The Mental Side

Effective bowling is 80% about what goes on above the neck.

The FOUR “C”s OF PSYCHOLOGY :

Concentration

Confidence

Control (of the weight, of emotions)

Consistency

VISUALISATION

If you’ve been an athlete at any time, you’ve undoubtedly heard from a coach or trainer that you have to “visualize” good performances before you ever go out there to do it for real, right?

Well, this is good advice except that very few coaches teach their athletes

HOW TO DO IT.

But first, what is visualization?

“Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.”

Brian Tracy is a Canadian-American motivational public speaker and self-development author. He writes:

“To put it simply, it’s taking some time to imagine yourself performing the thing you want to do in the game.

There’s so much misinformation about “how to visualize.” The first thing to know is that you don’t have to be visual in order to visualize. In fact, coaches do a disservice to their athletes by telling them to “visualize” in the first place because there are some people who are not very visual and don’t know what you mean when you tell them that.  It creates confusion in those players.

If you are a visual person, then it’s easy for to close your eyes and you can see pictures in your mind of what happens on the court or field.

But, if you’re one of those people who close their eyes and you don’t see anything or the pictures are not very clear to you, then that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with you. Just imagine your success however you want to and you’ll be doing it right for you.  You can talk to yourself in your mental practice sessions or you can just feel the right movements and emotions you want at performance time.

Instead of visualization, let’s call it what it really is:  Mental Practice or Imagination Practice.”