How the 'Quiet Eye' Technique Makes Athletes More Coordinated | Hacker News Reader

How the 'Quiet Eye' Technique Makes Athletes More Coordinated

theatlantic.com

115 pointsAmorymeltzer58 comments

The article talks about the benefits of the 'quiet eye' technique and says that it is a teachable skill, but I couldn't find much information on how to practice it in the references.

While looking for more information, I found these blog posts[1][2][3] on how to apply the technique to golf playing. Perhaps some of the instructions can be adapted to other activities as well.

[1] http://www.caddypsych.com/quiet-eye-training-a-powerful-prot...

[2] http://www.caddypsych.com/quiet-eye-training-putting/

[3] http://www.caddypsych.com/quiet-eye-training-success-stats/

I'm not sure if I discovered it the same way as researchers did, but when I was in college I used to play a lot of Beerpong. I wasn't very good for my first year and a half so I went home and made a new year's resolution to "Be Better at Beerpong" (yes... this is a true story).

For purists, I guess I'm playing beirut where you toss the ball into the cup, not beerpong which you play with actual paddles.

After that I broke things down.

1) You can only hit one cup at a time, so you need to pick a cup. Just aiming at the mass is virtually assuring a lower percentage of made shots.

2) Reduce moving parts. It's a ping pong ball, you don't need to move your whole body. The shot should be a motion of only the forearm.

3) Imagine the dotted arc that goes from right inside the back rim of the cup you're aiming, across the table, and through the ball you're holding.

4) Toss the ball along that arc.

It worked incredibly well. I'd win money and games nearly constantly and quickly became the best of my friends. I still wreck them every year or so when we're together and in the mood to play.

Since then, I've dropped most of the steps. Basically I just aim for a cup, and I can hit it. I can do it with both the right and left hand. And usually all I have to do is focus right on that spot below the back rim of the cup I want to focus. If I focus for too long I'll probably mess up, but if I just look at it for a moment and toss the ball in, it works like a charm.

Sounds very similar to what they're saying in this article about focusing in the milliseconds beforehand. And as you continue to obtain quality results from your process it gets easier and easier.

I mean, shit, the choices are... make it or don't make it. Seems like the choice is clear ;-).

And that's my anecdote for how I approached a drinking game my friends kept beating me at and became dominant at, that very much reminds me of the way shooting a free throw is described in this article.

As an avid golfer may I say that this was exactly what I was looking for when coming to the comments. Thanks for posting these resources.

Also see The Inner Game of Golf: http://theinnergame.com/products/books/the-inner-game-of-ten...

I'm a little shocked that this is considered newsworthy in athletics, but that's more than offset by its potential impacts in other physical, but non-athletic skillsets like surgery.

Every kid who's ever done little league knows that the big secret to baseball is actually heeding the advice of keeping your eye on the ball. Every football game we watch reinforces this -- the wide receivers who prematurely turn to look upfield before catching the ball seem to drop the ball an inordinately large amount, compared to those who don't. Anquan Boldin, when asked if the cold weather made it harder to catch footballs responded (in the suave, Lando Calrissian way that he speaks) "You catch the ball with your eyes."

But, like fine motor control, the key is in doing this consistently. It's easy to know that you need to keep your eyes on the ball, but it's hard not to take that for granted. When I was playing billiards competitively, it was easy to realize that making a good shot meant doing all the little things right -- get in a comfortable stance, keep your elbow still, as if hanging from a wire attached to the ceiling, etc., etc., but however easy it was to know to do all those things, in the heat of the moment, it was hard to relax enough to do them without overthinking, becoming tense, or screwing it up in any of a hundred other ways.

They admit most of this is obvious, All of this might seem obvious—after all, “keep your eye on the ball” isn’t exactly a new idea, but then goes on to add that it’s only recently that scientists have had the technology to fully grasp the value of intense visual focus.

Also, apparently it's a difficult skill to master.

I'll try applying this to soccer shots in my game tonight :). (Demostration of effectiveness for penalty kicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXqmisYKpc)

> "I'm a little shocked that this is considered newsworthy in athletics"

Something that is common sense isn't automatically accepted as scientifically significant.

Fair, and true. Also, on second reading, I think "shocked" far over-states my emotions on the matter. Bewildered is perhaps more appropriate.

I think the discord comes from the disconnect that the common sense had not already been scientifically validated. "Eye on the ball" is so pervasive at every level of sports, and with the funding, I perhaps (naively) assumed that sports science was more advanced than it was, leading me to the (incorrect) assumption that this was scientific canon masquerading as common sense, and not the other way around.

In trying to find more, a researcher on the topic (Dr. Joan Vickers) has a book from 2007 on the topic. The research has been around for a while, these are just newer results, it seems.

http://www.amazon.com/Perception-Cognition-Decision-Training...

The sciencification of (professional) sport is fairly recent, probably around 20-30 years. There's the famous story of Arsene Wenger coming to Arsenal in 1996 and giving his players diet plans, something unprecedented in England at that point.

There was plenty of time before that for mediocre conventional wisdom to spread and become entrenched. But sometimes it's right.

Or that common. It's also something that will be forgotten. Just because we knew at age 10 the secret to success in something, doesn't mean we knew it (consciously), or that we'll know it at age 30 or 40. Getting back into athletics these past couple years, there's a lot that I remember doing well as a kid that I struggled with greatly even though I'm stronger and faster now than I've ever been. Slowly details that I internalized and forgot 20 years ago are coming back to me.

its maddeningly true that knowing to do all the simple things does not result in actually doing them in the heat of the moment. i'm interested if anyone has done some work on why that might be the case- what is the barrier that prevents the way we know we should be doing something from actually happening?

the simplest example of this disconnect from my experience is keeping my gaze on the golf ball as i putt, and not turning to watch it as i hit the ball. my guess would be the disconnect is that while doing any one thing consciously is easy, there are several things that have to happen at the same time for it to go right. if i have to spend my energy thinking about looking at the ball, it draws bandwidth away from other tasks like aiming, timing, tactile sense etc. so it needs to happen more automatically, which is what practice seems to create. i think the key idea is efficiency i.e. how little effort it takes to do something the right way. i guess you need to get your mind and body to do the right little things by default, not by conscious effort.

i wonder if the difficulty in getting yourself to do something "the right way" is that you unfortunately have an opinion about how to do it already. its like you have a bunch of little processes that already think they are optimizing the action, and you somehow need to convince them there is a better way. i guess the convincing comes from experiencing the positive results, but i can see how its tricky because you generally have to temporarily get worse to get better.

Your description is exactly how Gallwey addresses these issues in The Inner Game of Tennis (published in 1974). There appears to also be an Inner Game of Golf.

http://theinnergame.com/products/books/the-inner-game-of-ten...

> But, like fine motor control, the key is in doing this consistently.

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect."

Some friends of mine teach this for target shooting with pistols.

They can teach anyone how to shoot amazingly accurately in about 15 minutes. Even if they haven't shot a gun before.

They call it the cybernetic loop.

http://insightfirearmstraining.com

I was unaware of this concept, but I think I've run across it independently in the context of music. I play the banjo and have noticed that if I'm trying to make a large left hand jump, I tend to do better if I focus on the fret I'm jumping to prior to moving my hand. I would imagine that this also applies to most stringed instruments, the piano, etc...

Similarly on a motorcycle you're frequently told simply to look where you want to go as you enter a turn. That alone makes your hands do what they need to do.

My unscientific take on this is it's about micro adjustments and just in time feedback. By focusing on where you ARE going, you will make that happen subconsciously through your motor skills. If you are going the wrong way (in micro amounts), you will self-correct.

Same for racing cars. A lot of time is spent getting beginners to look up.

My dad just did one of the NASCAR/Indy car race experience things. There is no {tach,speed}ometer in the cockpit. I gather they don't want you looking anywhere but the track.

Related: target fixation.

Also I imagine it's another effort at reducing weight. I recall a big hoopla years ago when they started putting cameras on the cars. Even those few pounds caused a fight. And a racer, on race day, has a crew that can monitor their speed and relay it to them via radio.

Actually, every different series has different rules. Some cars can transmit data, some cannot, etc.

Some cars are underweight and need lead weights. So you can take it back out of that...

I have a PWC race car and it has a high-end Motec, but is not allowed to transmit - the crew plugs in a usb cable at the pit stop.

Really nice eye-tracking compilation of an experienced rider on track: https://youtu.be/4gNbuMQTRaU

Similarly, good bass players look square at the drummer, or even specifically the bass drum, in recording sessions.

Completely. While playing a complex classical piano piece I used to perform jumps with my hands "blind" - without looking at the keys. The trick (apart from lots and lots of practice) was the sidelong glance to eye up your target moments before moving your hands. That way both hands can perform jumps at the same time (and you dazzle onlookers :)

Most traditional string instruments do not have finger positions marked, so I'm not sure how much help it would be to look, since that would provide only lateral guidance. For some instruments like violins and violas, the perspective is also lousy for determining finger position along the string, since you're looking down the string rather than from above. You have to develop a sense of where your fingers are based on the feel of the scroll and neck, not based on sight.

This is interesting to me as a juggler because almost everything you do in juggling involves maintaining your spatial awareness of multiple objects even though you are only able to focus on one at a time.

Much of understanding a juggling pattern is developing the ability to see where a ball will go in a split second. By the time you actually catch that ball, you probably did several other things in the meantime, but the right time to "look" is anywhere from a tenth to a half second before you actually catch.

When you start out, you feel the compulsion to follow each ball until you catch it. When you get better, you start seeing the ball at its peak and anticipating its landing.

Practice enough and you start tracking 5 balls instead of 3, or tracking and anticipating the spins on clubs. There's obviously a ton of muscle memory involved, but maintaining enough focus to keep track of everything with well timed, short glances is a developed skill.

Makes me wonder about how to do this intentionally. I don't think I've ever been able to do this consistently.

Theres a great mental toughness book/concept called Mindset[1], and the concepts are definitely all over the sports world. The book is considered by some to be the Inner Game Of Tennis[2] of today. But one of the concepts in Mindset that they say even the top guys can mess up is that if you are in a negative state of mind, you must give yourself a trigger word, or some sort of positivity before restarting your concentration. In other words, if you are telling yourself, "I am playing like crap. Wah Wah.. Ok, now concentrate!" You are likely to fail. However, if you are able to stop yourself, or correct yourself and say, "run run run." Then start concentrating, you are more likely to succeed. In relation to the article, quiet eyes are only as good as the mindset behind them. (I hope that made some sort of sense). But it basically means you need to have the right mindset before you start concentrating.

The run run run is from an example in the book. I noticed when the Detroit Red Wings were on a losing skid this year players had "skate skate skate" written on the tape of their stick. Also, Roberta Vinci quoted Mindset after taking down Serena Williams at the US Open. And Roger Federer has talked about using a lot of tactics in Mindset.

[1].http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Mental-Guide-Jackie-Reardon/dp...

[2]http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/...

Obligatory Inner Game of Tennis TV feature: https://youtu.be/ieb1lmm9xHk

and specifically related to keeping the eyes on the ball: https://youtu.be/ieb1lmm9xHk?t=255

In elementary school I had to take remedial gym. Yes, remedial freakin' gym, I had so many left feet. When practicing basketball techniques I kept missing the basket until the teacher told me to keep my eye on the rim of the basket and get the ball just behind that forward rim.

It started going in time after time. Not every time -- remedial gym kid! -- but enough times to where I felt I could do it.

It's interesting to me that techniques like this seem to be more about visualization than a kind of stillness, which the article is discussing. I certainly use a technique like that when climbing - I try to imagine the hold I am trying to catch is actually farther away than it actually is (partly since overshooting isn't as much of a problem as undershooting), which tends to help with getting there.

I think the stillness refers to the idea of keeping your eyes steady on a target, even if your head or body is moving around.

I'm a competitive bowler, and you use a small spot on the lane about 15 feet out (there are arrows to help you target) as your visual focus. When you watch the best bowlers, although they are walking to the foul line, so their arms and legs are moving, their head and eyes are basically motionless, as they are keeping their eye on the target throughout the approach and after the release of the ball.

In fact, coaches will tell you to watch your ball roll over your target and not lift your head up for another second after that, as a way of enforcing the "eye on the target" concept.

Would that be something like punching through a target? If you're aiming for just the hold, you risk not putting enough power or movement behind your effort. If you're aiming for after it (or after a hole in golf, through the person in boxing, etc.) then you will achieve your actual goal.

That's exactly it. The movement and power you develop is different when you're trying to puncture thru the target rather than just hit it. You'll recruit different muscles, etc

I've taken up BJJ this year, and took some boxing lessons (no time to actually train in it yet). That was something emphasized in boxing, and only rarely in the BJJ classes. But when I started applying that concept to BJJ (particularly with sweeps and a couple other things), I improved significantly in just a couple weeks.

A bit of this "quiet eye" stuff as well. I think, along with the benefits of properly seeing and visualizing to improve coordination, it also encourages a deliberateness of motion. Similar to "punching through", when you move deliberately and without hesitation you get a more fluid and powerful movement.

Something like that. Just behind the rim is in the basket. If you overshoot it still goes in. If you undershoot, it's pretty likely to bounce and go in.

I wonder if there is a conceptual equivalent of this technique. Instead of "keep your eye on the ball" prior to some complex physical action you'd use "keep your eye on the principle" prior to some complex mental action (i.e. thinking)

Interesting. I use something similar when I am training people. When I want the group to discuss something, I usually leave a relevant image up on the projector. When I do this, I find people stay on topic a lot more and the discussion is more fruitful.

On a side note, images work better than having text up. Something about the image seems to work without distracting them from their discussion

Older writeup:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/keeping-your-eye-on...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22564009 "Quiet eye training expedites motor learning and aids performance under heightened anxiety: the roles of response programming and external attention."

Has there been any research of these techniques applied to video games? It would be interesting to know if there is a measurable benefit to say staring at the opposing character in a fighting game instead of the neutral space. Likewise for things like making tough shots in first person shooters or precise jumps in platformers.

Anecdotally, my performance at shmups* became a lot better when I learned two simple ideas: watch my ship and the bullet patterns so I can dodge between them, and don't worry about precision firing. My original instinct had me looking pretty much everywhere BUT my ship and the bullets approaching it.

Or more succinctly: be where the bullets are not. Get that down and the rest is just finesse.

Ultimately I layered more complicated information acquisition strategies on top of this; my eyes constantly jump around the screen, to get a quick check on where enemies and power ups are, upcoming terrain, etc, but I still spend a lot of time watching a small zone around my ship.

Modern "bulletstorm" shmups also involve a lot of me chunking stuff together: big enemies will often spit out huge arcs of bullets, that initially cluster together as a big arc of death, but slowly spread out into something you can pass through. Similarly, small enemies may come in groups, which I sometimes think of as single entities.

* a contraction of "shoot 'em up"; 2d games where you control a small, fragile spaceship. Scramble, R-Type, and Ikaruga are all good examples.

Anecdotal personal experience: I noticed getting significantly better at One Finger Death Punch after reading "The Inner Game of Tennis".

I've read The Inner Game of Tennis as well and I agree its helped me with an improvement mindset with video games. However I haven't seen much academic research around these topics and I'm curious if its out there.

Reminds me of this podcast (specifically on free throws) I ran across recently:

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/2-free-throws-2/

A different style of talking about it of course.

[2005]: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/21/spark.quiet.eye/index...

The "quiet eye" reminds me of "quieting the mind" in meditation.

An athlete will perform better in times of pressure if they can focus on the task and not get distracted mentally.

And it's visible in the eyes when athletes have the calm, quiet look of focused attention.

Having read "The Inner Game of Tennis", this just seems like the obvious thing to do.

There is quite a bit of relevant discussion in Kendo and Kenjutsu when it comes to studying your opponent and adjusting your gaze to encompass the entire opponent as opposed to any single feature. I wonder if it is connected.

Also super important in tennis. Your ability to direct and control the ball consistently dramatically changes if you always keep your eye on the ball. Of course, it's easier said than done to do this consistently.

How does this differ from "Keep your eyes on the ball!" spoken more than 50 years ago by my dad (and probably 100 years ago by his father?)

It doesn't. In this and related articles, this is research that quantifies the difference in performance when the adage is emphasized versus an emphasis on form.

It's like a finger pointing at the moon.

Glad to see Master Lee is not forgotten!

I believe it makes a difference in coding as well.

Can you expand on that? I'm curious how someone would use this technique to improve their coding.

My version is a bit different: It really helps to know my editor well enough that I just look at a spot on the screen and the cursor goes there (without conscious thought).

That's probably not quite the same thing as the article is talking about, though...

I can do this in verb-noun structure of VI/VIM, but for some reason the somewhat richer but less structured Emacs movements don't flow as easily. I've been using either for decades.

I find that 'excess mental activity' blocks peak-performance when coding. Excess mental activity can be described as 'aversions/judgements/fears' about the work to be done - self-talk like "this looks hard", "fuck I hate this build system", etc.

I try to just stare at the code without judgment for a few moments, then let the fingers do their thing. Sort of a meditative practice - quiet mind instead of quiet eye.

YMMV! :-)

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