This is part 2 of our look at Inside Youth Sports post at the importance of players keeping their heads up, especially important when involved in team sports. We hope you find it informative and don’t forget to watch out for more in the coming days.
Developing Your “Head Update” Ability
How do you develop this ability? Even without watching a moving object, your mind has an amazing capacity to know where the object will be. Absent visual information, your mind turns to other senses. A kinesthetic sense of body position and visuospatial perception of spatial relationships take over. They create within your mind’s eye an awareness of an object’s location in time and space. Using these senses, your mind can accurately predict where an object is and where it will be.
Although the ability to use these senses is challenging at first, you can develop it over time. You just need to repetitively practice your skills, reducing visual input as you become more proficient. Initially, try to use your peripheral vision instead of looking directly at the object you are controlling. Then extend the time you perform the skill with your head up and vision focused elsewhere, for example – while dribbling a ball, talk to someone and look directly at their face.
Next time we will look at what Inside Youth Sports had to say about players keeping their heads up to pre-empt defensive pressure & to maximise scoring opportunities.
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