【Recommendation】《Methods for Improving the Psychological Quality of Snooker Competition》

The author of this article, Lin Wei, received a bachelor's degree from Ocean University of China in 1986, and later studied at Oregon State University in the United States with a master's degree in ecology, during which he took an elective in sports psychology. As a snooker fan, Lin Wei noticed that many players had room for improvement in their psychology during the viewing process, so he wrote the following content... The content in this issue is not only for professional snooker players, but also for ordinary enthusiasts.

"Methods for Improving the Psychological Quality of Snooker Competition"

—— Author: Lin Wei

In the past ten years, China's snooker movement has made great progress, and the achievements achieved are obvious to all. However, there are still many gaps between our players and the top players. In fact, it is not difficult to find that the problems existing in Chinese players have certain commonalities. Our team is relatively young, and the lack of experience in the competition is a major reason, and the gap between the psychological qualities shown by many players and the top players in Western snooker during the game is still relatively obvious.

The "heart" in "psychological quality" refers to the brain, and the "reason" refers to the intellect and character expressed by the brain. Therefore, "psychological quality", that is, the intellectual and personality ability of the brain, including cognitive ability, psychological adaptability and internal motivation, is an external manifestation of the core functions of the body. The article mainly discusses the psychological quality displayed by the players during the snooker game, that is, the "psychological quality of the snooker competition", which is referred to as the "psychological quality".

Psychological quality problems are not health problems, let alone mental illnesses, but only the performance of mental activities (tension, anxiety, etc.) in a certain environment (snooker matches) that are intermittently manifested is not conducive to the execution of specific behaviors (muscle movements and cognition of the game) of the subject. This article introduces the external intervention to alleviate the adverse impact of psychological quality problems on the competition, as well as the means of self-training to improve the psychological quality of players, thereby improving the ability to compete.

First, the influence of psychological quality on snooker competition

Snooker is generally considered to be a sport, in fact, snooker's physical requirements are not high, and the ability to control the strength and direction of muscle contraction is very demanding, it pursues the brain-nerve-muscle system of extremely delicate cooperation, and any mental activity will affect the perfection of this cooperation. At the same time, it also requires considerable mental energy to interpret the ball posture in order to seek the best way to win, so snooker is more like a psychological competition, which is a process of competing psychological quality and intelligence, mainly reflecting the following four aspects:

1. The impact on muscle movement

The size and direction of muscle motor force are realized by the stimulation of electrochemical signals transmitted by motor nerves, and the signals transmitted by motor nerves are sent by the "instructions" of the cerebral cortex through the central nervous system. External factors induced tension, excitement, frustration, anger, impatience and other emotions can affect the central nervous system function of the brain, resulting in a deviation between terminal muscle movement and brain expectations. This is in line with the "Choking" effect mentioned in sports psychology that results under the pressure of competition. Simply put, some of the mental activity brought about by the competition will cause the brain's control over the muscles to decrease, that is, the muscles will not listen to the brain. Reflected on the table is that the shot is inaccurate, or the strength is not good, both offensively and defensively will be greatly out of standard.

2. The impact on the use of tactics

In addition to accuracy and movement techniques, the most reasonable tactics should be used to achieve the maximum probability of victory. This requires a player to be keenly aware and quickly capture the best tactics. The generation of stress or emotions may cause the brain to be stagnant in thinking and the ability to analyze and judge, which is also described by psychology as a decline in the "cognitive" ability to compete caused by mental activity during competition. For example, the player complained: "As soon as the game comes, people are confused, not only can't the ball go in, but they don't even know how to play...". In the translation of sports psychology, "the stress or emotion of competition not only has an effect on muscle movement, but also weakens the ability to interpret and recognize competition." Therefore, psychological quality also has a great influence on tactical choices. Sometimes seeing a player's incomprehensible operation in a game is actually nervousness that makes the player stupid.

Completely different from training, psychological quality plays an important role when playing. The so-called physical decline in the game is actually not back pain and muscle fatigue, but insufficient energy (psychological endurance level), resulting in a decline in the fineness of muscle movement, a decline in tactical analysis and application ability. The best players who have dominated the TOP10 for a long time are each a god with balanced offensive and defensive capabilities, strong timing of attack and defense selection, and proper use of tactics, showing good psychological quality. Many of the players who lag behind in the ranking are due to weak psychological quality, insufficient ability to interpret the game, and the tactical effects used are often not ideal.

3. The impact on concentration

The results of snooker professional matches are directly reflected in economic benefits and points, and also involve the continuation of professional qualifications, so the mental pressure on players in the game is relatively large, which is also the characteristic of competitive sports. Under the influence of continuous mental stress, players are prone to anxiety and impatience. According to the "attention control theory" of sports psychology, stress and anxiety will cause the brain's goal-oriented attention system to be affected, and the stimulation-driven attention system makes athletes more sensitive to external stimuli on the playing field, and it is easier to be disturbed by irrelevant information, making the concentration of the game decrease. The snooker competition requires too much concentration, every time the shot is shot, the brain should focus on the three aspects of direction, strength and batting point, once the concentration decreases, the quality of the shot is significantly reduced. Players with good psychological quality have strong stress resistance and emotional stability, so the concentration of the game process will be better. It is often said that players should relax their mentality, do not think about this and that, in order to reduce the pressure on the players and improve concentration.

4. Influence on competition ability

The snooker player's ability to compete can be visually expressed with the following formula:

Competitive ability = Absolute technical × Psychological quality

Race Result = Ability to Compete × Luck Factor = Absolute Skill × Psychological Quality × Luck Factor

Absolute technology – the technical and tactical ability to manifest without the influence of psychological factors. For example, during training, friendly matches, etc. Absolute technology is actually the brain's memory of muscle movements, a biological information stored in the central nervous system, including the depth of understanding of offense and defense. Simply put, absolute technology is what people often call the level of training.

Luck factors - including your own competitive luck, your own competitive state (physiological) and the opponent's competitive state, such as if the opponent plays at an extra level, it means that your luck value of the ball is low. Unlike other sports, the luck factor in snooker competitions will play a relatively large role, which is also the charm of snooker sports.

Competition ability - Competition ability is the comprehensive embodiment of absolute technical and psychological qualities on the field. It can be described graphically by mathematical formulas as: the ability to compete is absolute skill multiplied by mental quality. The absolute skill of the player does not change on the field, so the ability to play actually depends on the psychological quality. Due to the pressure during the game, the ability to compete is generally lower than the training level, but the player with good psychological quality can exert the ability to play close to, reach, or even exceed the training level.

As can be seen above, the three elements of absolute skill, psychological quality and luck factors together affect the outcome of the game. At present, the most prominent problems of Chinese players in the competition include:

(1) The rate of hitting difficulty balls and hitting mistakes in "key periods" is high;

The error rate when hitting difficulty balls (medium and long billiard balls, bank side balls, etc.) is very high, and the appearance is that the attack is relatively sloppy and the basic skills are not solid enough. In fact, when the player decides to hit the difficulty ball, he underestimates the impact of mental activity on muscle movement during the competition, resulting in the ball that "thought he was wrapped up"; at the same time, the continuous psychological pressure will cause the player to be impatient and impulsive, and he wants to fight the opportunity, which is a common disease of many young players, once the mistake the opponent picks up the leak and wins easily!

The "critical period" refers to the end of the game and the final period when victory is within reach. At this time, the psychological pressure of the player is the greatest, the most nervous, often leads to the distortion of muscle movement when out of the shot, resulting in terrible ball deviation, including the basic ball can not score, serious defensive mistakes, etc., the mistakes at this time are the most fatal, directly strangling the victory that belongs to you! And the more important the game, the more it reaches the key innings in the later stages, and the players with slightly inferior psychological quality will suddenly increase their unnecessary mistakes and finally lose, which is heart-wrenching! Many Chinese players have experienced such bloody lessons. Therefore, in order to climb the top of snooker, you must have a strong psychological quality. Many players with technical talent are blocked out of the ranks of the best players by their own psychological qualities.

Western players also have the same problem, but because they are generally more relaxed than ours, especially those who have excellent results of the old players, have fame and fortune, coupled with the maturity of technology and years of experience precipitation, casting their strong psychological quality, even if they are behind in the score, they can often defeat and win in the "key period", which is the ultimate goal that Chinese players want to pursue.

(2) Poor interpretation of the ball shape and poor use of tactics during the game.

Impatience and impulsive mental activity during a match can affect a race IQ. Players are unable to calmly interpret the shape of the ball, find the best way to win, and often misuse tactics, which is the influence of psychological qualities mentioned in this chapter on tactical application.

(3) Weak defensive awareness and poor defensive skills;

Defensive problems are also closely related to psychological qualities. The meaning of snooker (obstacle) has already given defense a transcendent place in the sport. This issue will be explored later in the article.

The above three prominent problems are related to psychological quality. In addition to enhancing absolute technology, improving psychological quality or mitigating the adverse effects caused by it can effectively solve the above three most prominent problems. At the same time, it can also improve the appreciation of the game, fans can understand the loss of inferior skills, but it is difficult to accept the repeated low-level mistakes caused by psychological quality, especially the inexplicable mistakes of the most critical balls, the tragedy of self-destruction of the Great Wall.

Second, the psychological challenges of Chinese players

1. Culture shock

This stems from differences in geography, culture and language. Even after many years of playing in the UK, most Chinese players may not have a sense of integration, the strangeness and hidden pressure of a foreign country still linger, and there is a lack of psychological security (according to the humanistic theory of psychology, safety needs are the most important needs of human beings in addition to basic physiological needs, which is very important for mental health) - the feeling of safety and comfort around compatriots and relatives, and players are more likely to have nervousness and even inferiority psychologically. In particular, the atmosphere and unfamiliar language in the competition are more likely to bring too much tension and are not conducive to the play of the game. Although players from other countries also have these problems, they will bear much less culture shock, especially European and Australian players, although they come from different countries, but they are of the same race, similar culture, and even the same language. The culture shock suffered by Asian players is undoubtedly the greatest.

2. Away pressure

British players have a geographical advantage, people and advantages, and most of the time their luck will be better (it seems to be feng shui theory). The long-term away play of mainland players will add pressure that some opponents do not have, and this continuous pressure can easily lead to mood swings and a decline in attention. Hopefully, the domestic matches will be unfrozen soon, and our own players can also enjoy the luck of the home stadium!

3. Economic pressure

The UK is a high-welfare country, players do not have too much financial pressure, even if they lose professional qualifications, social welfare can ensure that they can still live freely. Chinese players, on the other hand, do not have preferential unemployment benefits. Investments in training since childhood, life in other places and investment in learning football are all looking forward to earning back in professional competitions. Therefore, the economic pressure of Chinese players is much greater, and it is inevitable to seek victory in the game, and they want to win and fear losing. It is particularly prone to nervousness and impatience, resulting in poor play at the level of competition.

4. National complex

Snooker is a project that the British have long been proud of, with a deep heritage. While it wants to promote it to the world, it is also unwilling to let foreign players overthrow their dominance. Subconsciously, they will be more serious about foreign wars, especially to suppress Chinese players, mainly because they vaguely feel that the pressure from the Chinese legion is increasing, and the smear of China by Western public opinion may also cause them to have prejudices against Chinese players and beat us more eagerly in the game. They are more focused on playing with us, and at the same time a certain psychological advantage is also conducive to their technical play, so that our players will feel that the game is very difficult.

5. Lack of self-confidence

British players of all ages are still active. British players still make up 77% of the total number of professional players and receive around 90% of the total prize money of all ranking matches in the 2020-2021 season. Until now, the World Championship trophy has not fallen to countries outside the Commonwealth, in fact, except for Robertson of Australia, who won once in 2010, the other 47 titles since 1974 have all fallen into the pocket of the British. There is no doubt that the Uk is still snooker's super-giant, and its dominance is difficult to shake. In this case, when Chinese players compete with them, especially when encountering TOP16 players, they are prone to a sense of fear psychologically, and there is a possibility of self-doubt and self-denial at the critical time, which will appear to be insufficient self-confidence, causing psychological fluctuations and affecting the ability to play.

6, Physiological weakness

Asian players are shorter in height on average, and they hit the ball more frequently using poles and one-legged platforms, and the batting stability is a little worse. In addition, Asian players will also be inferior in terms of muscle strength and explosiveness. When Asian players hit the ball, due to weak muscle strength, it is easier to cause out of the bar deformation, affecting accuracy. The decrease in accuracy when exerting force is more obvious, and the effect of violent low bar will be worse. Therefore, the necessary strength training should be increased, and at the same time, the game should be as clever as possible, and it is easy to hit the target ball with too much force, especially when the mistake in the K ball pile basically breaks the game. Mistakes caused by these physical weaknesses are also prone to psychological fluctuations.

Although the above psychological challenges faced by Chinese players are not directly related to the psychological activities during the competition period, they may subconsciously affect the psychological activities of the players' "original self" (Freud theory), unconsciously affect their self-confidence, and make the pressure felt during the game greater than that of local players. Therefore, Chinese players should pay more attention to how to alleviate the adverse impact of psychological quality problems on the competition.

Third, ways to improve psychological quality

This is the focus of this paper, and its theoretical basis is mainly the "Manual of Research on Sports and Exercise Psychology" (newly published in 2020, the first author Zhang Liwei, doctor of education and philosophy, professor of the School of Psychology of Beijing Sport University). The handbook is the result of a collaboration of 36 authors from 16 universities and scientific research institutions, published in 2020, with a strong cutting edge of the times.

The manual is theoretically based and does not target specific sports. Therefore, this paper refers to its research results, combines it with the particularity of snooker sports, and proposes some methods to improve the psychological quality of snooker competitions only for the psychological conditions that may occur in snooker matches. For systematic snooker sports psychology research, including training psychology, personality psychology, cognition and mental health, etc., it is a professional, rigorous project that requires experimental data support, and is not within the scope of this article.

Without the help of professionals, it is also possible to carry out self-improvement of psychological quality. The article first requires players to self-recognize, summarize the adverse psychological activities and results that occur during the game, and point out the direction for psychological quality exercise; secondly, guide players how to self-regulate when adverse psychological activities occur; finally, the article proposes how to avoid various external factors that trigger negative emotions, while improving psychological quality.

1. Self-awareness

To improve one's psychological qualities, one must first calmly dissect one's "self" and "superego" (Freud's theory of personality). That is, to ask yourself what you really want, what you are afraid of, what you will be nervous about, why you are impatient, etc., and re-examine your values. According to sports psychology, it is to dissect the internal and external motivations of one's own participation. For example, the competition is for physical health, for their own interests and talents to play, or to enjoy the atmosphere of the competition, etc., these are internal motivations, generally beneficial to the improvement of psychological quality; if the competition is to obtain honors, money, etc., this is an external motivation, generally not conducive to the improvement of psychological quality. Therefore, the basic principle is "suppressing the outside and promoting the inside" (which will be discussed in a later chapter).

After each game, regardless of winning or losing, do a post-match summary, in addition to the necessary technical and error summary to help future training, you also need to record the psychological experience of the game to understand how your psychological fluctuations affect the technical play, through many games to summarize how to cause technical disorders after their psychological instability, that is, self-psychological diagnosis, such as:

I will be very nervous when I meet a strong hand, and the technical play is easy to go awry;

When I meet the weak, I will be too relaxed, inadvertently lose some concentration, and the error rate will increase;

I was anxious when glued to the lead, hoping that I could open the gap, at this time, I was often not calm enough, risky and offensive, and made more mistakes;

Being won consecutively by the opponent, he was very depressed and eager to get started to win back the score;

Its purpose is to self-analyze the psychological activities and adverse effects of the competition, so as to avoid misinterpreting the self, causing illusions, and even mistakenly believing that losing is one's own bad luck, unstable technical performance, etc. The following is a corresponding means of self-control for the most common psychological fluctuations in the game.

2. Self-control

The most common emotions in the game include: excitement, nervousness, anger, anxiety, frustration, impatience, exhaustion, etc. Except for excitement, which can be considered neutral or benign (which may bring about the "Clutch" effect - extraordinary play), other emotions are basically negative emotions (can lead to the "Choking" effect - abnormal play), which is not conducive to the play of technology, and the following methods can be used for self-control:

(1) Equilibrium method

In the game, players most often have nervousness, anxiety, depression, impatience and other emotions, that is, the mentality fluctuates, which is very detrimental to play. The purpose of the balance method is to enlighten players not to fear the consequences of losing by associating some positive and optimistic pictures, nourish the player's "happiness" of this profession, thereby offsetting the impact of negative emotions, and the state of mind will also be clear from the clouds, so it is extremely important to be relaxed, which is the gap between us and the other party. The positive energy information available for this balancing act includes:

Snooker is a good fit for Asian players, and while we are slightly weaker in terms of stature and muscular strength, we have better sensitivity to our muscles and nerves, and we can do better in terms of strength control and home ball movement! Just like table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, shooting and other sports, it does not require absolute strength but requires muscle and nerve coordination and delicate operation. Our achievements in these projects are remarkable, and snooker is certainly no exception. At the same time, the sports IQ of East Asian peoples will be slightly higher than that of the Anthonys. Our positioning will be more delicate, and the tactical arrangement will be more reasonable and intelligent. That's enough to make up for our lack of muscle strength and stature. Pursuing a career in snooker is the right choice.

The snooker movement is more popular in China, with a good mass base and a large fan base. There are also far more people who like snooker and billiards than table tennis and badminton, which is why there are far more Chinese events than other non-British countries. And the prize money for Chinese events is very high. Once the Chinese tournament restarts, the ranking of Chinese players will certainly rise a lot, in short, after the epidemic, snooker sports have a bright future in China. Even China itself can organize professional leagues. Now that China's snooker is blessed, it is completely possible to put down the burden of the heart, light load, do not have to care too much about the victory or defeat of a game, more importantly, while continuously improving the absolute technology, assiduously honing the state of mind, strengthening the psychological quality, and laying a solid foundation for better development in the future.

The result of each competition is short-term financial gains and losses and ranking changes, but the experience and summary of the game are long-term and more important! Losing in a sense is sometimes more important than winning! Losing will make you heartbroken and reflect on the mistakes you made in the game, learn lessons, avoid making the same mistakes in the future, and at the same time temper your psychology. Snooker's professional life is relatively long, reflecting from losing, finding the direction of progress, and its harvest is even higher than the points and bonus gains of winnings. Winning is often easy to ignore the quality of the game, cover up the existing problems, and leave hidden dangers in the future.

(2) Implied law

Suggestibility is one of the most commonly used means of regulating mental activity. That is, to make the object believe in a "fact" (which may not be true), and the object to carry out a new psychological activity on the basis of believing in the "fact", greatly enhances the confidence, and thus obtains the success of the action, as the power of faith. For example, a scumbag who can't graduate from junior high school, after losing his memory for some reason, people tell him that he was once a bully, he finally believed this "fact", cheered up and resumed his studies, and was actually admitted to a prestigious university.

The psychological potential of human beings is very huge, and today's medical level, including the most emerging spiritual psychology, cannot explain the huge influence of mental activities on the behavior of subjects. Suggestion is generally a means used by psychological professionals to their objects, and players cannot "deceive" themselves by using suggestions against themselves, but they can use indisputable facts to stimulate self-confidence and produce psychological suggestions: "I will definitely win!" ”。 For example:

Hinting is used against high-ranking opponents: "Although you are strong, I am not weak!" You've also lost many times to opponents much lower than you ranked, and I have the same chance! I just have no problem playing well myself and beating you! I've beaten ranking opponents like you many times, and I can win you today..."

The hint is used in a situation where you are behind: "You are just lucky to be a temporary lead, as long as you haven't won yet, I have a chance!" A lot of games I give my opponents a few whips in a backward situation, and this time I will definitely win. ”

In layman's terms, the method of suggestion is to review one's past glory and experience of overcoming difficulties in difficult times, stimulate morale, and improve self-confidence. Players' self-confidence is inherently derived from past successes that affirm their abilities, and if players lose self-confidence, relive past successes to regain their confidence. In many cases, our technical and tactical performance exceeded that of our strong opponents and also gained a leading edge, but after the crucial game, there were psychological fluctuations, and the technical level suddenly declined, giving up the victory.

Note that your performance will also give your opponent psychological cues. The negative emotions such as nervousness and impatience that you show are equivalent to suggesting to your opponent: "My mentality is not good!" This hint immediately relieves opponent pressure and boosts your confidence in beating you. Therefore, unfavorable mental activity has a two-sided negative effect: affecting one's own technical performance while boosting the morale of one's opponents. Even if you have mood swings, you should try to hide them as much as possible and don't hang on your face. As always, show your sharp eyes, fierce, proud, and arrogant, and continue to give psychological hints to your opponents: "I am invincible!" ”。 You don't have to show your smile and humility when playing, because this will give the opponent a psychological hint: "You are not a threat to me, you are not aggressive", and his psychological pressure will be much looser. Don't bite your nails, look around, subconsciously drink water frequently, and walk hurriedly on stage, all of which expose your psychological uneasiness. One of the reasons why Western players generally play well against Chinese players is that many of our players are too gentle and lack of momentum, and they do not give their opponents enough psychological pressure!

(3) Transfer method

That is, the common "diversion of attention" in psychology refers to the transfer of attention from one's own negative emotions to other aspects. The greater the degree of attention shift, the higher the likelihood that excessive anxiety or other emotions will be diverted.

To put it simply, the transfer method is to selectively block the brain to absorb live game information, do not look at the score, do not pay attention to the performance of the other party, and do not care about the outcome of winning or losing. I just want fish and chips, beer grills, or other comforting things, as if I'm training instead of racing, and calming my emotions. All negative emotions are generated by the game, and if you can really forget the game, there is no psychological burden. In order to pursue the excitement of the game, modern competitive sports often deliberately let athletes compete under great pressure and extremely tense mental conditions, so psychological quality is more important!

It is also possible to place a special small object on the body to enforce the "transfer method" more effectively. The object calms you down, or reminds you of some memorable, happy experiences, like your lucky charms. For example, a souvenir of your proudest competition, which reminds you of your past achievements and restores your self-confidence; or a warm little object that your loved one or lover has given you. Touch it in your pocket when you are nervous, think about your own happiness, what is the current difficulty?

(4) Delay law

Once there are strong mood swings and the ability to compete decreases, you need time to calm down, and the opponent is just "taking advantage of your illness to kill you", you may be defeated. At this point, you can use the procrastination method to change the rhythm of the game and prevent the opponent from winning too quickly. First of all, don't be impatient, slowly boil! At this moment, we must cherish the rare defensive stage of going to the mobile phone meeting or restarting the ball, first make sure that you do not make mistakes, slow down the rhythm, because the feel is not hot yet, and you also need to use the procrastination method to squeeze out time to calm the mood, and at the same time think about the use of tactics. Don't play too difficult balls, try to avoid undefended, difficult mid-range platform attacks. When the feel is not good, even give up the continuous attack and defense, do a higher quality pure defense, and strive to stay on the stage for a while, while stabilizing the mood, letting the feel slowly warm up, and patiently waiting for the opponent to make mistakes.

Rub and rub, circle around the stage, look at the ball more, let the referee rub the ball, play a little slower, and spend a moment aiming. After sitting in the audience for a long time, the coordination of the body will decline, and the hasty shot will often have a high error rate, and even all the efforts in front of it will be ruined. Spend more time in a downturn thinking about how to change your strategy to get through it. It's okay to play ugly, let the audience and the fans wait, because you are the protagonist of the game, don't pay attention to other people's opinions, as long as you will win. No matter how dashing a loss is, it's not as good as an ugly win, isn't it?

(5) Relaxation method

Because the game hurts the brain, energy reserves are important. When the opponent scores consecutive points, he takes the opportunity to take a break and use the relaxation method to help the body return to the best physiological and psychological state.

There are many relaxation methods introduced in sports psychology, including abdominal breathing relaxation, music relaxation, yoga meditation, self-generated method, meditation method, progressive relaxation method, biofeedback method, hypnosis method and so on (explanation omitted). The "abdominal breathing relaxation method" is highly recommended here. Citing the description in 9.2.2.1 of the Manual of Research in the Psychology of Exercise and Exercise:

"Abdominal breathing is about moving the diaphragm up and down. Since the diaphragm descends on inhale, squeezing the organs underneath, the tummy is inflated instead of the chest. For this reason, the diaphragm will rise higher than usual when exhaling, so that you can breathe deeply and spit out more carbon dioxide that is easily stuck at the bottom of the lungs. Abdominal breathing is a breathing method that inhales the most oxygen and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to relax, calm nerves, and improve concentration. ”

This is the easiest and most effective way to do this, which is to take a deep breath. Players can learn. Not everyone understands this deep breathing. You can drink water, close your eyes, be in a daze, relax your nerves, breathe deeply, thereby lowering your blood pressure and heartbeat, and calm your mood and energy. Don't "be in the audience and the heart is racing", but also pay attention to the performance of the opponent, anxious to wait for the opponent's mistakes, as if they are still in the game, the brain nerves can not be rested, easy to fatigue caused by distraction.

Go to the bathroom for a moment, apply cold water to your face, curse a few words to vent, calm your emotions, and let your heart beat down. During the 15-minute break, you can listen to music, chat with friends, share your mood with each other, and release stress at the same time.

The above self-control effect varies from person to person, but you can refer to the use of and explore the appropriate means of stress reduction to improve the regulation of emotions to improve the chances of winning the game.

3. Self-avoidance

The previous section introduces some self-control methods when psychological instability occurs, which belongs to the psychological "control" process; this section describes how to avoid external factors that trigger emotional fluctuations, which belong to the "prevention" process, and the combination of the two processes to maximize the psychological fluctuations of players on the field and improve psychological quality.

(1) Improve your defense

The exercise of improving defense and psychological quality is closely related. In fact, it is not difficult to find that the players who defend well are basically mentally strong, and the results are also outstanding. For example, Selby, Higgins, O'Sullivan, Trump, Robertson, Murphy, Bingham, etc. are all defensive masters, and their psychological qualities are also super strong. The reason is very simple: at present, professional players have a strong one-shot winning ability after all, there are few, most single-game confrontations need several rounds to decide whether to win or lose, and defensive players have obviously more chances to win, especially in chaos, so they breed a strong psychological advantage! Most young players are strong and weak, and they do not have the ability to win with one shot, and it is difficult to win once they enter a defensive stalemate. So far, the old guys who have defended well still maintain a high winning percentage against young players. It's still hard for our best young players to beat them, and they're often stuck in a difficult situation. It is conceivable that the psychological advantage of the defensive masters is terrible!

Because the requirements of offense and defense for muscle movement are different, the offense requires the directional movement of the muscles to be more precise, and the slight deviation of the ball cannot be scored, and the defense will have a lower accuracy of muscle movement, so the emotional fluctuations have a greater impact on the accuracy of the shot. If you think that the psychological quality of the game is not too hard, you need to improve your defensive ability, so that when the mood and pressure of the game affect the accuracy of goals, you can still make a high-quality defense to regain the mobile phone meeting. Coupled with the fact that the defense of our young players is not strong, we have to devote a lot of time to defensive training. Strong defensive ability is like a reassuring pill, which can improve self-confidence, inhibit impatience and impulsivity, and thus enhance psychological quality. Therefore, improving defensive ability is actually a double harvest of technical improvement and psychological quality strengthening!

The improvement of defensive ability should start from many aspects, first of all, it requires a strong sense of defense, and not being impatient and impulsive is the best defense. When facing an offense or defense with a relatively high turnover rate, consider how to minimize the risk of mistakes; whether it is a large lead or against a weaker opponent, never despise the opponent and relax the defense; when taking a large lead, the attack is interrupted, you can kick some balls to prevent the opponent from scoring continuously after getting started; when defending, try to do snooker, at least the mother ball is as close as possible.

Because the offense only considers the position of one mother ball, and the defense has to take into account the position of two balls (the mother ball and the target ball), so offensive training is easier than defense, plus defensive training is boring, so most players are mainly training for defense, but this is far from enough. In fact, Chinese players who practice together can have interesting defensive confrontations. For example, make a defensive game rule to make it more fun and improve your defensive ability. The rules can look like this:

In addition to the colored ball on the table, only one red ball is left. The initial red ball can be placed in the middle of the middle pocket and the bottom pocket, the mother ball is still in the kick-off area, and then the game begins! Only one colored ball can be played after hitting a red ball into the bag, and then the red ball and the colored ball are returned to position, and the opponent continues. Since it is impossible to score red and color scores continuously (after scoring, the opponent will play), the main means for both sides to score points has become to make snooker and let the opponent score points! Penalties are not capped. As a result, almost the whole field is defensive confrontation. Whoever gets first, say 32 points, wins the game! You can also add an additional rule for the score of the mother ball sticker, that is, if you can stick the mother ball to the library (within 10mm) and let the opponent get started, you can get 1 point. This kind of defensive game can be a small gamble and increase the fun.

Through such a pure defensive competition, players can better grasp the position relationship between the mother ball and the target ball after a long distance operation, strengthen the sense of the position change of the two sports spheres, and improve the ability to defend and fight in the middle.

(2) Strengthen training

Strengthening technical and tactical training is something that professional players do on a daily basis. Here is only to show that improving the absolute technical level is very beneficial to the improvement of psychological quality. If you have Trump's accuracy, Higgins' defense, Wilson's pole, O'Sullivan's goal, then your absolute skill crushes any opponent, who can win you? So how can you still have psychological problems? However, most professional players practice very hard, and it is very difficult to open the gap in absolute technology, but there is still a lot of room for the improvement of Chinese players' defensive ability, which is the best way to enhance absolute technology and enhance psychological quality! Therefore, the top priority of Chinese players' current training is defensive training!

Modern competitive sports attach great importance to scientific training methods. Professional players have undergone formal training from relevant institutions, not to be repeated here, but to remind players to summarize the various problems that occur in each game, so that training is more targeted.

(3) Control the rhythm

Playing at your own pace is also an important means of regulating mental states (application of self-control theory in sports psychology). When there are no psychological fluctuations, play according to the training rhythm that you are most accustomed to. Once the mood arises, adjust the rhythm of the game. Most of the time it's about slowing down the game so you can calm down as soon as possible. Spend a little more time thinking about technical tactics. In addition to using the "procrastination method" introduced in the previous section, it is also necessary to adjust appropriately in terms of tactics, play more defense, and have more back and forth, and use this time to adjust the mentality. But sometimes it is also necessary to speed up the pace of the game, some players are too cautious when they arrive at the game, each ball is very serious to aim for a while, the number of dribbles is also increased, which does not match the most accustomed rhythm of your brain memory, but can not play the training level, while the energy is too much, it is easy to increase mistakes in the late stage of the game.

A number of old British players are fast-paced, and the ball is fast and accurate, which is the result of the precipitation and personality of long-term game experience, not our rhythm. Young players have less experience in the game, and they must analyze the situation on the field more before shooting. Don't be confused by your opponent's own rhythm. I want you to play yours, I play mine.

Especially during "critical hours", including the decisive or winning game, when dealing with key balls, it is also the most tense moment in the player's whole game, muscle movement is extremely out of balance, even a simple goal or position may not be achieved, every player should be aware of this! At this moment, we must slow down, slow down, take more deep breaths to calm the mentality while focusing on attention, and process each ball step by step until the final victory.

(4) Kill them all

Lead and fall behind to maintain a normal mind, as stable as a clock, ignore the big score on the field, do not slack off because of the lead, do not be impatient because of falling behind. Every ball is played seriously, even if you are much stronger than your opponent, you can't relax, because the game has luck factors at work, if the weak opponent plays extraordinarily, plus your state is average, you are still very likely to lose. Especially in short-term games, the number of innings is too small, the opponent's luck is slightly better, and the game is over before you can really get into the form. Therefore, if you can win 5-0, you must not hit 5-1. Even if the single score is shaken ahead, or even exceeded, it is necessary to take the endgame seriously and completely shatter the opponent's dream of reversal. Countless blood lessons have taught us that the slightest negligence in victory can lead to victory.

You must not relax when leading, otherwise it is easy to cause a decrease in concentration and increase mistakes. At the same time, don't think that you have a small advantage to squander, take the initiative to attack and relax the defense, especially when the position is not good, you will gamble with yourself, choose to play a difficult ball to adjust the offense in place, which is an impulsive emotional characteristic. Once the laggard wins, its tension is eased, its confidence is improved, and it is possible that luck is quietly leaving you at this moment. The treacherous arena is difficult to predict, several consecutive whips are commonplace, and it is possible to shake hands until the end. Therefore, under no circumstances, leave the opponent a chance to turn the tables, and be sure to kill them all.

(5) Technical style

Individual differences in athletes have a great influence on athletic performance, so sports psychologists have studied this in more depth. Individual differences include differences in personality and differences in intelligence. The classification of personality differences can generally divide personality into five categories: extraversion, agreeableness, sense of responsibility, neurotic or emotional, and openness (the specific definition of each personality is slightly omitted). The psychological quality of athletes is closely related to their personality, and the personality and intelligence of athletes also have a great influence on their technical style. Athletes need to take these factors into account in their selection of materials. Exactly what personality fits into the snooker movement and the style that goes with it is a thematic research project and is not the subject of this article. However, we can still conclude that the technical style of snooker players is closely related to the personality and psychological qualities of the players. As far as the current snooker professional players are concerned, the technical style can be basically divided into three types: offensive type, attack and defense balance type, and attack strong defense weak type.

Players with more impulsive and impatient personalities, that is, extraverted and neurotic or emotional players in the above five types of personalities, as well as young players, most of their styles are biased towards offensive or offensive and defensive weaknesses. Among the five types of personalities, most of the other types of personalities and players with long professional experience belong to the offensive and defensive balance type.

At a glance, the big guys at the top of the snooker pyramid are all offensive and defensive balanced technical styles, and they all have a strong ability to interpret the form of the game and control the rhythm on the field. All belong to players with excellent psychological quality and comprehensive skills. Their achievements prove that the balanced offensive and defensive type is the best technical style.

There is no doubt that offensive or offensive and defensive players will also achieve results, but it is much more difficult (Lisovsky is a clear example). To qualify for long-term membership in the TOP16 clubs, our players should improve their defensive abilities and gradually transition their style to a balanced type (following Trump's example). However, players with specific personalities, who enjoy offensive pleasure, or whose intrinsic motivation is significantly stronger than their extrinsic motivation, the author retracts this suggestion.

O'Sullivan has a very high talent, a god-like existence, and is an idol for many Chinese fans, but also the sadness of his professional players of the same era. Don't emulate O'Sullivan, however, because his individual differences are too pronounced. He belongs to the open personality, with a rich imagination and strong aesthetic ability, can constantly innovate. His technical characteristics are not and need not be learned by ordinary people, because they are not the best examples. O'Sullivan is an object of worship, but not an object of learning. On the contrary, Selby is not an object of worship, but he can learn many virtues from him, such as strong will, strong resilience, and excellent defense. It is as if O'Sullivan is an artist, with a talent that is very human and unique in the world, and Selby is a good warrior, and everyone can emulate.

(6) Warm state of mind

Some players are more shy and introverted, coupled with a strong sense of small economy, too concerned about winning or losing, it seems that the mood is not open enough, it is easy to cause emotional fluctuations in the game and lead to abnormal play, the more critical the game or key ball, the more "drop the chain", which is why Western players play against Chinese players from time to time, because they still dominate the sport, have a strong psychological advantage. And Chinese players rarely play beyond normal, especially in the late stage of the game, when they are about to decide the winner or loser, they often play abnormally due to mental problems, the reason is that their emotions and mentality are kidnapped by the game process and score, and at a critical moment, excessive tension causes muscle movement distortion, the root cause is that they have not established a correct snooker career view:

The snooker profession is a means of livelihood, although it is true, but it should be sublimated into the embodiment of personal value. The purpose of the profession is to better show their talents, enjoy this wonderful sport, and constantly improve their technical level in the exercise of the competition, and pursue the ultimate beauty of this sport, which is the ideal snooker career concept. This professional view is very much in line with sports psychology's advocacy of the internal and external motivations of competition: "suppress the outside and promote the inside", that is, pay attention to the improvement of the competition itself to your skills, rather than bonuses or points. This requires everyone to cultivate a calm state of mind in daily life, less fame and fortune, more dedication, and gradually cultivate the above professional concept.

Once you have such a professional outlook, in your eyes, the various competitions are just your favorite jobs, and all you get at work is the joy of the snooker world, no stress and other emotions. Don't think about how to beat your opponent, because the opponent is just one of your working devices, is at the service of your work, can be when he does not exist. Losing or winning a game is the result of your work, the purpose of which is to find the weak points of your technology so that you can improve and make your future work more enjoyable. If you say who you want to defeat in the game, it is you who have to defeat yourself, that is, "you in the game" to defeat "you in training"! In layman's terms, you have to play a training level to beat yourself! On the contrary, if you are full of expectations and determined to beat your opponents, you have already added your emotions to the game, and you have deviated from the above professional concept. When you are leading, you are afraid of the opponent to win, and when you are behind, you are worried about losing, in short, your mentality will always be tense, and your "work" will be difficult to do well.

Cultivate a calm state of mind and a correct view of the profession, pay attention to the opponent before the game (equivalent to familiarizing yourself with your working environment), forget the opponent when the game is the air. Throw all kinds of win-loss distractions, nervousness and impatience out of the clouds. Devote yourself to the play of technology, completely let go of the fight, but to fight seriously, must not be sloppy! Where are the so-called psychological problems that can be done like this? How can a mentality "collapse"? With such a professional outlook and state of mind, the results will get better and better!

(7) Talk about dribbling

The dribbling in key innings does affect the mood of the players. When the ball is bad, don't complain, learn to smile happily, like a spring breeze. If you work hard or lose, it means that God wants you to lose today, then lose, people can never fight the sky. But remember, your bad luck today will definitely be exchanged for good luck in the future, because in the long run, everyone's luck is still balanced in the end. Worse luck now means a later inning or future game, and the same good luck will be returned to you. You can lose to God, but don't lose to yourself. Similarly, when you are in the midst of good luck, hurry up and win a little more, because maybe good luck will be gone in a while.

Luck also has a smart, when you are relaxed about the ball, it sticks to you, and the more anxious you are, the worse the drier it is. When the opponent wins consecutively, he plays very high, the mentality is very good, luck is always on his side, this is your darkest moment, but you can't be in a hurry, you have to endure, at this moment the ball is also observing you, if you show great generosity and calmness, it will obediently return to your side. Sounds superstitious, right? But there really is such a thing, do not believe you try?

(8) Healthy exercise

Developing good lifestyle habits is very helpful for mental exercise. Psychomotor is actually an outward manifestation of physiology. If you can cultivate yourself well and maintain the best physiological state, the psychological fluctuations will be much smaller, and the ability to resist stress will become stronger. In addition, the research of exercise psychologists has also shown that exercise can effectively prevent and control depressed emotions.

Therefore, professional players must pay great attention to their own living habits, including improving the quality of sleep and the guarantee of a healthy diet. If a person has a long-term bad rest or loves to eat high-heat and high-fat foods, he is often irritable and impatient, and his mood is not stable enough; on the contrary, a person with good sleep quality and healthy diet will appear to be full of energy, and his mentality will be relatively peaceful, emotionally stable, not easy to be impulsive, and it is also a good display of psychological quality.

In the long game competition (especially the World Championships), some young Chinese players are more tired than old foreign players. Is it because the Chinese players don't rest and exercise enough? Is it because too much energy is being put into socializing or entertainment? The life mode of foreign players is relatively simple, there is no excessive socialization, and the physical reserves are better during the game, which is also the gap between the professionalism of our players and the West. Minimize unnecessary socializing and entertainment to ensure a good rest. In addition to practicing ball, you should exercise more to ensure that you have more than 40 minutes of aerobic exercise every day, in addition to maintaining the best state and enhancing your psychological anti-stress ability, you can also delay aging and prolong your professional life.

(9) English training

In addition, working hard to learn English is not only a career necessity, but also an important life skill. You can make friends with other snooker professional players, understand and learn from their training methods and methods, and make the most of their strengths and avoid weaknesses. It can also effectively reduce the estrangement and strangeness between western players and Western players, easier to integrate into the atmosphere of the scene in the game, and gradually get rid of the loneliness of fighting in a foreign country, which is conducive to mental health.

4. Summary

Chinese professional snooker young group in the competition experience has been lacking, the defensive ability is also slightly weaker, and also have to bear greater than the local players of life and mental pressure, in order to stabilize professional qualifications, and even into the ranks of the top TOP16, not only to greatly improve their psychological quality, and even strive to psychological quality is stronger than Western players, which is an important condition for realizing the ability of the Chinese legion to comprehensively fight against the strongest players in the West.

At present, the psychological quality of Chinese players is still relatively weak overall, which obviously affects the ability to compete. The unfavorable emotions that arise during the competition can be self-regulated through the methods introduced in the article. More critically, players should pay attention to their own psychological quality training, deepen their understanding of the essence of the sport, and from the technical and tactical training (especially to improve the level of defense), professional outlook, living habits and other aspects of the article's suggestions, accumulate and continuously improve their psychological quality, in order to show the strongest competition ability in the game, and achieve better results.

Today in history

On May 9, 1992, Paloth blasted his only career 147 in a Matchroom league match against Tony Mio.

—— This section is provided by the outstanding "Dead as Autumn Leaves" teacher

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