Mental vs. Physical

A lot of people don't know the difference between a mental and a physical mistake in athletics. When you get to a certain point in your career, you can't have mental errors anymore, that's why it's important you know the difference. A physical mistake is when it's something out of your control like a softball popping out of your glove, or a missed dig in volleyball. A mental mistake is when a second baseman doesn't make it to first on a bunt, or a middle back doesn't make it to the line on an outside attack (rotation defense). Mental mistakes are the mistakes that are made because you weren't thinking.

It is very important that there are NEVER any mental mistakes if you want to be a competitive team. This weekend at my softball tournament, we had a rough time with these. We lost to a team that we should have crushed because of mental mistakes. Our catcher wasn't talking to the cutoffs, the second baseman didn't make it to first in a bunt, corners didn't come up when someone was bunting. These things can't happen if you want to win. Especially in softball. "Softball is a game of inches"

It's also really important that you have no mental mistakes in volleyball either, because volleyball is a really mental game. You have to be in the right spot every moment in order to keep the ball alive, and then your back row has to talk to the hitters about where to hit, and the block has to talk about getting closed, and it's just a whole jumble of stuff to remember. The really good teams make sure they have no mental mistakes, which in turn reduces the amount of physical mistakes. That is the point you want to be at eventually in your athletic career. 

Hopefully this post has enlightened you on the difference between physical and mental mistakes. It is very important to know the difference if you ever want to be stellar at what you do. At the high school age, it is safe to say that if you are any good at what you do, you will probably never make a mental mistake in your entire season. Or maybe just oneental mistake. If you're making ten or more, it's time to figure out something else to do because no one is going to want you on their team if you can't be mentally strong. Sorry to be blunt!

 

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