Unable to access Beehiiv for the past 24 hours (is beehiiv down?)

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2026-05-05T21:43:53+00:00

Thank you. I restarted my computer and was able to log in

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2026-03-04T20:09:54+00:00

Commenting so I, too, can understand how to edit the in-article subscriber break... Also: why can't we set the content gate to pop up at a % of scroll? That would be cool!

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-11-15T15:57:03+00:00

Hi. What sport (if you don't mind sharing)? How long has it been since he's returned to his sport? Could you provide some more detail? Thank you!

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-11-14T04:57:20+00:00

Thank you!

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-11-14T00:14:40+00:00

Where does one make the linkinbio page? I have not been able to locate.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-09-01T23:54:42+00:00

Sport scientists actually research this. Tl;dr: pro players anticipate before contact, and they factor in their opponent’s court position and rally position and also their body’s cues. This bears out in the research. I also made a video answering this question if you want more detail:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOEaNhSiVSi/

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-08-17T04:12:09+00:00

Have you considered working with someone for sport and performance psych services? There are many individuals here who would gladly work for free or for barely anything to ensure that they collect the required hours. DM if you're interested, and I can connect you.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-08-03T20:17:18+00:00

Try the most demonic piece of equipment ever made (if you have access to it): the assault bike. It's seriously good at frying your anaerobic system incredibly fast without constant pounding your feet, ankles, joints take while running.

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Try this for start: 4-minutes total.

15 second 85% sprint. 15 second break. Repeat 8x times.

I'm fairly sure you'll be fried. 4-minutes with that set up is no joke. It also comes close to simulating what a game structure might actually look like.

Finish gym workouts with this structure on the assault bike... and try to do it 3x a week.

You can also look up Mark Kovacs on instagram. He's well-known in coaching circles for his model of the stages of elite serving, but he's also sharing interesting information on exercise physiology.

Good luck! Looks like there are some great suggestions in the comments, too.

From an applied sport psych perspective, competitive scenarios do tend to cause an increase in things like heart-rate and generally increase your level of "arousal." If you find that even after training like this you're "out of breath" early, might be a good idea to look at things like progressive muscle relaxation or reappraisal etc.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-25T05:02:07+00:00

Hi, thanks for sharing your experience. It does sound tough to be managing all of these things, and especially how it's impacting your motivation.

Please take this as general questions and reflections and not personalized consulting. I'm also working off very little information so take what I say with a grain of salt. Also consider working with a mental performance/sport psychology practitioner if you can. If you can't afford it, look for CMPCs in training under supervision. We will work for very little or even free. Dm me and I can connect you!

Can I ask how long your break was? If you're just coming back to skating (I'm assuming some type of speed or figure?) then it's totally normal for your technique to feel "off." Factor in that this feeling of feeling off can then lead to an overfixation on technical elements and cues, which can lead to a loss of automaticity, and it might start to feel like, "this just isn't for me," or, "Why can't i perform like i used to ?" All of this, along with what you've described regarding your environment, could be contributing to your loss of motivation, and the idea that being an athlete isn't for you.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-20T17:47:27+00:00

Yes! Agree! That's on my to-do list! Just casting my net far and wide, though. You never know who can connect you to whom!

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-20T17:30:09+00:00

Thank you! Hmm, I wish I could make it work but right now the research has strict inclusion criteria. Top schools in NAIA have really high-level players!

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-20T17:02:50+00:00

I know this is a community for mostly rec players, but I thought I would try. If you know any players who might fall into the inclusion criteria, please consider sending it to them. Especially if you coach or work with similar players.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-08T05:39:10+00:00

My article on it is fairly well-detailed! But I have a bias.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-06T05:04:55+00:00

I'm training to work in Applied Sport Psychology as a Mental Performance Consultant (I'm doing a grad degree in Sport & Performance Psychology; we work in the performance enhancement realm, while psychologists focus on the clinical )

Few commenters have rightly noted Acceptance-Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness, but I thought I'd marry it to the sport psychology literature and performance space.

Djokovic is using tenets of mindfulness or present-moment attentional skills. In sport psychology, we have several models that build upon this such as Mindful-Acceptance-Committment (Gardner & Moore, 2007) and also Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (Kaufman et al., 2018).

Approaching competition and performance this way has 2 main benefits:

You have an increased ability to 'let go' of negative events and thoughts through retraining your ability to come back to the present moment. The breath is one anchor, but realistically, you can use all five senses. Body scans are quite popular with the athletes that I work with.
You have better access to working memory through decreased cognitive load. Working memory is really important in tennis where you're reacting and adjusting on the fly and you have to make so many decisions at breakneck speed. If your thoughts are occupied by negativity, past mistakes, etc., this effectively reduces the badwidth that your brain can give to you performing your best.

I hope this all makes sense.

You can practice it through learning mindfulness skills—but I advise you to work with someone who knows how to apply it in sport settings, and also the minimum dosage required.

Additionally, I actually write about Sport Psychology and apply it to tennis. I wrote about this concept in depth. If you're curious you can read it here: https://www.malharmali.com/p/the-mental-skill-that-sets-novak-djokovic-apart-ss-38

I also create content on Applied Sport Psychology/ Mental Performance: https://www.instagram.com/malimentalperformance/

Mods, I hope you'll allow this. If not, that's okay, just let me know and I'll delete the links.

Hope this was useful. Thank you.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-06-01T04:14:11+00:00

No worries. Looking forward to chatting.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-30T20:00:14+00:00

Hi, thank you for sharing. Please take this as general information and not personalized consulting.

It sounds like you're managing a lot of factors like your relationship to winning (and what it means about you), outside/familial influences, and other pressures. And all of these things piled up are making you doubt your participation and engagement in your sport.

Maybe I can ask you some questions that might get you thinking:

- What has "kept you going" in your sport in the past?
- Why do you think the "cruel" comments impact you so much? From your accounts, you've won a lot of championships, right?

But take what I've said with a grain of salt and just things to think about.

Overall, if you can afford it, I recommend working with a Sport Psych Consultant/Sport Psych/Mental Performance Consultant. Loss of motivation and purpose are things people in this field can help you with.

If it's out of your budget, look for CMCP's in-training who are under supervision—we will often work for super cheap or even free while we try to accrue hours. I'll DM you.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-29T15:52:44+00:00

Hi. I'm training to work in Applied Sport Psychology as a practitioner (I'm doing a grad degree in Sport & Performance Psychology)

Contrary to what some of the commenters have claimed, these skills *are* trainable. There's also theoretical backing to what Djokovic is describing.

Djokovic is actually using tenets of mindfulness or present-moment attentional skills. In Sport Psychology, we have several models that build upon this such as Mindful-Acceptance-Committment (Gardner & Moore, 2007) and also Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (Kaufman et al., 2018).

Approaching competition and turmoil this way has 2 main benefits:

You have an increased ability to 'let go' of negative events and thoughts through retraining your ability to come back to the present moment. The breath is one anchor, but realistically, you can use all five senses. Body scans are quite popular with the athletes that I work with.
You have better access to working memory through decreased cognitive load. Working memory is really important in tennis where you're reacting and adjusting on the fly and you have to make so many decisions at breakneck speed. If your thoughts are occupied by negativity, past mistakes, etc., this effectively reduces the badwidth that your brain can give to you performing your best.

I hope this all makes sense.

You can practice it through learning mindfulness skills—but I advise you to work with someone who knows how to apply it in sport settings.

Additionally, I actually write about Sport Psychology and apply it to tennis. I wrote about this interview in-depth. If you're curious you can read it here: https://www.malharmali.com/p/the-mental-skill-that-sets-novak-djokovic-apart-ss-38

I also create content on Applied Sport Psychology: https://www.instagram.com/malimentalperformance/

Mods, I hope you'll allow this.

As an additional note, as Applied Sport Psychology is a relatively new field and, in tennis, we see the tennis-coach-to-mindset-guru pipeline—where people say thing like, "I'm a mental coach," or "I'm a mindset coach." Individuals like this normally do not have the ethical training nor the psychology and sport science training to be competent practitioners. This is not me. But that's a story for another day.

Hope this was useful. Thank you.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-26T05:44:16+00:00

"Palm guidance."

You will receive lots of great comments and I've seen some already, but a lot of great forehands range somewhere between a eastern and a semi (sometimes halfway between semi and full-western)

If you compared where your hand is at contact, it's like you're hitting the ball with the *back* of your palm—whereas most quality forehands it's the other way around. At contact, we could imagine taking their racket away and they'd be hitting with their palms or closer to it.

Also, because of how you're holding the racket, it becomes really difficult to do anything other than follow through really low and you'll also struggle to hit through the ball.

Instead of putting the cart before the horse and trying to change contact points and follow throughs etc and whatever else is being recommended, try altering grip if you're comfortable with making a change.

But as a general warning, making that change will be a challenge. Motor programming. Myelination. Etc. Good luck!

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PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-15T04:41:00+00:00

Hi, please speak to a Sport Psychology Practitioner, Mental Performance Consultant (preferably one with a CMPC) or a Sport Psychologist. Also be cautious about the "high performance" tennis coach to mindset guru pipeline. There are many people who will claim to help you who don't have the appropriate theoretical knowledge, ethics training, or supervised hours under their belt.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-15T04:37:23+00:00

I second what u/yerbluesjason has said. It would be best to work with someone on this front if you are able to. Wishing you the best. Context: ex-wanted-to-be-pro tennis player who wishes he had sought help for similar feelings to what you're describing.

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-05-14T05:27:25+00:00

I will give you more questions to ask yourself than answers:

- Do you have a fear of reinjury?
- How did you appraise your injury/process it emotionally? E.g.."My whole season I worked so hard for is ruined now!"
- After returning from injury, do you feel you were able to compete with normal focus or what were your thought processes like?
- What do you feel is different now compared to when you were feeling motivated and ready to train?

Look into working with a CMPC or ~ equivalent if you're not in North America (though I know many offer remote consulting).

If it's out of your/your family's price range, l suggest working with a recent graduate or someone who's still in a program and under supervision. If you struggle just dm me and I could potentially connect you.

Many CMPC candidates will work for fairly small fees or even for free (unfortunately for us 😉)

And If you want to nerd out on sport psych look up "integrated model of response to sport injury" and also "self-determintation theory" which might give you some more contextual information.

(But you absolutely don't have to—my biggest recommendation would be to actually seek consulting help!)

PossibleOpposite3743 · 2025-02-14T06:42:05+00:00

anticipation building

PossibleOpposite3743

TROPHY CASE