Friday, October 06, 2006

The art of being in the zone

How many times have we heard an interview with a golfer after a profound performance say that they were in the zone? 99% of the time the athlete never credits his equipment..."well, you know Curtis, I just thought my golf bag did an outstanding job for me today...and my tees...wow! Well, you know...you saw it out there..."

No, 99% of the time it's between his ears.

Way back when, as a greenhorn investment banker, I tried anything to give me an edge...be it coffee or motivational tapes.....ah, motivational tapes. Guys like Earl Nightengale and Zig Ziglar could get in my head and head it in the right direction. All it took was one ounce of belief. Back in the day, they were my belief masters.

It's the same with my golf game. To this day my favorite golf books are The Inner Game of Golf and Golf in the Kingdom. Both books deal with existentialism. Both deal with getting outside yourself to perform better.

What is needed to improve one's golf game is to attain a state of relaxation and focus. To do that, you need to get outside yourself.

I've come across an audio program that does just that. One that My Daily Slice endorses. It's The Golf Mental Mastery Program. You can review it and purchase it from my site if you follow the Golf Mental link under the Links section on my blog.

The audio succeeds by getting the listener to relax, and focus on basic positive swing thoughts and positive swing sounds (eg: the swing; the click of a ball going in the cup), then when in a relaxed state, reinforces these mental images.

Oh, and for you multi-taskers like me: if you haven't realized this already, you can't do this driving your car.
My 3-year old can vouch for the relaxing nature of the tapes...it's one of the methods I use to help him to fall asleep, and it's the best time for me to listen to the audio.

In Golf Digest, December 2002 is an example of how ????(guess) has used hypnosis.

At age 13, ??? began mental training with Dr. Jay Brunza, a family friend and psychologist. Among the techniques Brunza used were subliminal tapes and hypnosis. The first time Jay hypnotized ???, he had him stick his arm straight out and told him that it couldn't be moved. ????'? father says. "I tried, but I couldn't pull it down." ??? says hypnosis is inherent in what I do now.

???=Tiger Woods.....any questions?


Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,


JFB





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