Eye On The Ball
Eye On The BallThis was so obvious and simple, I just couldn't help myself. Also, it seemed like the perfect generative pattern. Please forgive me.
Related Info: BodyFollowsEyes, HandsInView
PROBLEM: You're striking out, booting grounders, dropping pegs, and risking death from fly balls.
CONTEXT: Baseball, softball, tennis, golf, or any other ball sport
FORCES:
RESULTING CONTEXT: By focusing completely on the ball, everything will fall into place. Your bat is now an extension of your arms and is guided by the wire of your gaze to the ball. Grounders no longer seem to erratically skip and leap into your face or your groin, but rather you move with them, and your glove is one with whatever your eye can follow. Hard throws from teammates, fly balls, all are reduced to the concentration of simply watching the ball and letting your body react without the conscious interference of your mind.
RATIONALE: The key to this, of course, is to have practiced the fundamentals of baseball (hitting, fielding, throwing) so much that they no longer require conscious thought. But when even the best players start slumping and committing errors, it may come down to this simple dictum, "Keep your eye on the ball." The real idea, of course, is not to keep your eye on the ball, but to keep your head out of the game, so that practice and reflexes can work their magic through your body on the field. It also means to keep your eye on the ball all the way into your glove, or against your bat, or into the catcher's mitt on that third strike that you've thrown when it mattered most.
For those of us who are hackers in the world of sport, this dictum is best at reducing the fear that accompanies competition. Start thinking about the ball being hit to you and damned if you won't drop it, just like you feared. Embarrassment is the great fear, after all, but it requires a "higher" consciousness to experience, so reduce your consciousness to only the predatory focus on that orb, ready to pounce, eviscerate, and devour.
Does this relate to software? I think so. In order to be creative, to find that "right" solution, quite often one must get one's head out of the game, and remember that experience has encoded all the knowledge one needs in one's brain. The problem is, on what does one focus? Any suggestions? I tend to go walking or fishing or take a shower or just sit quietly letting my mind wander anywhere it chooses. This is the part that's got me stumped. Maybe there isn't any relationship to software. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh! Help!
Oh, and don't bring up the problem of hitting the curve ball.
AUTHOR: DonOlson 96/11/22
SOURCE: Every coach on the face of the earth
"Fear of striking out" can indeed be a major problem when developing software under aggressive (or just plain nutty) time constraints. I like the pattern, though I think practice is rightly a part of the Solution.
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