How To Improve Your Game

Avoiding Physical and Mental Errors

by Pete Tyson

The player who gets to 21 first does so because he makes fewer mistakes than his opponent. These mistakes can be classified in two categories -- physical and mental. Physical mistakes occur on the execution of the shot, reflecting your ability to place the shot accurately. Mental mistakes occur when going against the percentages, reflecting your ability to choose the correct shot according to the situation.

The word "situation," as it pertains to handball, is any time the ball is about to be hit. Whenever the ball is about to be hit, you are either serving, returning service, on offense with a chance to end the rally, on defense, or anticipating what your opponent is about to hit. In each of these situations, it is just as important to execute as it is to know what you should be attempting to execute. Knowing how. This is the strategy of handball -- recognizing the situation and understanding the percentage play for the situation.

Each time you lose a rally, it is because you either made a physical or mental mistake. Physical mistakes will never be totally eliminated -- hand errors, overswinging, taking your eye off the ball, etc. But these physical errors can be greatly reduced through practice. I know it's a lot more fun to play a couple of games rather than spend the time alone practicing by yourself. I'm sure Jacobs, Haber, Lewis, Chapman, Bike and all the other great players you read about feel the same way. It all depends on your goals as a handball player. How much desire do you have? How good do you want to be? How much time are you willing to give handball? It is up to you. But you must learn to execute -- consistently. Consistency is gained by many hours of specific practice. This is the "secret" -- practice.

If you learn to execute well, you have a chance of being a really good player. The reason I say chance is because there are many players with excellent execution who never win an important match. Just try to pick the eventual winner of a match on the basis of their warm-up routines, forgetting everything else you know about the players. Eliminating physical mistakes is essential to success, but this alone will not produce a championship brand of handball. What defeats these fine physical players most often are mental mistakes. But unlike a certain percentage of physical mistakes, these mental mistakes need not occur at all.

Mental mistakes occur when you play against the percentages, choosing the wrong shot according to the particular situation. One of the main reasons a mental error isn't as obvious as a physical error is because occasionally you can win a rally with a shot that was not the best percentage shot to attempt, and all you can remember is that you won the rally. But do you remember all the times when that particular shot in that situation lost the rally for you? Are you really thinking on the court, or are you just hoping you'll have the perfect execution on every shot, probably remembering a glorious day you had when you rolled everything out? If you are forever waiting for that kind of day to occur again, expect a long drought between victories.

When watching the top players play, often times you'll see one player win a rally with a spectacular shot and then shake his head in disgust. The reason for the disgust is that, although perfectly executed, the shot should not have been attempted in the first place. If a shot has to be perfect, it's probably the wrong choice. It was a poor percentage shot to attempt in that situation. The player knew he was lucky and no good player wants to place victory into the hands of luck. These players know better than anyone that good execution without good choice will not defeat a good player.

Percentages

You've heard the term "percentage" often. Invariably it comes up in any instructional discussion. Any consistent winner bases his game on percentage handball. To the average spectator, it was never electrifying to watch a Jacobs or Lewis methodically grind out win after win with their individual version of percentage handball. But the handball purist can thoroughly appreciate the talents involved.

It is one thing to play percentage handball, but another to retrieve, not set up the return, and control your shots with either hand. Then, to catapult yourself to the top rung of the ladder, you must add a strong serve, kill and pass shots, and stamina to keep up a steady pace throughout a grueling match. And, one could add, the composure to know when and when not to change game plans should your opponent have a "hot streak."

The off-hand is of utmost importance to the percentage handball player. He can keep from losing with his off-hand, but he won't win with it. We've already pointed out that the player who makes the fewest errors will score 21 first. To keep from losing with your off-hand, you must develop the punch to the ceiling and/or the three-wall wrap-a-round. These shots can be developed through practice and put to the test during competition. But the mental phase of the game can be perfected by any player at any level, as long as he has the ability to acknowledge his best percentage shots in different situations. The key is to avoid those shots that have a less than 70 or 80 percent chance of success.

Immediately, you might point to some of the pros who shoot for the bottom board on the return of service. Well, some of them can succeed a high percentage of the time, especially if they're fresh. But at the end of a tournament, you won't see so much reckless abandon when the leg spring is gone. The unfortunate thing is that shooting in certain low percentage situations, such as the return of serve, becomes habit forming. When that habit gets put to the test late in a tournament or late in a long match, the test is most often failed. The best example of this is the classic confrontation of Lewis and Dennis Hofflander in the 1975 national final in Las Vegas. Upon reviewing the videotape of the match, I counted four shooting errors by Lewis as compared to 26 by Hofflander. Hofflander tallied many more cheers from the crowd, but lost the match. In fact, just three total points separated the two. Imagine if Hofflander could have eliminated just a few of those errors!

Positioning

As in any sport, you must coordinate eye-hand and body movement to achieve the maximum in power and control. Don't just move to a point where you think the ball will end up, move to a point a couple of steps behind where you think the ball is going to be hit. This will allow for misjudgments, tricky bounces, as well as making sure you're stepping into your shot instead of swinging flat-footed with just the arm supplying the power. Move quickly to this pre-shoot position, face the same sidewall as the hand you're planning to hit the ball with, and step into your shot as the ball falls into your strike zone.

Of course, there will be times when you can't get to this ideal pre-shoot position. This is why you'll need to learn the defensive shots. Recognizing you can't get to this pre-shoot position is one part of playing the percentages, knowing when to go on offense and when you're on defense.

There will be times when we cannot stride into the shot and hit it with good power -- and this is the reason we need to develop various fist shots to keep us out of trouble.

Conditioning

Moving to a pre-shoot position rather than to where you will be contacting the ball will require two to four more steps for each and every shot. Think about adding that up over the course of a match. This is also why our shots don't go in late in the game or match; we're too tired to take the extra steps. Conditioning is as important to a player's success as execution. You can condition yourself to play your best handball in various ways. Some of the top players just play lots of handball, others combine handball with interval and weight training. No matter how you decide to achieve the stamina necessary to play your best, you'll need to do it just as you need to practice the execution of specific shots.