Here’s a simple question for you today: which is strong, the river or the rock that sits in the middle of it? The answer is it depends on your point of view.

Taken at a glance, a snapshot in time if you will, it appears the rock is stronger. After all, the rock stands steadfast, unmovable, while the river must divert around it.

But if you take a longer-term view, the answer is the river, because over time it will erode the rock until the rock is no longer an obstacle to its path.

I know, very Kung Fu of me (which is probably where I got the idea). You can hear the pan flutes even as you read this.

That doesn’t make it any less true, however. Which is a good lesson for playerstrying to learn or improve a challenging skill such as pitching or hitting, as well as for coaches trying to get the best out of their teams.

Players

Let’s start with players. They can take the rock approach to learning new skills or improving/revamping current ones for a variety of reasons, including:

• What they’re currently doing has worked for them before. For example, a 12 year old pitcher who is used to pushing or lobbing the ball toward the plate instead of using her whole body to throw. She threw more strikes than the other pitchers she knows and if that’s her only measurement of success why change? .
• They’re not comfortable doing something new. With minor exceptions, who is? It’s a lot easier to do what you’ve always done than to change it.
• When they try something new their performance goes down (in their mind). Such as a hitter who used to make weak contact but is now swinging and missing while trying to learn a new way to swing the bat.
• They just don’t want to change. Typically seen with players who are forced to take lessons by their parents or players who believe they are better than they actually are (big fish in a small pond).

The problem here, as they say, is if you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got. But if others around you are improving their games, what you always got may not be good enough anymore and you’ll find yourself sinking down the batting order or the pitching rotation – or maybe even out of the starting lineup.

The important thing to remember when players make a change is that it doesn’t have to be permanent. Try something for a little while and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you can always try something else.

I do that a lot with my students. I have an idea, based on science and experience, of what will work, but I’m not omniscient. (That means all-knowing for those who don’t feel like looking it up.)

Try it and see how it feels. Sometimes you’ll hit farther or throw faster.

Sometimes it will throw you off your game completely. But you don’t know until you try it.

Remember, as the rock wears down the river changes its course. Be the river.

Coaches

Coaches, too, can benefit by taking the river approach instead of being the rock.

We see the rock approach a lot. Something new will come along and you’ll have a percentage of the coaching popular who will say “I’ve been doing it my way for 10/20/30 years and have had success. Why should I change?”

The answer, of course, is because new discoveries are being made all the time – data-based discoveries that can help players get better, shortcut the learning process, overcome deep-seated challenges that are built into the DNA, or otherwise improve.

It’s the same with game strategies. You may have followed the same playbook for X number of years, but what if there is information out there that could turn a few more of those losses into wins because you knew how to use it?

The best coaches I know are constantly scouring every source they can find to obtain new information in the hopes that it might help them. They are moving their knowledge forward like the river instead of standing in one place like the rock.

Imagine if you could discover just one little tip or trick or way of looking at things that would give you a significant advantage over your rivals. That’s the premise of the book and the movie Moneyball.

The Oakland Athletics used data to find players others didn’t value very highly to help them field a team that could win 100 games while fitting their very limited budget. It was a game-changer for them, and for the rest of Major League Baseball who followed that example.

Besides, learning new things is fun. Again, you may try something only to find it doesn’t work for you.

That’s ok. Now you know more than you did before.

But if you do discover some new strategy or approach that pays dividends you’ll be glad you gave it a try. Even if you had to change your world view a little.

It’s easy to be the rock, staying in one place while the world rushes past you. But eventually it will wear you down too. Be the river.

Check Out Our New Podcast

Speaking of learning new things, my good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.

Our first two episodes are in the books. In the first we spoke with pitching guru Rick Pauly of PaulyGirl Fastpitch, and in the second we heard from Coach Sheets (Jeremy Sheetinger), head coach of the Georgia Gwinnett College baseball program.

You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this. Commercial over.

River photo by Matthew Montrone on Pexels.com