Re: RPI Hockey 2012-2013 Part IV: Not A Finished Product Yet
It was fun this morning to go to the ECAC website and see "Rensselaer" in second place. No, I'm not looking ahead nor anticipating anything, I'm merely savoring the present moment as it stands in and of itself.
I'd been away a few days and it was interesting to scroll through several pages of discussion about whether it was better to learn from mistakes or to focus on the future. Reminded me of my parents once, in which my mother wanted to paint the dining room white while my father wanted to paint the living room yellow!
When you are on the ice you certainly have to focus exclusively and intently on what is right in front of you, and during those portions of practice you sustain that same laser-like focus on the here and now as well. At this time of the year the skills required are as much or more mental discipline as they are physical and interpersonal (every team i've been on, players had little signals to each other on when to run a play during the flow of action; in volleyball I might say something to the setter, in soccer my teammate might use one of three or four pre-arranged hand signals, etc.). No one can dispute that.
One also must consider that a portion of practice is devoted to strategy too (strategy = big picture, tactics = nitty-gritty). when you review strategy, then you have to look at behaviors and situations in which players did well, so that they can observe and discuss to learn how to do more of it. You also look at behaviors and situations in which you did poorly, so that you can avoid it. If a blown play here and there costs two or three points, and those two or three points leave us at 18th in Pairwise at the end of the year instead of 15th, then that definitely should be noted and emphasized, the better to intensify the desire to focus on the here and now going forward. No one can dispute that either. While it is old-fashioned to say so, one way to use pain in a healthy way is to learn from it and avoid behaving in a way that results in pain in the future. Some New Age types might dispute this, and that's fine, go ahead. We can agree to disagree.
