The Happy Place

I’ve been there and hopefully you have too. If you haven’t yet, I hope this guide will help you to get there. Where exactly? I’m glad you asked!

I remember when I was 11-years old and I hit my first homerun over the fence. To this day (29-years later) I can remember the smile I had on my face as I got close to second base. I can remember looking towards the left field fence to admire where I knew the ball went. I remember everything about that moment, except the moment. I couldn’t tell you if I hit a strike or a ball. It was a blur. It was the first time in my life that I went to “that place.” I can’t even tell you about my journey to 1st base, because my conscious journey didn’t begin until I was close to second base. 

I went to the place where my brain and my thoughts seemed to turn off for a split second. Have you been there? What happened? Probably something great. I always find the following scenario entertaining. A player strikes out and then on their way back to the dugout, they’ll stop and give advice to the next hitter. They can tell you about every pitch they saw, especially the one they whiffed at on strike 3. THAT is the reason they struck out, information overload. I find it funny because the last person you should want advice from is the person who just struck out. Ask the player who just mashed a 2-run homer over the scoreboard and they won’t have any recollection of the events that led up to the dinger.

This guide is designed to assist you in your journey to that Happy Place where a lot of the big moments happen.

Understanding How You Process Information

The example I like to use is one we’re all familiar with. When you visit the doctor when you’re younger, they’ll tap you on the knee and you kick. This is a reflex. If the doctor were to tell you to, “Kick when I say KICK!” you would have to hear the command of kick, think about how to kick and then ultimately a kick would take place. If you were to compare how quickly the kick takes place after the tap, compared to the doctor instructing you to kick, the reflex can happen somewhere around 500,000 times faster than the command. Now, think about all the things that can go wrong. Maybe you thought the doctor said lick and you stick your tongue out instead or hesitate for a moment and have to ask if they said kick or lick? Not only does the reflex happen faster, it also avoids a lot of potential confusion.

So, let’s revisit the player who struck out in the previous section. The fact that they can tell you the exact location of a pitch, the speed, the spin and so on means that they’re like the patient whose doctor told them to kick, but they heard lick instead. They were trying to process so much information in .40 seconds that they couldn’t possibly produce the physical move to get to the ball. Now, let’s compare that to the player who hit the moonshot over the scoreboard. 

The homerun hitter is like the patient whose doctor tapped their knee and immediately kicked. Within each of us is our best swing. It has been programmed through practice and it is available for use SOMETIMES. More on this later. Your brain has built a database that consists of every pitch you’ve ever seen. When you eyes see a pitch, the brain predicts the speed, trajectory, spin and eventual location of the pitch. Is it always right? No, because it is pulling from a large database that may not have an “exact match” for the pitch you are currently watching. In a matter of milliseconds the brain tells the nervous system, “this pitch is arriving in this specific location in .18 seconds, start the movement that will hit the ball NOW!” When the brain is right about location and timing and it requests the player’s best swing, magic happens.

The Magic of Timing

So, why did I say that your best swing is only available sometimes? Well, it all depends on timing. From start to finish, your best swing has a specific time frame. From the time you begin to move in order to get ready to swing until you make contact with a ball can happen at a very accurate and consistent time or it can vary swing to swing. The great hitters can repeat their swing in rhythm and in time over and over. Young hitters are building their database, so they tend to struggle with timing until they gain the coordination and practice habits to produce consistent timing.

Timing can be broken down into 2 major phases; Swing and Pre-Swing. Your best swing is only available if these phases are on-time. This is why I say your best swing is only available sometimes. If your timing is off with your body, your brain is not going to be able to call upon your best physical movements to get to the ball. The other reason I point this out is that in some cases, the best possible swing of an athlete is the one that has been performed a minimal amount of times. When the brain sends the signal to “SWING” the swing that has been performed the most is the one that is most likely to be produced. Your swing from 2-years ago is still programmed and may come out sometimes. In fact, it never goes away completely. As a hitter you must work smart so that your best swing is the one that takes up the most space in your Swing database and the one that is most likely to be called upon. Think of it as a lottery system. When the brain asks the nervous system to get the bat into THIS LOCATION at THIS TIME, all available swings you have ever taken that can produce the location and timing of the barrel are all in a race to be the winner. The swing that has been executed the most times for the pitch is the one most likely to be selected in the lottery.

For the Swing, I’ll continue to use the timing of .18 seconds to contact. This means that when a hitter begins to make their first move to start their Swing, their bat will get to the ball in .18 seconds. Most great hitters fall somewhere between .16-.18 seconds in time to contact. For most hitter’s the swing starts when the front heel lands on the ground. Usually this is the move that ends the Pre-Swing motion and starts the actual Swing to the ball. I’m telling you right now, most hitter’s mechanics in the Swing area are better than their Pre-Swing area. You are probably coached very well in the Swing area.

Your brain tries to make sense of every single thing that you do. Every time you perform a drill your brain is learning how long it takes for you to get to contact. This brain of yours is incredible and it has learned over time that it is supposed to send the “SWING” signal to your body when it thinks the ball is about .18 seconds (depending on the individual and how they’ve trained) from home plate.

Your Pre-Swing movement starts with the first body part you move as you get ready to swing. This could be a leg kick, a hand movement or something such as an inward turn. This is where timing starts and it’s often called your timing mechanism. Your Pre-Swing movement should allow you to transition from Pre-Swing to Swing around the .18 second mark from contact. As an example, if you hit with a leg kick, you would want to have the foot on the way down to the ground near the .18 second to contact mark so that you can make an easy transition to the Swing.

For this section, let’s keep the thoughts simple. Your Pre-Swing motion should allow you to transition smoothly into your Swing. Remember that every time you swing in practice, your brain continues to update your database. You are teaching your brain the movements that you want it to call on when the pitcher throws a ball to a certain spot. Don’t get frustrated when your old swing shows its face, understand why it happens and work hard to minimize the chances of it showing up again.

Important Notes On Pre-Swing Methods

As I stated earlier, your Swing has probably been taught better than your Pre-Swing. Your Pre-Swing motion is very important and mechanics are worth giving a brief mention. The Pre-Swing motion should allow for a smooth transition into the swing. So, players must understand what specific thing they do with their body to start the Pre-Swing and what movement simultaneously ends the Pre-Swing and begins the Swing. It is important that the Pre-Swing and Swing end and begin with the same move. This may seem like an obvious concept to some, but for the majority of players they don’t understand where one ends and the other begins, nor do they have any awareness in practice of working on this concept.

I have one major rule, you have to do SOMETHING in your Pre-Swing. You have to move. Mechanically speaking you are priming your muscles to fire when given the signal from the brain. If you only do drills with a lot of extra movement that prime your body in a different way than your Pre-Swing motion does in a game, you are creating a lot of confusion with your brain and nervous system. If we take things a step further in timing and consider how active and prepped a muscle is it greatly impacts timing. You shouldn’t practice with a leg kick 600 times during the week and then hit with no stride on the weekends. When you give your brain multiple options to choose from with motor patterns then the wrong impulse could be delivered first and a bad habit is now present at a bad time.

You need to move something in your Pre-Swing so that your body is primed to fire when signals are sent. You also need to practice in a way where you are reinforcing to your brain that THIS is the swing I want to show up in the big moment. You have to practice the way you want to play. In practice when we are programming the movements that we want to take place.

Your Pre-Swing motion should be trained separately and in conjunction with your Swing. By the way, give your hitting coach a break. The swing they taught you on Tuesday will not show up at your tournament consistently on Saturday. Don’t expect your best swing to start showing up on the weekend until you have performed it more times than any other swing in your entire life.

Approach Is A 4-Letter Word

So, what’s your approach? I don’t like that question, do you? Actually, I don’t like the word approach with hitting

The Happy Place is where your brain and nervous system can work together without interference from YOU. Ok, so don’t think….got it...thanks coach! I’ll think about not thinking. Wait, now I’m thinking. I don’t like the word approach because I always think that means I’m trying to do something or deal with something. In a game, I’m actually trying to let my brain work so I’m actually trying to ignore the urge to think about what I want to do with every pitch and be engaged in the at-bat. 

Have you ever thought about breathing? If my allergies are acting up, sometimes I can hear myself breathe. Then, I start paying attention to the sound and next thing you know I am controlling every breath and it drives me crazy. Eventually something distracts me and I forget about it. Your swing is a habit just like breathing. If your eyes and brain work together and determine that a pitch is a good pitch to hit, you are going to swing if you don’t try to control the situation too much. The problem is that most of us just don’t trust ourselves that much.

The truth is that the speed of your thoughts are too slow to help you hit a ball in a game. On the other hand, the act of hitting a ball is fairly easy when you consider how fast your brain can process and then distribute information to your nervous system.

The goal is to step into the box and allow our habits to take over. We don’t step into the box with a goal in mind, other than to react. We’re not trying to do something to the ball. We’re not even there to try and “see ball hit ball.” Trying to see the ball is an intentional thought that could now slow down our processing speed and create confusion. You don’t think that the previous 76,000 pitches you’ve seen have taught your eyes how to see the ball? They know. That’s what the Happy Place is, a place where you allow your brain and nervous system a total of about 1 full second to perform a job they’ve been trained to do since the first day you picked up a bat.

So, how do I get there?

The Map And The Method

First, it starts with belief. You first have to believe in the information you’ve been given. If 1+1 flashed on a screen you would instinctively say “2.” If 1927+4398+11+9 flashed on a screen you’d have to think a bit longer, right? Hitting is a processing speed issue. Somedays a pitcher gives you the second problem and instead of trying to figure out the answer in .40 seconds you’ll have to trust the unconscious hitter that lives inside of you. Maybe their ball moves a bit differently or they have a pitch you haven’t seen before. Your brain has already processed that pitch and has started a new database. The next time that pitch comes you can only run interference if you over think. Your brain will adapt immediately and come up with solutions, if you allow it to. The unconscious hitter has seen thousands of pitches. The unconscious hitter can process millions of pieces of information within .40 seconds. A hitter that is engaged in conscious thought at the plate is only able to process about 15-20 pieces of information while the ball is in flight. I said process, I didn’t say act on the information. 

If you believe that being an unconscious hitter is the right mentality to have at the plate, then you’re already on a good path.

So, now you’re probably wondering how to “not think” in the box. It’s not about “not thinking” it’s about having certain thoughts that don’t interrupt the processes your brain is going to try and carry out. In fact, I encourage inner dialogue, but I want you to be specific with the timing of the dialogue and the context (what you say).

There are 3 major components of going unconscious and they are the start of Pre-Swing, Breathing and Dialogue.

It’s simple, pitchers have different motions, so sometimes the first move of the Pre-Swing needs to be a conscious thought. So, if you find yourself matched up against a pitcher that is difficult to time,  you are allowed to think about the start of the Pre-Swing. It’s the mentality of, “when they do this, I do this.” The key is that you can’t take that thought any further, because if it bleeds over into ball flight, you are distracting your unconscious hitter. Some pitchers are just naturally easy for us to hit and we don’t have to have any Pre-Swing thought.

Dialogue is a powerful thing. I encourage you to use a very short phrase at a time where you need to distract yourself from thinking about ball flight and Swing mechanics. For players who need to use a Pre-Swing thought, I like them to sync a phrase to the start of the Pre-Swing. It could be something simple like “Here we go”, “Oh yeah” or something calming if you need to dial your emotions down a bit. These should not be phrases like, “don’t roll over”, “don’t miss” or even things like “get a hit.” It needs to be a phrase that creates confidence in the hitter’s ability to trust their brain.

The final component is breathing. Remember when I wrote about breathing earlier? I bet you probably paid attention to your breathing pattern for a few breaths after that. Not only is controlled breathing a great way to relax your body, it’s also a great way to distract yourself and allow the processes of an unconscious hitter to take place without thinking. You can use breathing in conjunction with Pre-Swing movement or dialogue as well. You may want to take a deep breath in as you start your Pre-Swing movement. You may want a deep breath before your phrase.

It all starts with a belief in how you process information, but also belief that that work you’ve put in has put you in position to perform. An unconscious hitter is at the mercy of their work ethic. If you didn’t put in the work, then you are less likely to be an unconscious hitter, because you won’t believe that you deserve good results or have reliable mechanics. 

Very rarely at the plate is your mind completely void of thought. So, we can use conscious breathing to replace inner dialogue that is unnecessary or we can use it in conjunction with a confident phrase. I encourage phrasing and breathing in almost every hitter and Pre-Swing thought when only absolutely necessary. Pre-Swing thought has to end before the ball is in flight and should conclude with a phrase or breathing.

Staying Unconscious & Final Thoughts

Staying in the Happy Place where you’re an unconscious hitter will be difficult. You’ll face big situations and some situations where you don’t feel challenged. Like anything in sports, you need practice. You should dedicate time to working on Pre-Swing, Breathing and Dialogue. A game should not be the first time you try to implement these techniques. Remember, we’re not trying “not to think” we are using techniques that naturally unlock the unconscious hitter inside you. 

Hitting can be stressful, but I want to share some numbers with you. A hitter played 30 games and they got 1 hit in each of the 30-games. They batted .333 for the year. Another hitter had 90 at-bats and they had 30 hits. They batted .333 for the year. The final hitter had 270 strikes thrown to them this year. They timed 30 of these strikes really well. They hit .333 for the year.

It’s all about how you look at things. If I told you that in order to hit .333 this year you’d have to get 1 hit in every game you’d feel stressed. If I told you you could fail 60 out of 90 times and still hit .333 you’d be less stressed. If I told you that you were going to get 270 strikes and only had time 30 well to hit .333 you’d be much more relaxed. You may even say, “that’s all I have to do to hit .333?” That’s all anybody has to do, but most hitters don’t think that way.

Stay unconscious and live in the Happy Place!

Mark Mulvany