Tournament 4 - Lesson 1 - It's a personal mind game

This weekend I had the opportunity to play with Goat at Flower Bowl. We had a good weekend with great battles in three games - two against Furious George (they gracefully joined up to make it worth our plane tickets out to the west) and one against Invictus.

The first lesson, which is more of a personal lesson for me, but every player needs to learn is: you need confidence and belief that you can play and beat anyone and you can be build this mental image by taking every little success and putting it into your pool. You'll be matched up with a big name player or team at one point or another - take that moment, play in that moment like it's no different than any other game, and then notice what you did well.

Sure they might get off that huck or make a sick layout grab. Sure the crowd is going to ooh and aah when the opponent does amazing things at your expense. However, remember that you covered that dump cut well or you had a mark that prevented a huck. Remember how your efforts on the sideline helped out your teammate get a big D or how you didn't throw the disc away from an incredibly tight mark. Something good will happen and something bad will happen. Learn from both and add the good ones to your pool of successes. Next time you can remember your success and have the confidence to string more successes together. The same thing applies to a team.

Sounds goofy, but unless you are naturally mentally you'll need to train your mind to play at the next level.

PJ