'Rewiring Mark Selby' - How snooker coach is helping former world champion
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Updated 06/08/2020 at 18:30 GMT
Snooker coach Chris Henry has explained how he is trying to "rewire" Mark Selby and "create better automatic thoughts" to improve his confidence.
Zog bei der Snooker-WM 2020 ins Achtelfinale ein: Mark Selby
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Three-time champion Selby was below his best as he battled to victory over Brown in the first round of the World Snooker Championship.
Discussing Selby's display, Eurosport commentator Dave Hendon said that it "didn’t look like he was enjoying a single minute" of the match.
Henry, who also works with 2005 World Championship winner Shaun Murphy, told The Break podcast that there’s nothing wrong with Selby technically, but there are “weaknesses” they are working on.
"The good thing with Mark obviously is he’s an incredible snooker player," said Henry, who started working with Selby ahead of the World Championship.
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"He hasn’t maybe done too well in recent times but what we’ve got to do is bring those wonderful memories back into his recent memory file bank.
"So we’re using some tools through our five senses, through our audios, videos and visualisation to help him just to remember a little bit about who he is and what he’s done, and also prove to him that his on-table game is there. He’s just got to trust it again now and move on quickly.
What you’ve got to be very good at is doing the things that help you perform at your best, things that you can control, and it’s important to get rid of the things that you can’t control that you can get frustrated with and can affect the way you feel. He’s got a little bit caught up in trying to control things he can’t control and trying to affect things that didn’t need affecting. He’s in a much better place I believe. He’s more perky now, a lot more bubbly again, he’s sounding far more confident.
“Typically sportspeople try to turn over old stones and try to find out what’s wrong, and sometimes they’re barking up the wrong tree. They can start to blame things that actually aren’t ineffective and that was one of the things that Mark was doing. He was looking at the technical side of his game and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him technically.
“There was a little bit of visual, there was some visual coordination issues, and of course if you’re not getting the results on the table it can affect your confidence absolutely. So we’ve looked at all the areas, we’ve identified what the weaknesses are also on a rewiring process to create better automatic thoughts which release different chemicals to make you feel better basically.”
Selby made a number of mistakes during his first-round win against Brown and admitted at times he found it “difficult to concentrate”.
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“I wasn’t worried because he handled it very well,” said Henry. “He was very positive afterwards because he said ‘I didn’t go down that track mentally of concerning myself with things’, because the belief that something isn’t wrong technically is there now and that worry that there’s something wrong technically breeds doubt and anxiety.
“That’s a big thing for him, that doubt and anxiety, and that worry that he had has just disappeared.
“So he knows what the issues are, we’re working on them, he’s very talented and he picks things up very quickly. And we’re also working on concentration, he mentioned that in one of his interviews the other day.
“We’re using an ‘abc process’ that keeps your conscious brain ticking allowing the sub-conscious to pick up shots and instruct instinctively what is the best shot to play – that’s what he’s going to be doing.”
Selby, who faces Noppon Saengkham in the second round, says he is enjoying the start of his relationship with Henry.
“It’s early days yet but I definitely feel better than what I was before I went on board with him and I thought if I was coming here to have a good chance then I needed to do something different.
“So me and Chris spoke, had a chat, and came up with an agreement that we’ll be together for a year and see what happens. But, as I say it’s still early days but I’m enjoying it again which is the main thing.”
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