Start by reading this article about how to avoid choking under pressure:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-avoid-choking-under-pressure

One of the aspects of doing well under pressure is to practice in pressure situations. In particular, setting up fake high pressure situations so that when the real event occurs, everyone both can handle it and knows he can handle it.

One way to create high pressure situations at practice is to ask the team to focus and play hard. This can work well if everyone is sufficiently motivated, but doesn't work as well as the practice wears on or even through out the season. Putting aside internal motivation (which should be an incredibly high motivator), how else can high pressure situations be created during practices? How can we simulate the pressure from Nationals without playing against another team from Nationals who is just as fired up as we are?

Well, how about keeping statistics and reward those statistics?

A college that had a dominant women's soccer team would track all its players' speed by running sprints at the end of each practice. Every one lined up on one line according to speed, the fastest on one end, the slowest on the other. At the end of each sprint, the order would adjust, with the faster person still at the one end, but the middle runners adjusted according to who crossed the line first. This particular way of running sprints made it easy to see who was faster and slower, as each person was next to others who were close in speed to her. At the end of all of the sprints, the order would be recorded and posted.

The result of the sprints tracking was that the slowest person was incredibly motivated to become faster. The article I read went on to point out that the slowest freshman one year became the fastest sprinter by her senior year, because of the motivation from the sprints.

We could have a similar setup at practice for sprints, sure. It would help motivate those in the middle, and keep those at the fast end honest in moving!

Speed is only one aspect of the game, however. Scrimmages at practice could also be tracked, as the teams are fairly stable after they're declared at practice (and fairly stable through the season as offense teams and defense teams are selected). At the end of practice, keep the team divisions, but make a note of which team won how many scrimmages, maybe even how many points. Keep track of those values and rank the players on how they did, either by points or by scrimmages won.

I don't know that I'd recommend keeping stats on scrimmages the way that game stats are kept at tournaments. That requires a lot more commitment from a non-player.

The trick in tracking statistics, however, is to make sure every player continues to grow and expand upon his skill set. If you're tracking how many turnovers a player made at practice, she's going to stop trying to throw those throws that are *just* beyond her reach. Yet, practice is when you want her trying those throws so that she *can* make them in a game: you want growth at practice, not withdrawal.

Possibly having a non-tracked practice for people to try new positions and throws could also be beneficial.

For this reason, I would strongly argue against tracking "how many turnovers I had at practice." The skills and drills parts of practices don't lend themselves particularly well to statistics, and are opportunities for growth that shouldn't be wasted.

Of course, the true source of pressure in sports comes from actual competition. Heading out to a tournament and experiencing the pressure is a better source than the artificial pressure of tracking scrimmage stats. Just make sure the tournament's level is high enough, and that the team learns at the event, as even a loss is a chance to learn.

Hey, Jenny's birthday!

The Master Gardeners classes are held in a county building (which makes sense, since it's a county program). The county building houses a large number of county offices, so the visitors at the building are interesting and varied. In the bathroom today, as I was doing my business, another woman started talking to a woman standing by the sink.

"So, you know," (I'm not sure the woman at the sink actually did know) "for that college class, we have to write a letter to our teacher introducing ourself."

"Mmmmmmmm," the woman at the sink indicated she was listening.

"I wrote her 20 texts for mine."

"20 texts?"

"Yeah, well, it was 10 texts from me, but she replied, so it was like twenty," was the answer.

The 20 texts woman then went on to complain for a few minutes about how the teacher didn't respond well to her completing her assignment via text messages instead of writing a letter, and how unfair it was that she had to write a letter, even though she had introduced herself to the teacher.

I couldn't help but think, gee, I'd give you bonus points for originality and creativity on your solution to the assignment, then fail you for not completing the actual assignment. Ever think that maybe, just maybe, learning to think in a format longer than 4 words would be a GOOD thing?

Last month, I convinced Kris that he didn't hate brussel sprouts. We had been receiving them with our weekly box of organic vegetables, so I figured I'd better figure out how to fix them so that both of us like them.

I pulled out my newly purchased "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" cookbook, and flipped through to the brussel sprouts section. There were several recipes. I chose the "braise and glaze" one, because anything completely covered in butter is inherently delicious. I've since adjusted the recipe, using vegetable stock and white wine to do the glazing, but the brussel sprouts were still delicious even without the full fat flavoring.

We've made the recipe numerous times, and have enjoyed the sprouts each time.

Since we have been enjoying them so much, I put a large number of them in my Whole Foods lunch box today. I had seen two varieties at the end of the hot-food bar at the nearby Whole Foods, and was quite excited to try them.

I could not have been more wrong.

The brussels sprouts were so uncooked they were closer to raw than cooked. They crunched when I bit down instead of melting the way the braised and glazed sprouts do. Worse, they were so overwhelmingly garlicky I thought I might have been eating a clove of garlic.

I didn't manage to eat them all, though I tried.

From now on, I think I'll be wary of any stranger brussel sprouts.

This morning's velocity was brought to us sideways by the number 2.

We had two rounds of:

20 side wall ball slams, each side
2 50m sprints
20 side box jumps
2 50m sprints
20 side lunges
2 50m sprints
20 barbell side bends
2 50m sprints

The wall ball slams were pretty standard, done by standing perpendicular to the wall (left shoulder close to the wall, right shoulder farthest away from the wall) about a foot away, heaving the ball from the outside hip to the wall as hard as possible for 20 bounces, then turning around to heave the opposite direction.

The box jumps were also done sideways, jumping onto the box sideways.

The side lunges were a heck of a lot easier to the right than to the left. Yay ultimate. I did have to work on my form, not really keeping my butt out and my knee aligned correctly over my ankle. The second round I wasn't able to drop down low enough, having to focus on that, too.

The barbell sidebeds were done with an empty barbell across the shoulders, along the back of the neck, shifted over so that I was holding the edge of the bar, the bulk of the bar hanging out to one side. The bends were done so that the end of the bar hanging out to the side touched the ground. Oh, to be shorter and able to touch more easily! I found this exercise difficult.

When I ran my sprints, my first few were strong. During the second round, however, my first two sets of sprints were sprint down, hunch over so as not to puke, stand up, sprint back. I noticed, however, when stepping over on my side lunges, Kris was sprinting down, planting, turning, and sprinting back. He didn't stop after 50m, he ran the full 100m in one burst.

Aha. Yes, that was how I wanted to run these sprints, which is how I ran the last two sets of sprints. Unfortunately, this didn't cure my urge to puke.

I need to sprint more.

Clearly.

"Do you think you can get two weeks with that table clear?"

I have a habit of dumping my stuff on the dining area table when I arrive home in the evening. I dump the mail on the table. I unload my bag on the table, and start working at the table.

This unfortuate habit means that the table is rarely available for actual dining. When we're having guests, I'll take all of the stuff off the table, dump it into a box, put the bx in the office, and hope that I remember to clean out the box before the bills invaribably continued in teh box are actually due.

i'm not always successful with this mode of operation.

I think that Kris recently became annoyed at the requirement of eating in front of the television, when he asked me if he thought I could go two weeks with teh horizontal space not completley filled with crap.

Two weeks. Good lord, how hard could that be? Keeping a horizontal space clear? Easy!

And I can run a 6:00 mile, too.

I asked for a few guidelines, including if I can actually use the table for working. Yes, I could use the table, I just had to clean up from using the table afer I was done. Nothing was allowed to just sit at hte table if I wasn't there with the stuff.

So, today is actually day three of fourteen. Saturday and Sunday were fairly easy, since I was in the office working. I think that most days are going to be easy, as long as I stay away from the area, working in the office.

The office. Now THERE'S a big horizontal space that needs cleaning.