Intimidation is
a simple concept for those of us who are bigger and tougher than those around
us. For those who are smaller and meeker, it can be a challenge. Women in
general are considered less intimidating because of our smaller stature. People
are genetically designed to interpret others to determine if they are a threat
and we do this within seconds of seeing anyone’s face.
I've somewhat paraphrased someone with the title here. The direct quote is "I want my look to change reality," which I saw was said by Bell Hooks. I paraphrased because this is more of an affirmative than a wish, saying 'my look will; instead of 'I want my look to' is much firmer and stronger within your own mind.
As athletes in highly competitive programs, we want to intimidate the competition the second we walk into a gym without saying a word. You see this in the way programs dress alike so that you have a large mass of a singular color, it displays unity. Some teams will dress professionally to give another intimidating impression. On the court, teams have gone beyond the basic uniform to unify their entire outfits. During warm-ups, teams will stand tall along the side line and watch the other team. A unit is much more intimidating than an individual.
When you are
on the court though, with a large number of girls who look relatively uniform,
how does one stand out in the intimidation department? How does another team
know, beyond previous statistics, which player to fear? The net separates us on
several levels and it also creates this wall of silence where words are not
exchanged. So what do you do when you are standing at the net waiting for the
first serve?
You stare.
You set up in
your blocking stance and you tilt your head and pick a player to stare at. You
determine who the setter is and if she’s back row or front row and then you tell
your team in your loudest voice what you figured out and you point at the
setter until the ball is contacted for service. You call out which players on
the opposite team are hitters.
Setting up in
your blocking stance lets the other players know that you are prepared; it also
makes you appear bigger. It’s the same principle as with all animals who are
about to be a predators next meal. If you make yourself bigger, it makes you
appear tougher. Are you scared of the 6’10” middle blocker or the 5’2” setter?
With nothing else to judge them on, the blocker hands down. Bigger is better.
Tilting your
head up or down has been found to increase your intimidation factor. There is a
particular facial proportion, the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR), which has
been shown to be pivotal in an observer’s evaluation of another person. The
larger the fWHR the more intimidating a person is to an observer. Tilting your
head up or down while maintaining eye contact increases your fWHR and your
intimidation factor. You don’t have to change your facial expression, just the
angle that your head is tilted.
Demonstrating
your vocal capacity as well as your knowledge lets the other team know that you
understand what they are doing and they can’t pull the wool over your eyes. It
also reassures your own team that you are paying attention and it gives them
more confidence. It prepares your team for the plays to come and what to watch
for. Back row players are more likely to pick up a front row setter’s tip if
they know a head of time that it is a possibility.
Pointing at
the setter on the other team singles them out and puts them on the spot. It
adds pressure to a player on top of everything else they have to think of. Be
obnoxious about it too. Point at her at the beginning of every play and
announce what number she is and if she’s back row or front row. If you can get
in the setter’s head and annoy her, she’ll be distracted from her other tasks
which is all the better for your team. In the above picture, you can tell that #7 in purple is a setter and #2 in white by their positioning on the court and also because they are the vocal leaders on the court. Both are looking right at each other and both are displaying hand signals to their team that indicate the number of front row hitters on the opposite team. #14's knee pads are also around her ankles.
Like the
title implies, if a team isn’t fearful of you before, once you are done with
these things their perception of you will change. Even if they haven’t seen you
play they will be intimidated.
Works Cited
Hehman, Eric, Jordan Leitner, and Samuel
Gaertner. "Enhancing Static Facial Features Increases Intimidation." Journal
of Experimmental Social Psychology 49.4 (2013): 747-54. Science Direct.
Elsevier B.V. Web. 5 Aug. 2015.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.everettcc.edu/science/article/pii/S0022103113000516?np=y>.
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