Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Introducing Sport Psychology

I've had an interest in the mental skills training done by sport psychologists for a couple of years. I have made it a goal to read a few books on the subject so I can apply some of the principles to my trianing and to my life.

I've been using two techniques so far. One is called visualization. I lay in bed at night before going to sleep and stay in bed in the morning before rising for a few minutes while I create the images of my successful juggling of hard tricks. The idea is to create as much perfection in my head as is possible because the neural-muscular pathways are stimulated while doing these visualizations. It's hard to tell if this technique is working like they say it will, but I do know that somehow my level of expectations has risen and I think that alone is enough to warrent continuing use of this technique. High expectations often lead to high results.

The second technique is called positive self-talk or affirmations. This is where you say encouraging things to yourself while you practice or perform. I have come up with two positive statements so far.
  1. I expect the balls to land in my hands.
  2. I expect the balls to go where I intend them to.

The hope for me is to develop as sense of mastery and control over the balls while I juggle. I have seen an immediate improvement in my attempts at 4-Ball Mill's Mess.

Again, it doesn't matter to me HOW positive self-talk works just as long as it works!

That's all for now. Talk to you soon.

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2 Comments:

At 7:41 PM, Blogger krballboy said...

Are you doing it now?
i recognize effect of mental skills.

When i read, i thought one of advertisements.
"생각대로 하면되고~"
Do you know it? Park tae haon appear.
this is sk advertisement.

 
At 10:00 PM, Blogger Ed Provencher said...

I do this for practicing Korean sometimes. I imagine that the words come out of my mouth like they do a Korean's mouth.

When I swim, sometimes I visualize 박태환.

 

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