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From Coach Traub:
It is the athlete's challenge to get his (or her) body to act the way he wants it to act. Communicating mind to muscles can be extremely challenging. Sometimes simply telling yourself what to do works, but sometimes it doesn't. You must care, but trying too hard is debilitating. You must be aggressive, but it is easy to lose balance and control. You must be strategic, but also keep it simple so you can maintain an effective focus on what's important now. You must be mechanically sound without thinking about mechanics while performing, even after a mistake. So is there a magic wand? Is there a way to commit the mind to a plan of attack, then consistently get the body/muscles to act or react appropriately? With practice, there is. From Hank Aaron and Greg Maddux to Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam to Michael Phelps and Michael Johnson, imagery is the elite athlete's magic wand for producing outstanding results.
Imagery is creating or re-creating an experience in the mind using as many senses as possible. It starts with visualizing and adds in how it feels, and sometimes also how it smells, tastes, and sounds. Imagery can take on a first-person perspective, seeing things as they will actually look to you, or third-person perspective, like watching the scene on a movie screen in front of you. The image can be huge and colorful, or small and black and white. There is no wrong way to do imagery -- a daydream is imagery -- but you have to experiment to figure out what works best for you. For most elite performers, first-person panoramic imagery in regular time (not fast forward or slow motion) works best.
With practice, you can improve vividness, control, staying power, and the ability to FEEL the experience happening (rather than just thinking about it). Effective imagery practice changes your internal state, rehearses, and/or communicates from mind to muscle what to do. Experiment with the style, timing, and specific content of your imagery use. Everyone is different; just don't be surprised when the results are fantastic!
COACHING POINT - Incorporate imagery into practice often to accelerate learning. It's a powerful skill and like all skills, it improves with practice. Here are many examples:
Image the controllable result to produce such as hitting the target.
Image something for self-control that helps get both the mind and the body right for performing the task-at-hand such as dialing nervousness down by imaging a day at the beach.
After a mistake, image the same play being executed perfectly, rather than just making a mental note of the correction. Even better: image the same thing happening and physically practice the perfect adjustment!
Before a performance, image if/then strategies and proper mechanics to program these in. This allows athletes to execute properly without thinking about it during the performance.
Athletes can image the game situation being practiced in drills. This often keeps them from "cheating" on the drill, because the goal is not to get good at that drill, the goal is to be prepared for the situation in competition that the drill represents.
Image normal or extreme examples of adversity, followed by ideal responses to these uncontrollable possibilities.
Practicing imagery simply for a mental rehearsal helps increase confidence, self-control, and solidifies the execution of the performance routine. There are many ways to practice imagery and if you demonstrate your confidence in imagery by spending time and verbal instruction on it in practice, your players will reward you by tapping into their personal power more often.
Coach Wooden Quote-of-the-Month: "I never stressed winning. I don't believe my players would tell you that they ever heard me mention winning. I wanted the score to be a byproduct of the preparation."
It is the athlete's challenge to get his (or her) body to act the way he wants it to act. Communicating mind to muscles can be extremely challenging. Sometimes simply telling yourself what to do works, but sometimes it doesn't. You must care, but trying too hard is debilitating. You must be aggressive, but it is easy to lose balance and control. You must be strategic, but also keep it simple so you can maintain an effective focus on what's important now. You must be mechanically sound without thinking about mechanics while performing, even after a mistake. So is there a magic wand? Is there a way to commit the mind to a plan of attack, then consistently get the body/muscles to act or react appropriately? With practice, there is. From Hank Aaron and Greg Maddux to Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam to Michael Phelps and Michael Johnson, imagery is the elite athlete's magic wand for producing outstanding results.
Imagery is creating or re-creating an experience in the mind using as many senses as possible. It starts with visualizing and adds in how it feels, and sometimes also how it smells, tastes, and sounds. Imagery can take on a first-person perspective, seeing things as they will actually look to you, or third-person perspective, like watching the scene on a movie screen in front of you. The image can be huge and colorful, or small and black and white. There is no wrong way to do imagery -- a daydream is imagery -- but you have to experiment to figure out what works best for you. For most elite performers, first-person panoramic imagery in regular time (not fast forward or slow motion) works best.
With practice, you can improve vividness, control, staying power, and the ability to FEEL the experience happening (rather than just thinking about it). Effective imagery practice changes your internal state, rehearses, and/or communicates from mind to muscle what to do. Experiment with the style, timing, and specific content of your imagery use. Everyone is different; just don't be surprised when the results are fantastic!
COACHING POINT - Incorporate imagery into practice often to accelerate learning. It's a powerful skill and like all skills, it improves with practice. Here are many examples:
Image the controllable result to produce such as hitting the target.
Image something for self-control that helps get both the mind and the body right for performing the task-at-hand such as dialing nervousness down by imaging a day at the beach.
After a mistake, image the same play being executed perfectly, rather than just making a mental note of the correction. Even better: image the same thing happening and physically practice the perfect adjustment!
Before a performance, image if/then strategies and proper mechanics to program these in. This allows athletes to execute properly without thinking about it during the performance.
Athletes can image the game situation being practiced in drills. This often keeps them from "cheating" on the drill, because the goal is not to get good at that drill, the goal is to be prepared for the situation in competition that the drill represents.
Image normal or extreme examples of adversity, followed by ideal responses to these uncontrollable possibilities.
Practicing imagery simply for a mental rehearsal helps increase confidence, self-control, and solidifies the execution of the performance routine. There are many ways to practice imagery and if you demonstrate your confidence in imagery by spending time and verbal instruction on it in practice, your players will reward you by tapping into their personal power more often.
Coach Wooden Quote-of-the-Month: "I never stressed winning. I don't believe my players would tell you that they ever heard me mention winning. I wanted the score to be a byproduct of the preparation."