Nervous ticks

Continuing the discussion from Does Stance Matter?:

What are yours?

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Adjusting my glaaaaaaaaaaaaasses!

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Making sure I REALLY shut my eyes and having a blinking fit during multiball lightshow. An old habit I had as a kid that only surfaces every once in a while.

-Tapping flippers rhythmically (looking at you, Addams Family)
-Pushing the plunger in a bit to “catch” the ball with the rubber if it comes back down the shooter lane
-Anxiously manually plunging to beat the autoplunger

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Cradling on one side and flipping the other flipper 7 times or so :slight_smile:

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I paid 4.09 for chapstick at the pinburgh Westin…when you need it you need it

I do every single one of these. Actually really like the feeling of the ball hitting the plunger rubber. Makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something. :slight_smile:

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I didn’t think I had any ticks until I actually paid attention to what I do when I step up to a machine. One of the odder ones is that when I reach for the plunger I rotate it several times before pulling back to plunge. No idea where or how that came about.

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I do the rotating thing, but only on games with terrible plungers. It seems that on some games the plunger can work better when rotated into a specific position?

I adjust my wedding band before every ball I plunge. I do it one-handed by bracing the ring against the lockdown bar and using my thumb to adjust. I wear it on the right hand (because Denmark) and it has confused more than one person who is wondering what weird motion I’m making with my right hand before plunging.

ohhh I do that weird thing too! :slight_smile:

That is some serious adjusting. I wonder if a good pair of croakies would help with this (not that adjusting your glasses is a problem).

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I used to do this on an Attila the Hun I owned because the rod was slightly bent and would bind up a little on one side. So I would turn it until I could feel the right direction to get a clean plunge. I sometime still do this on games I’m walking up to for the first time, that require a skillful plunge, to get a feel for how the shooter is behaving.

I have all sorts of nervous ticks. I touch my back all the time, wipe my hands all the time, flutter the flippers all the time, shout at myself all the time… I think most of them I inadvertently learned from watching other good players play. It kinda makes sense—you see a great player doing some habitual thing, the brain associates that with skilled play, and the next thing you know you’re touching your nose or picking a wedge between every shot to the ball lock.

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I don’t think I had one until I cut my hair short a little over a year ago. Now I have to run my hand through the back and fluff it up at the beginning of every game and whenever I start multiball.

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I touch my nose with my index finger. lol, that probably looks really dumb.

I’ll use my fingers to rotate the flipper buttons.

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I wouldn’t say quite a nervous tick, but I squint and blink my eyes quite aggressively at times to keep my daily contacts from drying out. I always keep a back-up pair and rewetting drops on hand in case of an emergency, the biggest culprits are video modes where I have to keep my eyes open and not risk blinking (Indiana Jones’ Choose Wisely is the absolute worst, ST:TNG shuttle simulation a close 2nd).

WATER!

I’ll always go to the bottle as my way of mentally restarting my ball/game, usually on a recovery after a missed shot (cough, I have A LOT of missed shots, cough) :wink:

At this point it’s pretty much instinctual for me.

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I thought I was the only one! Also if I’m focusing on a skill shot I’ll spin the plunger more than necessary

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