By Rudi Webster
Concentration is a mental skill that can be learned and improved. It helps you to make the best use of your ability and sometimes gives you an edge over players who are physically more talented. It is a key to good performance and is a major strength of all good players. Athletes tend to become what they concentrate on, and in a sense, they are usually where their concentration is.
Many coaches tell their players to put their heads down and concentrate. Sounds great, but they don’t tell them what to concentrate on, how to narrow and widen their attention, how to keep it in the present, how to lock it in to block out distractions or how and when to turn it on and turn it off.
Sir Garfield Sobers attributes most of his success to his great powers of concentration. He said that the only time he had problems with concentration was when he was too anxious, when he was mentally tired, or when he was not interested in what he was doing.