I Thought My Reflexes Were Fine But They Weren’t.
I’ve never worried about my reflexes.
They were just… there. Reliable enough that I didn’t think about them. In cricket, you only question reflexes when something goes badly wrong. Mine never had.
So when someone casually handed me an ss multi reaction ball, I didn’t expect anything from it. It looked like a toy. Something you use to kill time at the end of a session.
I dropped it, Missed it. Not badly, Not embarrassingly, Just late. I laughed and tried again, Same result. That’s when it got uncomfortable.
Because nothing felt wrong. My hands moved. My eyes followed the ball. My body reacted. It just reacted a fraction too late consistently.
That’s a hard thing to admit to yourself.
We like to believe our reactions are instinctive. Automatic. Something we don’t have to think about. But standing there, missing something so small, I realized how often I rely on expectation instead of awareness.
I was deciding where the ball would go before it actually went there.
In matches, that habit hides behind experience. You read cues early. You commit. Most of the time, you’re right. When you’re wrong, it looks like bad luck.
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Here, there was no luck to blame. Every wrong move was mine.
The ss multi reaction ball didn’t allow rhythm. It didn’t reward guessing. The moment I assumed direction, it punished me. The moment I waited, I had a chance. Waiting felt unnatural.
I wanted control. I wanted to be early. I wanted to feel sharp. But the harder I tried to force reaction, the worse it got. The only thing that helped was slowing down mentally not physically.
That realization stayed with me. Not because it improved my reflexes overnight. It didn’t. But it changed how I think about reaction altogether. Reaction isn’t speed. It’s presence.
Since then, I’ve noticed how often I rush moments that don’t need rushing. Fielding early. Committing to shots before fully seeing the ball. Acting on habit instead of what’s actually happening.
I still miss things. That hasn’t changed.
But now, when I do, I don’t automatically blame technique or effort. Sometimes the problem is simpler I wasn’t fully there.
I don’t use the ss multi reaction ball regularly. I don’t enjoy it much either. But when my game feels rushed, when I feel like I’m ahead of the moment instead of inside it, it brings me back faster than most drills do.
Not by teaching me something new. By showing me something I didn’t want to see. And that’s what made it effective.
Not everything that helps you improve feels good. Some things just tell the truth quietly, and without asking permission. That’s usually where the real work starts.
