How We Learn

by Tom Nordland

Recently I had a chance to coach a group of kids in two sessions, two to three weeks apart. When we had some competitive games during the second session, I could see that some had really started to incorporate the new teaching into their shots and others had not. I could see where the shot breaks down after some learning has taken place. Of course it's because old habits are hard to break. And some had done more practice than others. But I thought to comment on what I feel can be done to keep the new learning up front rather than slipping into the background.

DISTANCE, SPEED, PRESSURE TOO SOON, MISS A COUPLE
If students move back in distance too far too quickly, the shot will break down and old habits will reappear. If the speed of the shot gets too far beyond a comfortable, slow-at-first "learning" pace, the shot will break down. If pressure is applied too soon and they're not highly confident in the new stroke, the old will take over. If they miss a couple of shots with the newly learned shot, some players will lose confidence.

This stuff takes time to learn to the point where it becomes the dominant "habit," so make sure you know (or your players know) to go easy on oneself. Relax. This stuff takes time! But there is a way to "be" with this process that will help accelerate the learning and trust.

DON'T BE OVERLY FOCUSED ON PERFORMANCE
As human beings, our focus on results, on what's called "performance," is usually so great we will sacrifice everything to get it. And the funny thing is, by trying so hard to get the end result, it actually makes it harder, it sabotages what we want. It often eludes us because you don't get development if all you focus on is the result. Instead work on feel and observation.

AWARENESS WORKS
Awareness of what we do (what could also be called "feel") and feedback of how things are happening is how the body knows what it is doing relative to a goal, and from that feedback loop it develops. Awareness in a physical sport like basketball occurs in the present moment and is a physical feeling, not a thought. Our wishing and hoping for results are thoughts -- they exist in the mental domain. They're about the future (what you want, what you're hoping for) and about the past (past failures or successes), but not about the present. If you are consumed with performance, you will be in the mind and not the body.

But our bodies need to be present -- what we could call "in the body" -- in order for us to create and sustain high performance. It's like a Catch 22. You can't get there by focus solely on performance.

PERFORMANCE CAN BE AN "INTENTION" RATHER THAN A "GOAL"
In my training to be a golf coach, my mentors and fellow coaches and I often talked about the difference between an Intention and a Goal. Let me tell you how I've come to understand them. They may seem like the same thing, but there is a difference. Let me go through a scenario to explain it (and I realize these are just my definitions of these terms).

A GOAL is something we want and we strive to get. We usually work to find a way to make it happen. We might want to kick a soccer ball into the goal or bowl a strike, or we could have a goal to put a basketball into a basket from certain spots on the floor. With this goal in mind, we then "try" hard to get it. We kick the soccer ball with our leg in a specific fashion, or we roll the bowling ball down the alley with a certain spin, or we use all of our physical stuff to send the basketball up toward and, hopefully, into the basket. We try to manipulate our experience with this end goal in mind.

An INTENTION is softer than a Goal! It implies that there is a result we want (like the goal, to put the ball into the basket), but it is achieved by sense of "Letting Go," not by trying or trying harder. It assumes that the body knows how to do things and the more we "let" the body free to do its thing, the more likely the result will be accomplished. It can be scary at first, this idea of Letting Go to get the most effective results, but once you've seen how effectively and naturally it works, it will be something you'll keep coming back to and wanting to recreate.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST
If you find yourself oscillating back and forth between your old shot and your new possibility, here's a way to approach it that's more powerful than just "trying" to fix things. Remember that Trying doesn't work! (Reminder: by "Trying" I mean the extra, non-helpful things we do in our attempt to make something happen.)

INCREASE AWARENESS OF THE TWO DIFFERENT SHOTS
Intentionally shoot your "old" way. Then intentionally shoot the "new" way. Compare them, contrast them. Remember that awareness is always helpful, it is the master tool for learning. And doing more of it can't screw you up. Only when you "know" something like a shot motion fully and intimately can you choose to do it in a different way, what's called "Learning."

Observe your old shot, with "quality" awareness. Welcome it, love it just the way it is. You don't want it to continue, but it is a part of you, it's how you survived in that activity, doing the best you could at the time. Now you know of new possibilities, but the old can't be erased that fast. The more you experience and understand what you've been doing, the more quickly you can abandon it and more forward.

STRETCH YOUR EXPERIENCE / EXAGGERATION
Stretching your experience will help. For example, let's say you want to change the location of your Set Point from it being "way overhead" to a position more near the front of your head. Besides just paying attention to feel it, consider exaggerating it. Take it further back than normal and then take it back more in front. Position it higher than normal and lower. Take it more to the right, more to left. Can you feel these different positions? If you can, the expanded awareness you now have will give clearer and clearer feedback, which leads to greater and quicker learning.

Then observe your new shot with that same level of awareness. How do the two strokes differ? Where do they differ? When do they differ? Which feels more comfortable or effortless? Which produces the best results? The more you know physically (and mentally), the better. The new stroke should give more effective results or there is no reason to switch to it. So let's assume that's the case.

Once you feel exactly what's happening with body, ball and target, you are ready to "choose" the new shot. It will give you all the benefits you want. If it still eludes you, slow the motion down more and more until you become more "super" aware. Then the learning will be stronger and the time to learn to trust the new shot will shorten.

DON'T JUST KEEP SHOOTING HOPING FOR BETTER RESULTS
If you find yourself getting lost in results -- and doing anything and everything you can to try to get them -- stop!!! Doing the same thing over and over expecting (or hoping for) different results is the definition of insanity, as described by writer Rita Mae Brown. If you catch yourself doing that, stop, and then start over. Shoot and truly observe what happens! Review the principles you're working with and repeat the progression you learned that empowers the new stroke. Watch yourself shoot now and see if the new stoke holds. If it fails and the old shot reappears, stop again and start over again. Your body and mind are magnificent. They won't keep doing something you don't want to do unless you get lost and stop feeling, stop being aware.

GAMES AND PRESSURE SITUATIONS -- BUILD INTO SLOWLY
Remember that in the pressure of competition is not the place to learn a new stroke. It needs to be approached in a non-threatening practice environment first and then in practice game situations before you will truly trust it under "real" pressure. If you have a coach, tell him or her, or tell teammates that you're working on a new stroke and you want to test it under pressure but you know it may go awry. Ask them to be patient with you. (You can reciprocate with your teammates when they are working on new things.) With that approval, if it's appropriate, then you can really "go" for it and let go of attachment to results. The freedom to fail will help you break through to a new level. Expect to miss a bunch of times when you first expose the new stroke to a real (or imagined) pressure situation. Breakdowns are inevitable, but with practice and patience, very soon the new shot will become trusted, will become the automatic response and you're on your way.

INTENTIONS AND AWARENESS
Remember, you are in control of this! Your intentions are driving you. Your awareness and feedback system are the tools. But you have to get and stay awake to your experiences!

The Jedi of the Jumper Could Teach Lebron

The Johnny Appleseed of jump shots is on the road as we speak, spreading his simple gift to the world, even if the world isn't always ready to receive.

Take LeBron James, for instance. A recent discovery has been made about James, the NBA's teen wonder who recently graduated high school.  He can't shoot. On mid-range jump shots, James has the deft touch of a grizzly bear trained to repair watches with a mallet.

Man, would the Johnny Appleseed of jump shots -- his name is Tom Nordland -- love to get his hands on LeBron. Explain to him why he shouldn't be cranking the ball so far back, waiting until the top of his jump to release the ball. Show him how he is greatly complicating one of nature's simplest movements.

It pains Nordland to watch most NBA guys shoot.  The pure jump shot is a lost art, like cave painting.  It's been pushed aside by the power game, lack of good shot coaching, apathy.

Baseball pitchers and hitters continually tinker with their form. Most NBA guys work on their facial hair more than they work on improving their jumper.

A few NBA players have a pure stroke, Nordland says. Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Doug Christie and Mike Bibby, at times.

But to watch what Chris Webber tries to pass off as a jumper, or to ponder Erick Dampier's release point, is horrifying.

Nordland can help them. It's easy! But they don't hear him.

He worked with Dale Davis some years back. After about eight sessions, Davis went from a 46.5 percent free-throw shooter to 72% the next season.  That's huge. Davis paid Nordland $5,000 and stopped returning his calls.

Nordland worked briefly with ex-Stanford star Kate Starbird, and she credited him with re-inventing her faulty J and reviving her pro career.

He worked with Dampier a couple of times: "I helped him a lot. He never thanked me, never called back. He got better, then he slowly lost it."

What drives Nordland crazy is that it's so simple.  The jump shot isn't like the golf swing, which he also teaches and which has more moving parts than the Rockettes.

Maybe that's what scares the NBA players away -- they don't understand how it could be so simple.  Kids listen, so Nordland takes his gift to them, one gym at a time. Clinics for coaches, clinics for kids.  He's a missionary. He didn't choose the work, it chose him.

Nordland was born with a golden arm. As a kid he practiced shooting, relentlessly, and made himself a prep superstar. In 1957, he scored 27 points per game and led his Minnesota high school team to the state championship.

He was a shy, insecure, skinny kid, but give him a shot from 18, and he was cool and graceful as a hood ornament, because he had the secret of the J.  Then he lost it. He went to Stanford to play ball, mysteriously lost his shot and spent three years on Howie Dallmar's bench.

Nordland played rec ball for another 14 years, with his iffy J, then quit the game.

At age 50, working at Apple Computer Inc. in Cupertino, Nordland wandered onto the company court, took a few shots, couldn't miss. In an instant it all came flooding back. The prodigal jump shot, decades in the wilderness, had come home to papa.

Nordland recognized the old feeling, only this time he broke it down, analyzed it, captured it like a lepidopterist bottling a rare butterfly.

When Apple laid him off four years later, that was Nordland's summons to his life's mission.

He wrote a pamphlet, made a video, started a Web site (swish22.com) and hit the pavement.

Clueless kids walk into his clinic in the morning, hoisting jump shots like they're trying to throw suitcases onto the top bunk. By lunchtime, they're swishing 15-footers with their eyes closed.

The main deal: Catch the up force (or as Nordland trademarked it, UpForce). The jump, the ball hoist and the release are one smooth upward piece.  There's a Zen component, though Nordland says, "It's more like non- thinking."

Or as he says in his video, "Trust yourself. Let it fly!"

Hey, it worked for Dumbo.

Nordland works nonstop, hyperspeed, because he's 64, and he doesn't have forever to teach the world to shoot. He would still love to work with NBA players, or a team, to give his method a higher visibility. But he's happiest working with children and their coaches.

"I can use basketball shooting as a way to reach kids' heads, teach them life skills," Nordland says.  "They're learning hard work, concentration, focus, a different level of self-motivation. If you learn to shoot a jump shot, you learn how to learn."

Kids, hell. What about me? I want to do what Nordland says on his video: "Discover the great shooter within each of you."

The great shooter within me has, over the years, eluded many search-and-rescue parties. He appears in public as often as Elvis. But after a short Nordland clinic, I'm confident that if I can find two good surgeons, plastic and knee, I can be a decent high school player.

Then I'll skip college . . .

More Mechanical Than Mysterious

An article from Terry Tucker, a coach from Jasper, Indiana wrote to describe the value of my Swish approach and the things I'm teaching/coaching. Terry has described earlier in other venues how he feels about the Swish "Process," as he puts it, and I really liked this new way of putting it.

MORE ART THAN SCIENCE?

Prior to ordering and studying the Swish process and working with players at various age levels, I used to think that shooting was more art than science. In other words, you either had that special eye-hand coordination that allowed you to be a good shooter or you didn't and if you weren't blessed in that regard there wasn't a whole lot you could do about it. Also, you had to have a shooter's confidence and mentality and, again, that was not something that you could develop easily.
 

NOW I SEE IT DIFFERENTLY!

Now I look at shooting very differently. It can be a learned skill and anyone can improve significantly if they are willing to learn the Swish process. There are scientific reasons as to why a basketball flies toward the basket in the manner that it does, and if you understand and execute those principles upon which the Swish process is based, you will increase your odds of success. Also, the mechanics necessary to do this are simple, not complex; forgiving not rigid. Unlike golf, where the margin for error off the club head is very, very small; the margin for error in shooting a basketball is quite large if you understand what's going on. I did not believe this before, but now I most certainly do. This is the advantage that the Swish process provides.

MORE MECHANICAL THAN MYSTERIOUS!

Bottom line, shooting is much more mechanical than mysterious; more physical than mental. The common coaching practice of applying pressure by making everybody run if one player doesn't hit two free throws does more harm than good if the shooter's mechanics do not allow for success. You can't control variation through concentration if the shot mechanics are wrong. However, you can control variation through the Swish process, and once a player is convinced that it works, his/her 'shooter's mentality index' soars! It's better to shoot only 25 jump shots per day correctly than 500 without awareness and understanding of what you're trying to accomplish.

Also, I would emphasize more heavily your engineering background and all of the time you spent studying and analyzing the shooting mechanics of great shooters to find the common threads. Your background and approach clearly support the concept that shooting is more of a science than an art.

CALL IT A 'PROCESS'

On a minor point, I would suggest using the term 'Swish Process' instead of 'Swish Method' or 'Swish Approach' as the word process has a more scientific and disciplined ring to it than method or approach.

Coach, I think your differentiator is, 'Science that is understandable and works for the masses,' instead of 'one guy's opinion that is vague and only works for a select few.'