Last Sunday I was playing five-a-side on the small turf near my flat. In the second half, I received a rolling pass on my weaker foot, turned, took two touches past the guy marking me, and slid the ball left to a teammate who had started a run a few seconds earlier. What I remember is that I was not looking at the ball. I was watching the run, the defender's hips, and the goalkeeper starting to shift his weight. My feet were doing something without me having to direct them.
I used to judge practice by whether a movement got more accurate. Now I also look for the point where I can do it without narrating each step. That leaves me free to watch the teammate, the defender, and what happens next.
I noticed this with badminton footwork. For the first two years I played seriously, footwork was the loudest thing in my head: split step, chasse, lunge, recover. I was narrating my feet instead of reading my opponent's racket face. I saw the shuttle late because I was still thinking about my shoes. It took hundreds of hours on court, often doing shadow drills to the six corners without a shuttle, before the footwork became something I did not have to think through. After that, I could watch for the flick or the drop before the shuttle left the racket.
Foosball is a smaller version of the same change. There is a wrist-snap on the three-bar, a little flick you use to pin the ball and release it toward goal. When I first tried it, I would set up, freeze, think about my wrist, and lose the ball. Now the snap sometimes happens as soon as the ball lands in the right spot. I notice it after the ball is moving. My wrist knows the motion; I can use my attention to see whether my opponent's five-bar is open.
One sign that I am absorbed in a game is time. I look at the clock after a set and find forty minutes have passed when I thought it had been ten. I do not have a neat explanation for that. I know the game feels different when I no longer have to narrate every movement.
I also play better when I look ahead to the next pass instead of watching one touch too closely. Focusing hard on a touch can make it stiff; looking for the next pass often makes it feel cleaner. That is what I have noticed in my own games, and I would not turn it into a rule for everyone.
I am less sure about how to make a movement automatic. Watching and copying seem to help. I can spend an afternoon watching Iniesta receive the ball on the half turn, then go to the pitch and try it. Something about seeing the movement first travels into my feet in a way reading about it does not. Shadow drills may help for the same reason: I can rehearse the movement without worrying about where the shot ends up.
I am still bad at plenty of things. My weak foot is a project. My net kill in badminton still takes thought, and that delay costs me points. I want those movements to run with less attention so I can watch the person on the other side of the net, who has been watching me the whole time.