What if I told you it’s all in your head?
You’ve taught yourself how to throw a cornhole bag into a hole, some of the time. You’ve watched all the YouTube videos, incessantly watched the ACL content, got pointers from your buddies, spent a thousand on bags, practiced as much as you have had time for, and still you can’t put it together and score consistently. You have frumentum foraminis suctorial stenosis, commonly known as your cornhole head is up your ass.
Understand a few things about yourself. When you throw a four-bagger or whatever your best frame is, that is your true potential and ability, not just mere luck. What do the successful top pros have that you don’t? Sure, they have excellent hand-eye coordination, some have better hand-eye coordination than they have good form. When they are throwing gas – watch their body language. Does it look the same when they are throwing turd? What separates the G.O.A.T Matt Guy from the rest of the field and the rest of us? It’s what is happening between his ears. Watch his eyes. Watch him between shots. Watch him when he is stroking. Watch him when he is sucking (sucking for him, for me it would be well beyond my best round). Great players have the ability to focus, maintain the good, disregard the bad, and be in the present.
I’m not sure who coined the phrase in golf, “Play golf, not golf swing.”, but the same goes for cornhole. The cornhole throw takes about 2-3 seconds to execute, it isn’t remotely possible to think about mechanics and physically execute them at the same time. Me? My ADHD brain can do a crossword puzzle, think about lunch, work, as well as throwing a cornhole bag, usually right off the board! When asked what he was thinking during one of his greatest games, LeBron James’ answer was “nothing”! Save your thinking for practice.
Practice is the time for refining your toss and improving in cornhole, not the weekly blind draw. Instead of practicing with aim, stance, flat bag, extend to the hole, release, or footwork, break it up into the individual areas. What do I mean? Work on your line, aiming to your target with a quiet focused eye – don’t worry about a flat bag or trajectory. Having trouble with your release, height, and trajectory? Separate that from your aiming or flat bag greatness. Flat bag? Go solo with that practice and don’t beat yourself up with less than perfect aiming. Eventually you will have to put it all together and make the damn shot but solve your individual throw problems first and separately.
Are you the player that has an awesome dekaround and can whip Ghost 8 in the back yard but always play well below your ability during a tournament? Yep, you are thinking about too much shit. Bust all those thoughts down to virtually nothing. What do I mean? Find a short 2 maybe 3-word brain calmer. Mine is, “Who cares, target”. “Who cares” is multi-layer, quit caring about the last shot or frame, quit caring about what your opponent just did, quit caring whether you just made a 4 bagger or threw 4 bags off the board. Zone in on the target and let ‘er rip. Prior to that, maybe try to do a thought sequence like this: without looking at anything in particular say to yourself, “Stance-good, line-good, grip-good” then visualize your most excellent shot, look up at the target, take a breath, actually smile, and send it! A long time ago I was fortunate to win an indoor archery championship, another quiet sport like golf and cornhole. I shot a 296 out of 300, my best all season, beat players much better than me, and actually shot 2 Robin Hoods. I’ve tried to recall that round and the only thing I remember thinking was “Bullseye”.
I have a few other things that have helped me and might help you:
Mindfulness. We beer swilling ingrates are not known for our enlightened states of mind. But I put forth the idea that it just might help your game. LeBron, arguably one of the best basketball players in history, sits on the bench and is often seen closing his eyes and breathing, I.E. being mindful. Mindfulness is a trained activity that simply involves blowing all thoughts from your pea brain through focusing only on your slow, deep breathing. Of course, you can’t start meditating while you’re playing but before a game or between games, some quiet mindful breathing will allow you to calm your sorry ass and re-focus yourself.
Visualization. A study was done that took 2 groups of equally skilled basketball players and divided them into a group that practiced free throws in real time and a group that only sat in a room and visualized the perfect free throw arcing through the air and swishing perfectly. Guess who did better? Yup, the visualizers. The study mixed up and interchanged participants with the same positive results. Fun. Cornhole is damn fun. Don’t forget that. Good performance or bad you took this sport up because of that. Yes, you want to get better. Know that you can master the game with practice and patience.
Don’t forget to smile!
Josh
