The “Beat Your Streak” Game

Although we receive a ton of questions on a wide variety of topics, 90% of them are “How do I fix ____.” No matter what is giving you trouble, you can use this game to fix ANY problem!

How to play the “Beat Your Streak” game

First, familiarize yourself with the concept of finding your edge. It is CRITICAL that you understand this concept, as it’s 100% necessary to learning skills and breaking habits efficiently.

Once you’ve found your “edge,” take the next baby step past your edge and challenge yourself like this:

1. Throw 3-5 pitches in your “safe” zone—whatever drill or pace you need to use to be comfortably below your edge, where you can execute your pitch without trouble.
2. Move past your safe zone and see what happens.
3. Throw as many pitches as you can before your habit resurfaces.
4. The MOMENT it resurfaces, go back to your safe zone and throw 3-5 more pitches and start over.
5. Keep count of how many pitches you throw before your habit resurfaces. Try to beat your own streak each time. Keep striving for more and more pitches until the habit is gone!

Real-life example:

My student R is trying to eliminate a crow hop. She has no trouble doing the stride-and-drive drill, but when she pitches off the rubber at full speed the hop sneaks back in.

• First she throws a series of warm-ups doing only stride-and-drive.
• Then she goes into full pitching slowly. She counts how many smooth pitches she throws, and gradually speeds her motion up.
• As soon as she hops, we go back to stride-and-drive and start over.

Using this method, R has eliminated her crow hop 99% in lessons over the past 5 months. She’s working on getting the confidence to take that into game situations.

This is also a great way to learn new pitches, or just about anything in and out of softball!

It’s a slow process, but I guarantee it will fix ANY habit more efficiently and more permanently than any other method!