boys or girls, etc. Many thought it was
just his miserable temperament. But, if you watch John do his
“colour” work on NBC today, you will know that he is really a
pretty good guy. No, anger was his way of dealing with stress. Worthy
of note is the fact that almost never was anger self-directed. That was by design. But it took energy to carry on
like that, energy that should have been directed to the task at hand,
playing top-flight tennis. In a word, he was not accountable for his
shortcomings and therefore never reached his true potential.
In
the curling world, the lack of accountability is clearly evident in
the excuses a player makes. The ice is bad, the skip can’t place
the brush properly, the game time is too late, the food at the club
is poor, the lighting is bad, the brushers don’t judge the draws
well, the ... I think you get the picture. Usually the complainers
are good curlers, but their “anger” (always addressed toward
someone or something else) prevents success.
In
the four foot, we find the most maligned of all sports terminology,
CHOKING. For an athlete to say that he/she choked is like a chef
admitting his/her souffle fell. It’s death itself. But, when you
choke, it means many good things. It means that you didn’t tank,
you are willing to take the risk. It also means that you focused your
energy on playing the game and were accountable for your actions.
Unfortunately, it also means that you probably focused on the outcome
of the event rather than the task at hand.
Heh,
we’ve all done it. “If I make this open hit, we win the
bonspiel”. “If I make this open draw, we’re in the final.”
“If I...” Well, you get this picture too. And, you know the
likely result, oops! You choked! But, the good news is that you were
very close to that competitive “button”.
OK, I’ve kept you in suspense long enough. What’s “on the button”?
To be truly competitive and to perform well, you must feel CHALLENGED! It’s that “I-can’t-wait-to-play” attitude that all elite athletes have. It’s not cockiness, it’s not defiance, it’s not overbearing but it is calmness. It is trust in your skill set and that of your teammates. It is tunnel vision. It is “the zone”. You can be challenged without being successful on the scoreboard. But it is not trying to do your best. That’s an outcome that results frequently in choking. It’s the knowledge that if you don’t succeed on the scoreboard, your opponent had to bring his/her “A” game to the ice to win. It took everything they had. They were forced to drain their tank.
When you lose, make sure it was for the right reason(s) and of course, don't lose the lesson!
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