via Blogging To Have It All: RoadMaps in Review: April and May 2010.

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via “the Inner Game of Health and Fitness” Part 1 | Health and Fitness.

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Tim Gallwey in his best selling book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, showed how visualization can be much more effective than verbal instruction. As a tennis Pro, he became aware that each pupil’s mind seemed to contain two entities. A Self 1 who observed and commented on the play, and a Self 2 who actually did the playing.

Before a shot Self 1 would issue alI sorts of commands such as “keep your eyes on the ball”, “bend your knees”, “follow through”.

Then, after the shot, would come a verbal analysis – usually critical. When asked why they did this, most players would respond, “I am just talking to myself”.

Gallwey rationalized that “I” and “myself” had to be two separate entities, otherwise no conversation would take place. He developed the theory that Self 2 would be better taught by nonverbal means, and that the “relationship” between Self 1 and Self 2 must be improved to optimize performance. Indeed he observed that an athlete’s peak performance usually occurred when the verbal Self 1 was almost totally set aside. Players on a “hot streak” almost never analyzed what they were doing -they were immersed in the physical action and played instinctively and unconsciously. As soon as they tried to exercise conscious control, they lost their fluidity.

Gallwey, therefore, taught his players to engage, or distract, the verbal Self 1 during play, by describing external events. They would say “bounce” when the ball bounced, or “hit” when it struck the racket. They alternatively would be told to say the words of a song. These distractions, left brain activities, allowed the right brain and limbic system to control the physical play and make all the highly complex intuitive calculations that are involved in assessing ball speed, direction and angle of bounce.

The importance of not over-analysing and of not verbalising an essentially non-verbal activity, was further re-inforced when `Inner Skiing’ was introduced. Small children, it was noticed, could learn to ski well in a day. Adults learn (or are taught) to depend more and more on verbal analysis and to trust intuition less and less.

The inadequacy of the verbal hemisphere controlling the subtle but essentially physical movements of skiing, is made all too obvious when you observe the jerky movements made by people who are clearly rehearsing their instructors words in their minds. The fluent skier very often cannot even describe how he or she does it – yet obviously knows on a non-verbal level. Consequently increasing emphasis has been put on teaching skiing in nonverbal ways – and the positive results can be dramatic.

via The Power Of Your Imagination.

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Getting in the zone either happens by chance, on any given day and there aren’t really any events that trigger it. It just happens. Sometimes you do everything right to prepare and have the worst day on court. Other days it feels like you’re not ready and then all of a sudden it clicks.

There are certain ways to trick your body, or rather your mind into helping you get into the zone. Mostly its about thinking about one thing and letting the body do other things by itself. I don’t wanna make this post long, so I’ll make a quick suggestion. Buy and read the book Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. Amazing book and will answer many of the questions you have.

via Controlling when youre “in the zone” – Talk Tennis.

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Let me get started by telling you my story and how I got into playing and teaching these peak performance concepts.

• I started playing in tennis tournaments when I was 10 years old.
• I was ranked #2 in Southern, CA in the 15 & under. I was ranked #2 in Southern, CA in the 18 & under.
• I was nationally ranked #6 in Singles as a Junior
• I was nationally ranked #3 in Doubles as a Junior
• I had the honor of representing the U.S. at Junior Wimbledon where I got to the Semi-finals.
• I played on the Junior Davis Cup team
• I played on the USC tennis team and the three years I lettered varsity we were National Champions.

As You Can See,
I Was A Pretty Good Tennis Player But Not A Great One.

But, I Had A Big Problem.

My Attitude Stunk And I Was Very Negative.

I Used To Yell And Scream On The Tennis Court

Because I Would Get So Incredibly Frustrated.

I thought that if I could only stroke the ball perfectly I would never miss. But of course, I couldn’t do that every time, and boy did I try hard. And, my attitude was horrible.

I Hated Myself For
Getting So Angry And Frustrated, But I Couldn’t Stop.

I had no idea why I played badly at times, and I didn’t have a clue as to how to turn my game around when I wasn’t playing well. I never beat players who were just a little better than I was. Remember I told you that I was ranked #2 in Southern California in the 15 and 18 and under. Well, a player named Jerry Cromwell was the one who was ranked #1 and I never ever beat him. I don’t think anyone tried harder than I did but I just could beat him.

After college, I began teaching tennis the traditional way until my conversion to teaching the Inner Game when I was in my 30s. What happened was that one day I was reading the LA Magazine about an instructor who was teaching the Inner Game of Tennis. His name was Tim Gallwey. I knew I had to have a lesson from this man, and I was determined to go to the ends of the earth to find him. As it turned out, he was right there in my hometown of Los Angeles.

To make a long story longer, I took two lessons from Tim, and he completely changed my life. In the first 10 minutes into the lesson, I felt that the weight of the world was taken off my back. I never got angry or yelled again – an amazing accomplishment since I had already spent all of my tennis life getting upset with my play. It was the best lesson I ever received and it changed my life forever.

To sum it all up,
I felt like a completely new person
when I was on the court.

I will be forever grateful to Tim Gallwey for showing me how to make this change. His book, The Inner Game of Tennis, has been my “Tennis Bible” and is truly one of the best books ever written on the mental aspects of playing sports. You can find his book in most bookstores.

In the 25 plus years since then, I have been studying the mental game so that I could achieve the state of mind that would allow my body to play at its very best. I wanted to know how to play “out of my mind” every time I played. The concepts I will present to you here will show you how to do this. These concepts, as you will see, are easy to talk about, but it takes practice to get there.

However, it is a process and you can use them for the rest of your baseball life just as I do in tennis. I am at an age where ones game is supposed to be going “over the hill” but I am still learning new things about myself and my tennis game is actually getting better. Maybe, I can’t run as well, but if I can get to the ball and hit it, I just don’t miss very often.

As to my basketball experience,
admittedly it isn’t very much.

I played first string on the Jr Varsity basketball team in high school when I was a junior, but I didn’t even try out for the varsity team when I was a senior because I needed to concentrate on my tennis. So, as far as actually playing that was about it.

I Taught Tennis To A Very Good Basketball Player

However, when I lived in Victoria, B.C., I play tennis with a fellow who was one of the best, if not the best, basketball player in Victoria. He was good friend and I wasn’t teaching tennis for money in those days but I did spend a lot of time working with him on his tennis. He then took what I taught him in tennis and used it when he played basketball. Needless to say, he found the concepts I teach very valuable.

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yoga karen moss

Yoga is hot. There is hard yoga, soft yoga, hot yoga designed to make you sweat, and even competitive yoga.

To those of us who have spent our athletic lives straining, lifting, grunting, running, jumping, or chasing a ball, this is very strange. Not that we aren’t envious.

When I see someone sitting on their heels or bending over and palming the floor I am as impressed as I am by that guy “Rubberman” who stuffs himself into a suitcase at Grizzlies games. Flexibility is a distant buy ambien online usa memory. My joints went into semi-retirement 15 years ago.

I also envy anyone with mental discipline. My mind still turns to moussaka sometimes when I have a crisis of confidence, no matter how much I practice or how many times I reread Tim Gallwey’s “Inner Game” books about Self One and Self Two.

The trick is finding the mental discipline to achieve mental discipline. And I think this is where yoga comes into the picture. Roy Bell, one of my squash partners, has been doing yoga for five years. At 52, he is the leanest and most flexible player in our group and is rarely injured.

Read the rest of the article here.

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” The Inner Game Of Health And Fitness” Part 1

“There is an Inner Game to Everything said W. Timothy Gallwey. He should know, Gallwey has written several books on ” Inner Game” playing. The most popular are The Inner Game of Tennis, The Inner Game of Golf, and The Inner game of Skiing. My personal favorite is the one he co-authored with Bary Green, The Inner Game Of Music.

There’s an inner game of Your self- Image when it comes to your Health And Fitness too, and it plays a major role in developing Your Wellness Vision. Let me prove it to you by applying the Inner Game principles to Health and Fitness.

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