Here’s the next installment in my series 13 Principles of Effortless Motion
Principle No. 6 – Mindfulness of breathing is the simplest and most direct path to reaching and retaining ‘the zone’ of relaxed concentration, and can also quickly re-establish a neutral state.
There are so many coaches nowadays talking about using breathing to raise performance but unless this is taught in the right way and actually practiced (by the teacher as well as the student) it will simply remain on the level of all the other mental game tips out there, rather than being something that can take us beyond thinking and into the realm of the meditative state and it’s parallel, the zone.
The trouble is, you cannot ‘know’ about these things in advance. As my meditation teacher has said time and again “the lower cannot know the higher” so any pre-conceived ideas you have about meditation, breathing and applying it to your sport (including the all too familiar “I know this stuff already”) is actually the wrong starting point and a huge stumbling block that you might never get over.
But, if you can see how busy your mind is, how much tension you bring to your technical performance by “trying to get it right” or you’re disappointed with playing at a level you don’t believe really shows your potential as a golfer, tennis-player or musician, then maybe this is a signal for you to knuckle down and sit quietly for 15-20 minutes day after day in an attempt to open the doorway into the zone which exists on the other side of your analytical mind.
It’s only with this consistent effort to make everything quiet inside that you will be on your way to having your mind and body work together, so that even under the most intense pressure you’ll be able to perform shots and routines that will simply astound you as they will spring from natural rather than forced movement which in turn will come from a more neutral state or better still the experience of ‘relaxed concentration.’
Time and again we see that even the elite sports-people at the top of their game fall apart when they’re competing on the world stage not to mention the everyday athlete who faces similar challenges albeit with much lower stakes. Fortunately, as you’re reading this you’re in the enviable position of potentially having more than technique and mental game tips to fall back on, but only if you do the training.
Otherwise, you’ll end up frustrated and ‘thinking about breathing’ or breathing in a way that only serves to exacerbate feelings of anxiety and mental interference, rather than being able to use the physical sensations which arise through correct breathing to quieten your mind and have it sync with your body in order to release your potential to perform effortless movement.
As my meditation teacher’s teacher once wrote “I am awake to this breathing that is taking place in me. I am awake to my body. I do not separate them from each other.”
Want more training? Order my new book ‘Breathe Golf; The Missing Link to a Winning Performance’
