Where did the confidence go?

We have just finished our first semester of our season. Presently we sit 3rd in Canada West at a 9-3 record.  This is one of the best records we have had at this point in a long time.  We had reached as high as #2 ranked team in Canada.

This year’s version of the Lady Cats is one full of passion and commitment; it is fun to go to work every day.  The athletes and coaches are all working at pushing themselves to new levels of skill and knowledge. What more can a coach ask for.

In our last match of the first semester we played an extremely scrappy team in U of Sask Huskies.  They are an unranked team that really makes you earn ever point.  Friday night we were able to sneak out with a 4 set victory and felt pretty good about how we played.  On Saturday for some reason things changed.  The Huskies came out serving and defending extremely well.  The match felt as if we were on our heels all night.  This year, the team has been able to overcome adversity and come from behind to win matches like this. Instead of making the big confident plays we found ourselves making  lots uncharacteristic unforced errors the more the match progressed. A good example of this was the second set we were up 24-19 and couldn't side out. Losing the set 26-24. This is the first time all year we haven't been able to close out a set we were up. We ended up 2 sets to 1 and then confidence disappeared again. In discussions with our players they felt that their routine was good after they committed an error, but struggled to regain focus after their teammates made a couple errors in a row.

After the match during our team debriefs one of the athletes stated "it felt like we were always chasing the ball, when we played the other matches we were ahead of the game." That is some great insight. We constantly talk about remaining in the moment.  When an athlete or a group of athlete are fixated on the last error, the last play they find themselves reacting to the next.  It is human nature to question and to focus on the error but in this moment it helps no one.

The question now was after the loss do we get right back in the gym and continue to work or do we take the couple days offs we traditionally take at this time of year. Both had valid reasons.  If we get back in the gym we have a chance to show our commitment to each other.  We have a chance to talk directly about the mental side of the game and create situations where they need to be aware of the next play.  In contrast this is a crazy time and with no bye weekends the team has been going for 10 weekends straight, they have major final projects, final exams and look tired. We need to build back up our confidence.

Building confidence in a player is difficult. Wayne Goldsmith, the author of Coaching Brain Blog, states that Confidence = Self Belief X Evidence. The whole blog can be read here http://www.sportscoachingbrain.com/coaching-self-confidence/

Self belief we can't control, but evidence we can. Wayne Goldsmith says of course evidence occurs when you're winning.  It is easy to see and understand that. But when winning doesn't occurs evidence must be found. Evidence is what the athlete does on a daily basis. What are the situations that athletes are put in? What are the standards the athletes are held too?  We have been discussing as a team how we feel our fitness will come into play late in the second semester and into the playoffs.  Instead of practicing on Monday and Tuesday we decided to have team workouts weights or circuit training.  This way the athletes can see each others commitment directly in this situation.  They can see how hard each of them tries in the circuit. If they see a player giving their all it is hard to go half speed beside her.  This is a great way to build back our belief in each other’s commitment.

Athletes can also contribute to the evidence by helping each other out. They need to be engaged in each other’s success. This is easy when things are going well. It is when things are difficult that the positive words and pats on the back are most in need.  This is something we have to keep working at and pointing out every day.