It was fascinating to hear Steve Davis give his post-match analysis today after a magnificent, highly improbable victory over John Higgins in the World Championship. Davis has won that tournament six times, of course, but the last one was in 1989. Now 52, he still plays a decent game but isn't anything as formidable as he was. Higgins is the strongest player in the world right now. So this is a big deal.
In his interview Davis said that his game had improved recently because he'd concentrated on something very basic in his technique: keeping his head still. All young snooker players are told to keep their head still when making a shot, because when you move your head, you move your spine, and thus your whole posture which disrupts your cue action. Experienced players usually do this automatically, but Davis said a friend had texted him after watching him on TV to warn that he'd developed a bad habit of moving his head on a shot. So during the tournament, and in this match in particular, Davis kept focused on this very basic point of technique, rather than all the other tiny things that affect a cue action. It was his "one thought" on each of the key shots he had to make to beat the world's number one.
What's interesting is that I suspect this worked so well for Davis not just because it kept his head still - but because it kept him focused, blocking out all the other uncertainties that can creep into a player's head on big shots. In games like golf and snooker, players can carry on playing at a high level for years after their peak has passed, but they rarely get back to it. Partly this is down to physical ageing - even these relatively sedentary games require a degree of physical stamina and suppleness that is difficult to maintain. But the biggest deterioration is psychological; they lose that extraordinary mental strength, the ability to focus under pressure, that champions possess.
When I heard Davis say that I thought about a Jonah Lehrer piece on what happens when sportspeople "choke" at big moments. The problem is, they think too much:
Beilock's data further demonstrate the benefits of relying on the automatic brain when playing a familiar sport. She found that when experienced golfers are forced to think about their putts, they hit significantly worse shots. All those conscious thoughts erase their years of practice. "We bring expert golfers into our lab, we tell them to pay attention to a particular part of their swing, and they just screw up," Beilock says. "When you are at a high level, your skills become somewhat automated. You don't need to pay attention to every step in what you're doing." This is what happens when people "choke". The part of their brain that monitors their behaviour starts to interfere with actions that are normally made without thinking. Performers begin second guessing skills that they have honed through years of practice.
The best athletes deal with this by fixating on "banalities and cliches" at key moments: deliberately vapid phrases like "stay strong" or "never give up" that crowd out dozens of other niggling thoughts. Steve Davis chose to focus on a physical action, but one that was simple and basic enough not to undermine his focus on the shot. That must have helped to exclude all those other thoughts hammering at the door - like, "I'm too old for this shit" - from getting in and unsettling him.
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