Game On?
So Nationals is over. You’ve given it your best. You cleaned your guns and put everything away until the 2015 season, right? If, for one second, you can look back and objectify your performance, what would you find? Maybe you’re disappointed with your overall FITASC score. Maybe you realized that you should’ve just stayed with one gun. Or perhaps, somewhere along the stations, your mental game got side-swiped. Did you doubt your break points? Were there expectations based on previous performance? A streak of misses and you wanted to throw in the towel? Maybe you’re doing really well, then, trying too hard when it all falls apart……sound familiar?
The training that I give to my clients encompasses these slip-ups and more. Mental training is not just an integral part of your success. It is your success. This year, I have created clay shooting webinars that help you to understand why mental training is so effective. I also offer a lot of products to help you win the mental game.
The most important thing is: Don’t stop now. Now that the season is over, this is the perfect time to train your brain. Unlock your true potential. If you have perused through my products and webinars and you feel that it may not be a good fit, I do offer private sessions. If you’re looking to get ahead of your competitors, there isn’t a better time. Mental training has been proven to be highly effective for all types of sports, in any arena, whether it’s an Olympic-sized pool or a 300 acre course. Here’s why: Some of us use comparative-cognition techniques of which we are completely unaware. In other words, we use our brain to assess the value of the choices we make. But what happens is these comparative markers can interrupt or bias our cognitive processing. You can see this happen when one of the scenarios above plays out. During the Nationals, did you encounter some frustrations, hang-ups, streak of misses? If this is you, chances are, those annoying little ego-bugs told your mind a load of untruths. What’s worse is the fact that you believed them.
I am not the only person on the planet that uses mental imagery, visualization, visuo-motor behavior rehearsal, biofeedback and progressive muscle relaxation on athletes. How many times have you heard that a certain football team meditates before going out onto the field? Or a professional athlete uses mental imagery to get in the game? How many pro athletes have mental trainers? A lot. Why? Because it works. The amount of success is determined by your belief in the actual methods I teach, but also, your will to practice these methods and maintain the motivation to continue. Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation, in any form of athletics, go hand-in-hand. Essentially, you want to win something, you want to challenge yourself. The practices mentioned above work because in the depths of our cerebral cortex, there is a place where all decision-making performs based on repetition. The Somatic Marker Hypothesis, although not yet proven, is responsible for this process. After mental training, this enables one to peak his athletic performance.
If you’ve been shaking your head up and down then you realize that cognitive and somatic techniques are interrelated in order to peak your performance. If you’ve read this and realized you don’t understand half of this, I’d love the chance to explain how beneficial mental training can be!
The 2015 Clay Shooting season is right around the corner. Do you want to be in peak performance for the season opener or are you OK with dusting off the cobwebs the night before you shoot at the 5-stand? The choice, ultimately, is yours. But the difference between a well-practiced shot and one that was not is visible to us all. Thanks for reading. InJoy your day.