When you're an 8 year old there's no "box" to think outside!

I was working at some cricket fielding exercises with a group of six Under 11 cricketers - and in particular I did a competition with them at throwing and hitting the target stumps from about 15m away.

After we finished this I asked them what is the most important thing to do when trying to hit the stumps, and they all echoed at once, "We need to concentrate by looking at the target." - Pretty straightforward so far. Then I invited them to consider something a little 'outside the box'. "How good do you think you'll be at hitting the stumps when you throw with your eyes closed?" Some thought they stood no chance because they'd only managed one or two hits with their eyes open. Others (especially all the youngest ones) just took it in their stride, without even considering it was an 'outside the box' request.

We ran the same competition, this time throwing with eyes closed - with some hits and a lot of very near misses. Eventually after 2 rounds we had two contenders for a deciding throw-off. One was a young county player and the other was a beginner aged only 8 (though quite technically astute.)
The eventual winner was the beginner. I got them all in a huddle and then did a post-competition "interview" with the winner. "What was your secret to winning," I said, "what did you do specially so we can give your advice to everyone else here?"

Completely unfazed he said, "I looked at the stumps as if I was taking aim, and then closed my eyes and threw the ball."
"Brilliant," I said. "And could you still see the stumps when you closed your eyes?"
He nodded.

The learning spin-offs from this little exercise are considerable.

All these youngsters will go away with:
* An uncomplicated belief that provided you take aim and trust your eyes then there's every chance of being succesful.
* This spills over into what happens (a) when you try too hard and (b) when you just relax.
* When they encounter it properly, they'll understand that visualisation can be a very powerful tool.

For me its a reminder that hitting targets is something we can do with our eyes closed! And, most of all, that at some point in our development we meet a 'box of conventionality' that rationalises our way of thinking about what is possible, what is the norm - and for some of us this conventionality is the carrier for limiting beliefs.
Clearly for this particular 8 year old there is no 'box' to think outside. He accepts everything as normal, there's a lack of anything called convention, and his ability to experiment, discover and learn continues unabated.

Long live Youth!