Using cue words helps you to deepen your concentration, narrow your focus, and overcome the difficult circumstances you will face in the heat of battle. As a mental performance and sports psychology coach, I vouch for that.
Many times, I experienced that I could come back from 0:2 during my matches in my lifelong table tennis career by encouraging myself and not giving up.
Even if I was down, I began to tell myself, “that’s OK” and “no worries, just go for your shots” to try to compose myself and relax. Being so far down in the match, I knew that if I allowed myself to get dejected that I would have no chance of turning things around. One of the table tennis lessons is to remain relaxed. It helped me hit better shots. Then I became more specific and began saying things like, “spin the ball” and “be aggressive.” This enabled me to increase the level of my play. By being more assertive, I eventually brought many matches back to even, at a score of 2:2.
Using these cue words helped me change my game. At that pivotal moment, being down 2 games, I tried to forget the score. I just concentrated on what I wanted to have happened and on what I have to change in my current game. I created cue words (“go for my shots” and “spin”) which helped me to narrow my focus and release my tension. As a result, I got much more confident, and this was the catalyst for a great comeback. So, mental performance is very crucial in the game.
If you are struggling, I advise you to create a cue word that is an instructional word (it can be anything) that focuses on what you want to execute in your current game right now. It helps you to narrow your concentration and forget the score. Rather than worrying about the score, focus on what you want from your game in the present. Create a cue word that helps remind you what you want, and just repeat it to yourself. For example, “be more aggressive,” “just go for my shots,” “take your time,” “loop,” “loop in the middle,” “move my feet,” etc…
Good luck!
If you want to improve your mental game, reach out to me for mental skills coaching at dora@dorakurimay.com and check out my books and video products here 🙂 Books and Video Products