Episode 1 – Awareness is the Absence of Thinking 

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Ep. 1 Show Notes

We’ll start by identifying exactly what a Performance Practice is, and why you should consider devoting at least 15-20 minutes each day to begin this process, especially if you fall into one of the following three categories:

1. You’re someone who is overloaded with technical information, maybe even to the point of analysis paralysis which many of my clients, especially those who coach golf technique, seem to suffer from.
2. Or you’re a player who fails to live up to their potential in tournaments or competitions because of anxiety, nerves, maybe a tightness in the body, an inability to move fluidly on pressure points and sink those clutch putts.
3. Or maybe you’re someone who’s just looking or a fresh approach to raising your game, you’ve been everywhere, done all the technical and mental game work but your game isn’t that much better off.

The idea for helping people who love sport develop a Performance Practice came to me after training for many years in the martial arts and traditional meditation. If you’re already a follower of my work you’ll know that this journey started for me in 1987 and that since then, I’ve never gone more than a few days without sitting in formal Zen meditation or practicing my tai chi or many other forms of kung fu first thing in the morning.

So, if you can imagine the way a kung fu or tai chi practitioner prepares for a sparring contest – or the way an archer prepares to release the arrow – or you think of any of those great Karate Kid movies with Mr Miyagi tutoring the kid who’s getting bullied – you’ll immediately understand that the relaxed readiness, the inner quiet, the intention, the centering of the breath and the mind is a completely different approach – a stark contrast if you like – to thinking about technique or filling your head with all the mental game stuff like positive thinking and so forth.

What I’ve discovered is that the only way the mind can have a positive influence on the delivery of movement is when it is subdued and as the mind quietens down, we can begin to have more awareness of the physical body and the breathing, which then encourages the emergence of what I call ‘team mind-body’.

Now, if you want to be a great golfer or excel in any sport, you definitely need ‘team mind-body on your side!’

As it’s a complete change or shift in the paradigm around coaching, one that empowers the athlete to the level of inner-self-reliance in those big pressure points, here are some useful ways for you to ponder on what having a Performance Practice might mean to you.

• A daily practice that helps to unite your mind and body.
• A practice which develops deep, abdominal breathing.
• A practice which prepares the inner conditions necessary to enter flow.
• A practice which helps to harmonize intention and action.
• A practice which dispels nerves, anxiety and self-interference.
• A practice which helps quieten the mind and free the body.
• A set of exercises and drills which have their origin in the martial and Zen arts.

A Performance Practice is NOT a psychological intervention and has nothing to do with

either positive thinking or knowledge of technique but is the regular practice of traditional exercises that strengthen the mind-body connection.  

The exercises and drills include:

1. Formal Eastern practices such following the breath and raising awareness of the body.
2. Traditional stance-keeping practices from the martial arts that develop a keen awareness of the body’s alignment, posture and balance.
3. Centuries-old movement drills that activate the t’an tien for increased centrifugal force and more efficient use of the kinetic chain.
4. Slow-motion exercises from Tai Chi and Taoist circle walking applied to sport-specific drills such as the open-stance forehand in tennis and the golf swing.
5. Integrating the Performance Practice with sport-specific technical practice.
6. Application of the practices as part of a real-time Performance Process in competitive situations.

The crux of these exercises is to develop a practice which (i) emulates and encourages access to the flow-state, and we’ll be talking about this a lot in this podcast, and (ii) strengthens your fundamental movement skills which as I’ve discovered, are the same across all sports.

Without it, the only recourse available, especially when things aren’t going your way and you start rushing and trying too hard to get it right, is to think about how you’re thinking and think about technique as you prepare to tee off, receive your opponent’s serve or exit the gates at the top of the ski run.

When the thinking mind dominates or you have too strong an intention, the mind-body split widens until the signal intended for the motor-system is interrupted by control-freak mind (CFM), rendering your movement clumsy and inept.

Now we’ve had a quick look at what a Performance Practice consists of, let’s have a look at some of the questions I get from people who’s read my first book, Breathe Golf; The Missing Link to a Winning Performance – and my responses.

QUESTION 1: “I’ve been think about my breathing when standing over the ball but it doesn’t seem to help”.

QUESTION 2: “I’m using a mindfulness app, but don’t know how to translate this into my game”.

QUESTION 3: “Do I have to count a certain number of breaths in and out?”

QUESTION 4: “I’ve always been interested in meditation and know it will be good for my game, but I just don’t know how to start”.

SEND YOUR QUESTIONS

Contact me with any questions about your Performance Practice that you would like me to answer on the show jayne@chi-performance.com

Until next time, enjoy your practice.

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