Hitting homeruns or rocket shots ain’t easy.
However, curiously, if you ask any hitter who just hit one out of the park to describe what she was thinking about right before she hit the ball and how her swing felt – you will find that most hitters will give you pretty similar answers.
If you ask a hitter to describe how she felt just before she swung the ball over the fence, she will probably tell you something like “I was not thinking. I just saw the ball and hit it. I was not even trying to hit it out of the park.”
And if you ask her how her swing felt, she will say something like “It was easy. It was effortless. I didn’t even try to swing hard.”
What these hitters are describing is a state of flow.
Here is the official definition of flow.
Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.
Almost every time a hitter hits a homerun, she is in a state of flow.
She doesn’t think; she just reacts to the ball. The old concept of “see the ball, hit the ball” applied to perfection.
She isn’t trying to swing hard; she just want to make good contact with the ball relying on her “muscle memory” to do the job. It feels effortless.
she is confident and totally focused.
That’s how you hit homeruns and rocket shots – in addition to selecting good pitches and having good mechanics of course!
Try to get in flow.
The more often you find yourself in flow, the more likely you are to hit home runs or rocket shots on a regular basis.