November 04, 2021 | Tagged Skills,
5 ways to improve your composure on the basketball court
Here are 5 ways to improve your composure on the basketball court. NBC Basketball Camps at Whitworth All-Star Game showing College Prep Camp boys competing.
Composure is defined as calm under pressure, self-command, poise, self-control, imperturbability
Composure on the basketball court is crucial to your success as a player. Just look this quote from a Division 1 basketball coach,“It's hard to even talk about. We allowed ourselves to lose our composure and not execute. We just fell apart. They started to press and we lost our minds.”
Losing composure is synonymous to losing control, perspective, or confidence. Composure shares the same root as the word compound which means to hold together. Losing composure means to fall apart.
Keeping composure, on the other hand, is to hold confidence or self-command in place when the situation becomes very challenging. Composure can become the difference between pulling out an impossible win or getting blown out at the end of a game. Building a lifestyle of composure requires intentional planning and goals for execution.
5 Keys to Improving your Composure
1. Learn from the past. Think of a time when you lost composure. When you get in a tough spot, how do you respond? Do you shut down or do you freak out? Do you lose your temper, or do you lose your confidence? Notice your patterns and start to put some practical plans in place to help hold you together when you want to break apart.
2. Beware of anger and flooding. Flooding is when your decision-making skills become impaired, and you are in fight or flight reaction mode. When you start making the game too personal, your mind can begin to flood. Comments like, "She elbowed me on purpose", or "That ref is intentionally calling the game against us" elevate anger and cause you to lose control. Keep the game from getting personal, eliminate any judgmental assessments of motives of the other team or the refs. Stay focused on your goals and your game.
3. Regroup. When you make a mistake, protect your mind from any cascading negative thinking. Repeat a mental mantra to yourself such as "Perfectionism is the enemy of the good." Focus on your breathing, spotlight a teammate shake it off, and don't think about the mistake again until you are in a space to process and learn.
4. Get the critic off your shoulder. All of us have a shoulder critic who distracts us from what we are doing. The critic whispers to us, "What will the coach think" then our eyes go to the coach instead of to the next play. The critic pops up when we are shooting a free throw and warns us "Better not miss, your team will be so disappointed." You eliminate the shoulder critic when you intensely focus on the task at hand. Narrow your circle of attention away from the coach, the crowd, specific people in the crowd, and keep your focus tight. When the critic is gone, start widening your center of attention so that you can include the coach again. Your coach needs to be able to communicate with you. You can tell if someone is under the spell of the shoulder critic because their eyes are more on your coach than in the game.
5. Composure when it counts. One of the main reasons people can maintain composure during stressful events is because they have rehearsed what to do ahead of time. Teams that practice "decisive moments" scenarios during the season will be much more composed when faced with an actual game situation. The more you practice composure, the more composure you will have.
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