I'm Back. A post from CP

actually updated. i will try harder, i promise. this is a post i had at CP, thought it'd be an easy way to update the ol' blog.

this is spawned by a brief post in the tourney section. i read a book YEARS ago when i was serious about getting into motorcycle racing (road not motocross). the book was "Twist of the Wrist" by Keith Code. like most books it was rather technical in it's approach and very thorough. things like breaking down a turn, finding the apex, ascending, descending, vision, etc. like all GOOD instructional books it had a section focusing on the psychology of racing.
the author (Keith Code himself) spoke of "taking the negative" out of our mindset. for instance instead of saying "i didn't take that turn correctly" or "I didn't get the front wheel around.." in order to correct your mistake you must look at it in the proper frame of mind and in the correct text. we take the above examples and switch the wording around to say: "i was too slow going into the turn and need to get the front wheel around sooner to maximize speed at the apex.". it's easy to see which approach will achieve our goals quicker and more effective. (not example from book)
this isn't exclusive to negative wording alone. it applies to a positive awareness of "where you went wrong" and what steps you need to apply to correct. or in some cases vague terminology that is used to describe a tactic that may be too narrow on it's own (ex. "tight")
here's where we can apply some of this to poker. for instance, terminology: TIGHT. we speak of playing "tight" early in a MTT but what does that mean? we all have our own personal definition, coupled with the opinions of others; but how are we applying it? we want to play opportunistic and avoid trouble. problem here is that a lot of times inexperience (or even players that have gotten "stale") fall into the rut of "playing their cards" during these "tight" periods. they fail to see opportunities when they might be able to pick up chips w/ very little risk or they, unbeknown to them, begin to get pushed off of better hands by a "more observant" player seeing the "tight" player give away pots uncontested. situations where a simple CB by the PrF aggressor nets a virtually "free" pot.
we fall into that trap/routine of using terms we don't fully understand. we fall into excuses "i played tight" but fail to see missed opportunities.
worse, ever finish a session and say "i played horrible" or "i didn't play well'? negative terminology that doesn't net us the correct (POSITIVE) refocus required to play optimally.
Keith Code stated in his book that "you can't fix something you didn't do". obviously, it's impossible to take the "nots" and "didn'ts" completely out of our game. however, if we can simply expound on our own definition of "what we didn't do" and focus more on what we should have done, we're well on our way to having the correct mind set when we play.