Choking, The Yips and Not Having Your Mind Right - David Papineau

eljetico

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There was an extract from philosopher David Papineau's forthcoming book 'Knowing the Score' in the papers this weekend, about the difference between choking and 'the yips' in sport, and the more general malaise from which they stem: 'not having your mind right'.

The book seems to be a collection of his blog posts, which have now been removed prior to publication of the book but a quick search threw up a longer version which attempts to describe the differences and what Habitualists perceive as requisite for high performance (habit more than reflection), and what Intellectualists perceive as requisite (the opposite): they're both right and both wrong according to Papineau.

Its an interesting read, and there seems to be quite a lot of material of this sort (the second link is to a more scholarly article and video discussing a third 'ism', and how top performers 'control their attention'). I'll have to reread it but I'm sure Bassham's Winning In Mind expounds similar ideas in practical terms.

Choking and the Yips (David Papineau)

Do We Reflect While Performing Skilful actions (Juan Pablo Berm?dez)
 

jerryRTD

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Habit vs Intelect

Habit is the base on which the intellect builds. We do some thing basically the same way, but modified to account for the inevitable variations imposed by factors outside our control and past experience.
 
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geoffretired

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I have tried to read both articles. I must admit to not having sufficient language skills to fully understand some of the paragraphs. I can't hold many of the ideas put forward either, due to my struggling with the content.
What I Did understand, was many of the examples written about the various problems suffered by various sportsmen women.
It seems to me that an abridged version with archery related examples, could be a very helpful read.
I would do the work if I understood more of the content,but as it stands, I would make too many mistakes.
 

Corax67

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Thanks for the links Geoff - will catch up on them over the weekend when I get some 'quiet time'. It's interesting that development of mindset is universal not just amongst sportsmen & women who wish to attain the highest levels of performance but also the highest echelons of academic and artistic fields too.

I highly recommend reading "Bounce" by Matthew Syed, a very well written book that dispels the myth of innate talent and attributes success to targeted practice - the 10,000 hours principle. There is a great great pr?cis by Matthew himself on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/IYs1I4OntAA

Now I just need to squeeze in 10,000 hours of targeted practice and Beijing here I come :)



Karl
 

geoffretired

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I remember a targeted practice work. It made sense. It must have been written in words that anyone could understand.I feel that targeted practice is the way to go. First ,we have to find out what to practice, then find out how. Eventually, we need to be able to judge whether or not our action was the right one.Often, works of interest to me lock me out by using too many words that I don't understand.
 
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