So Monday I arrived back from just under two weeks away in America, first in Charlottesville Virginia and then Madison Wisconsin. In the first event I was drawn to play Dane Sharp of Canada ranked 80 in the world. I lost 9/11 11/6 2/11 4/11 not what I was hoping for as I looked at this match as being winnable despite him being ranked above me. There were some big lessons to be learnt from that match, the first of which was to not just think about the outcome (winning the match) but thinking about how I do this and what I need to do to achieve the outcome I want. By just thinking about the outcome I put myself under more pressure than normal and as a result hit a lot errors and just ran out of steam after being so nervous and pumped up before hand.
After the match I took a bit of time to cool down and relax as I find I need to be in a good frame of mind to analyse a match. Especially a loss as emotions can be high and you can end up just beating yourself up. So by giving yourself a bit of time you get a more true and realistic evaluation, looking at the positives as well as the negatives.
In between the two events I stayed in Charlottesville with the Foshay family who took great care of me throughout the week. On top of this they helped me get rid of some frustration from my match by taking me 'Clay Pigeon Shooting'. Although its fair to say that route into the Olympics seems unlikely!
So onto Madison which was just a short flight away, I sneaked into this event at the last minute which was a bonus. I was drawn to play Martin Knight ranked 48 in the world, trying to learn from the previous weeks mistakes I went into the match with a clear game plan with a lot of help from my coach Rob Owen. I lost 11/5 3/11 5/11 10/12 a much better performance that the week before although still plenty of things to work on!
Next up I have an event in Valencia and then the World Open in Manchester at the end of the month!
In between the two events I stayed in Charlottesville with the Foshay family who took great care of me throughout the week. On top of this they helped me get rid of some frustration from my match by taking me 'Clay Pigeon Shooting'. Although its fair to say that route into the Olympics seems unlikely!
So onto Madison which was just a short flight away, I sneaked into this event at the last minute which was a bonus. I was drawn to play Martin Knight ranked 48 in the world, trying to learn from the previous weeks mistakes I went into the match with a clear game plan with a lot of help from my coach Rob Owen. I lost 11/5 3/11 5/11 10/12 a much better performance that the week before although still plenty of things to work on!
Next up I have an event in Valencia and then the World Open in Manchester at the end of the month!
Hi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteJust wondering how you got over your loss in Madison? You say you went Clay Pigeon shooting after the first tournament to blow off some steam. Did you manage to do something similar in Madison?