This past week I attended a competitive camp for volleyball. There were so many great things I learned about being a good competitor. Here are a few of the things I learned:
- The Four Intangibles of a Good Competitor: Confidence, Competitiveness, Commitment, and Character. Confidence means you believe in your skills and know you are a good athlete. Competitiveness is the ability to fight (with character) and want to win and succeed. Commitment is being dedicated to the sport and taking the time to play. Character is your integrity, kindness, respect, self-control, etc. on the court. These are really important and I know I need to work on my competitiveness and when I become stronger with that I will become a better competitor.
- Play smart and aggressive. Schwarzinstein! (Albert Einstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger). You have to be able to play smart and have a purpose with each decision and shot, like Albert Einstein. You also have to be able to play aggressive and want the ball and hit it hard, like the terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you play just smart or just aggressive you won’t be as successful, you have to be smart and aggressive.
- Competitiveness Like a Missile Strike: Purposeful, Powerful, Planned, Precise, and Persistent. When you compete you have to have a plan for each player and team you play. You need to have everyone on the team in with the plan and you have to execute it and finish it. Last club season, if I had used this strategy, my team could have beat teams that we didn’t. If we had focused on a mission or a battle plan, and had scouted the other teams, we could have done better. I really hope I can use this, this season and become more competitive.
- The Eleven Obstacles that Inhibit Competitiveness were also really interesting to learn about. These include: lack of confidence, lack of commitment/interest, lack of focus/purpose, lack of pride, lack of competitive role models, accepting losing, haven’t fully recovered from an injury, seniority rules, being threatened by the alpha on the team, passive personality, and not being socially accepted to compete. When I ranked them for myself I realized what I could work on to make me a stronger competitor. I plan to correct my weaknesses quickly so they become less of a problem.
Overall, it was a very interesting camp and a great learning experience. Even though I couldn’t play, I took in a lot mentally. A lot of this information was taken from How to Develop Relentless Competitors by Jeff Janssen. It’s a great book and it has a lot of great tips and ideas that you can take with you and use in your game. 