I went for a little run this afternoon which took me past the club and the waters I spent literally thousands of hours training on. It made me think about what I thought about at the start of a training session - and a lot of the time that was how my body felt and how ready I was for the session.

I’d do a quick scan inside my body and some days I’d really feel like an athlete and the skills would come so easily. On other days I might have been fatigued from other training and things just didn’t feel right. At those times, it became important to do what I’d call a feel warm-up. This would involve going back to the basics and opening my mind up to the full set of sensations inside and outside my body. I’d feel the boat and my body as intensely as possible and after a few minutes I’d start to get the sensations I was looking for.

I got the idea from Ric Charlesworth, Aussie hockey coach (gold in ‘96 and ‘00 Olympics). He gave his players a focused hitting drill at the start of training sessions to check on their (you guessed it) focus.

Players got in pairs and started hitting the ball firmly back and forth to each other over a small distance. Ric could tell how focused they were by how close to the other player’s feet the ball ended up. The players would then move further apart, still aiming the ball between the other player’s feet.

It’s a relatively boring and simple exercise for elite hockey players. But its purpose isn’t to practice hitting, it’s to warm up the mind for hockey and encourage the perfect execution of skills.

And if practice starts perfectly it can be easier to maintain that focus throughout.

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