Winners Mind - Advanced Sports Psychology

In this day and age our everyday environment has trained us to shift our attention quickly and frequently for one stimuli to another quickly. We are living in a 5 minute or less culture. In sports to be effective it is vital to be able hold our attention consistently on an activity with some intensity. There is much written about the what of attending but very little on the how. Whether you are playing tennis,golf, bowls,snooker, running the 100M or any sports, it is vital to take control of attention and to direct it in particular ways to be effective.

In Developmental Behaviourial modelling we distinguish the different types of attention that operate in doing different things. In NLP Neuro LInguistic Prorgramming we talk about sensory acuity, being able to sense key distinctions that may be outside of conscious awareness. So in Golf for instance, a professional golfer may be familiar with different consistencies in the sand and adjust the shot and swing to take account of the difference. Terry Griffiths talks about being aware of moisture playing snooker in the atmosphere and altering his game to account of the change in the cloth and balls and their behaviour on the table.

So in any sport we can attend to details as foreground that is items that need our direct focused attention. So for instance in tennis the speed,angle and spin of the ball. We also have awareness of our position of our feet and movement and balance thsi is more background as we play the shot. Then in the far background there may be some sensitivity to the wind speed,temperature, opponents tiredness etc. How we monitor and balance our overall attention is crucial in sport.

If we divert our attention to events or activities outside the here and now it can and is almost certain to be fatal. Attention on the current process is key - absolutely essential.

A well rehearsed and practiced athlete know what the priorities and sequence is to get an optimum output. A Javelin thrower,shot putter,cyclist etc knows what matters when, however in the context of a pressure situation thsi can be disrupted or destroyed. It can manifest itself in choking or extreme cases the yips.

In practice we need to be aware of the quality of our concentration and focus. Concentration being our attention to objects or activities within our arena. Focus being staying with the context of the arena. So for instance if we are thinking what we are having for tea later on then our focus is poor at that time.