Part 1 Fine tuning your nervous system

Fine tuning your nervous system

Chapter three fine tuning your nervous system, relaxation versus arousal arousal on the tour. When Sam Snead was breaking into the golf business at the Greenbrier in West Virginia in 1936, the club pro organized a match to introduce Sam to some of the top players in the area. He paired Sam with two former national amateur champions, Los and little and Johnny Goodman and former us open champion. Billy Burke, after the other three had teed off on the first hole. Sam describes the following scene, bending over. I had to take both hands to tee up the ball. The ball looked all blurred. As I stood over it, my nerves were hopping right out of my skin. And then I stepped away and did something I had been practicing. I just let my mind take a rest by not thinking of anything in particular. If I thought of anything, it wasn’t the crowd or the match, but sort of a mixture of all the good drives I’d ever made.

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00:01:04

Some people call it concentration. But to me, it’s more the trick of not thinking at all or letting the world go by. It’s sort of daydreaming about a wonderful place you’ve been or something happy you’ve done, but with no details dragged in and that frame of mind the ball isn’t anything fearful. It’s just a thing you’re going to hit. Well, this is something you can teach yourself to do. And I recommend it to all golfers who get the tee jitters. I swung and upon looking up, heard the crowd gasped and saw my ball rolling down there 25 to 30 yards past anything else that had been hit a good 280 yarder. I would encourage you to review the Sam. Snead’s comment about thinking focused on, and I quote a mixture of all the good drives I’d ever made. In quote, when he experienced his tee jitters, you have Sam Snead style.

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00:02:00

During his early days of competition fits. You make a written note of this strategy and read it frequently between rounds and prior to play. Remember, Fred couples never hits a shot without calling up that shot from another time. Thank your good shots and call them up as you need them during play. When you experience anxiety on the first tee, when you play so well, you pass your comfort zone or you look at the scoreboard and find yourself in the hunt. Your nervous system begins the equivalent of an electrical storm. The overloaded circuitry of your nervous system has billions of neurons firing so many that a flood of thoughts becomes part of this firing process and your ability to focus, concentration diminishes. These are the times when you stand on the green, trying to read a putt and can’t stay focused long enough to visualize the line.

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00:02:55

Whereas you stand over the putt. You don’t remember going through your routine or what you were doing, or as you set up to your tee shot, you just hit the ball without consideration of a target. Bobby Jones said that many players make the mistake of overcoming their first tee apprehension. By assuming indifference. He said, when you try to keep your heart from pounding or your hands from trembling, you might get slack or lazy, which can be worse than nervous. Interestingly Jones like Henry Cotton had trouble controlling his nervous system. And this particular quotation likely reflects this difficulty by one report. Jones would lose 10 to 15 pounds before a tournament never ate breakfast or lunch, and only had dinner and a drink after 10:00 PM in 1931 Jones described experiencing so much nausea on the days of competition that he was unable to button his shirt collar or wear a neck tie.

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00:03:55

Similarly LPGA tour player. Nancy Lopez said that during her amateur days, she would throw up in the morning, throw up on the way to the course and throw up at the golf club, excitement and arousal bill Britain finished second in the Williamsburg, Virginia PGA tour in Hauser Bush classic in July, 1992. His comments regarding his play are interesting. I try not to look at the scoreboard during a round, but I looked this time and saw that I was tied for the lead. Well, when I get excited, I tend to hook the ball I hit. What was probably the worst shot of the tournament. The thoughts of the night before, around the first tee of a big tournament or seeing your name on the leaderboard may or may not lead to fear. The situation is exciting. This excitement produces the same physiological arousal as fear, worry, anxious, anticipation, and anger, and can disrupt anything from performance to sleep.

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00:04:59

PGA tour player. Johnny Miller says one strategy that works for him and helps him get into a frame of mind to deal with pressure is to say to himself, I can’t wait to hit that shot or play that round. There’s an important differentiation between the excitement of anticipation and the can’t wait to get to the tee feeling of confidence. The arousal of can’t wait to get to the T produces a desired focus. Too much excitement can create a high arousal state. You have to learn to walk this fine line. Tom kite winner of the 1992, us open and David fairity European and PGA tour player have both had experiences that taught them not to get too excited with good play. Especially earlier in the round recall the Tom kite hold out a 20 yard pitch shot on the seventh hole. The last day of the 1992, us open at pebble beach and kept himself from getting too excited.

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00:06:00

Tom kite and David fairity both say that too much. Excitement too soon can cause a good round to go. South Miller. Barbara won at least one tournament a year while playing the regular PGA tour from 1967 to 1974. This was matched only by Jack Nicholas. Barbara never won a major, a major being a PGA championship, a us open masters or British open. He never won a major on the regular tour. He said, I came close a couple of times, but it seems like I got too excited, too charged up mentally. I began to anticipate winning too soon. Similarly, PGA tour player Davis loved the third one nine times between 1986 and 1995. None of which was a major. He has never been a serious contender at a major. He says the secret is not to get too pumped. My game is good enough to win.

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00:06:58

I just have to go play my game. My problem has been that I don’t go out and play golf. As soon as you put a value on a pot, a shot around or tournament, you lose your present. Focus, your thoughts advanced to the future, your nervous system accelerates and concentration skills diminish as your physical movement and swing Tippo Quicken regarding emotions. Jack Nicholas said, my experience is that the higher and lower you let your emotions range over particular golf shots you hit the higher. The total will be when they’re all added up. Therefore another of my mind game basics has been to stay as emotionally level as possible. However, I was at any given moment. Every time I let myself get all juiced up about an approach landing close or a long putt dropping, or pretzeled up about a miscue or bad bounce whammo I’d end up getting nervous.

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00:07:55

And the more nervous I got, the more trouble I’d run into eventually with increasing maturity, I managed to find a way to look sufficiently happy about good shots and sad about bad ones without allowing my great internal peaks or valleys, the origins and physiology of arousal. My personal belief is that we inherited a nervous system style along a continuum of very relaxed, to very aroused. This nervous system, predisposition is amplified by direct learning experiences and vicarious learning through the adult and peer models. We observe from infancy to adulthood, the branch of our central nervous system that controls our breathing, our heart rate, blood pressure and so on is the autonomic nervous system also known as the peripheral nervous system. Now there are two divisions of this part of our nervous system. The first one is arousal, which is also known as the sympathetic nervous system.

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00:08:59

And the second is relaxation or the parasympathetic nervous system. Physical changes occur in the peripheral nervous system as part of the total arousal picture. This part of the nervous system experiences the fallout from the brain. When we sense danger, when we become angry or there’s some other threat to our social, emotional or physical wellbeing, our brains process, this information and produce neurochemicals in response. The following are a few of the physical changes that these neurochemicals create. Now, what I’d like for you to do is picture the following as a series of links and a total chain. So the first link in the chain is increased heart rate. The second link is increased blood pressure. The third is slowing towards the station of digestion. The fourth is increased muscle tone or tension. The fifth link is increased breathing rate. The six link is constriction of blood vessels.

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00:09:57

Seventh link is increased. Blood sugar levels. Eighth length is pupil dilation. Ninth link is reduced salivation, which basically means you’re going to have dry mouth. And the 10th is sensory systems become more alert. Now note that these physical events are produced as a result of our thoughts or perceptions of the environment. These events occur as a chain. If you alter one link, you will affect the other physical states of the chain. For example, if you are aroused and begin to breathe deeply and slowly, you will quiet the physically aroused state. If your thinking, doesn’t also change to positive thoughts of calm and control, the aroused physical state will quickly resume. It is not uncommon to find players who hold their breath during periods of stress. The oxygen starvation from breath holding has a similar effect to the shallow rapid breathing style, regardless of whether you are a breath holder or a rapid shallow breather, the corrective strategy is the same breathe deeply and slowly making your exhalation last twice.

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00:11:06

As long as your inhalation causes of arousal, what produces arousal? There are four primary producers of arousal. Number one, acceleration of thinking to the future. Number two, anger, number three, fear, number four, excitement. And let’s go through each of these. A future focus or anticipation is an acceleration of thinking to the future. Both of these behavior styles are learned habits that produce arousal and distraction. When you got in the shower today, you were physically there. However, mentally your thoughts were likely on the events of the day tomorrow, next week. And so on thoughts about the future, accelerate the activity of the nervous system, a sense of urgency. The time focus, worrying, anticipation, fear, or excitement are all possible characteristics of a future focus. This anticipation usually has mental images that accompany it. When you’re late, you can see the disgusted look or hear the disapproval and you begin planning your defense or worry about what they will think.

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00:12:20

A future focus on the course is something as simple as calculating score during play you thoughts and images take you to the clubhouse before you finish your round. This style of thinking can create a loss of concentration and increased arousal or to anger and frustration build. When we are repeatedly blocked from a goal, a state of arousal accompanies this anger and frustration, Ms. Shot performance less than we expect. Slow play a wait in traffic or an inability to find something misplaced are all examples of situations that can produce frustration or anger. Number three, fear. Fear is a primary driving force and nervous system arousal. Anything that poses an emotional social or physical threat produces a future focus, anxious, anticipation, or fear, fear of judgment or disapproval from others. Fear of failure, fear of success or fear of the unknown are examples of fear-driven arousal situations that produce fear or anxiety vary from one person to another standing on the first tee with three groups waiting to play and watching, playing your first tournament, playing with certain people or attempting to shot out or over a hazard.

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00:13:43

All can produce fear-driven arousal. Number four, many players get excited when they’re playing well, especially when they play through their comfort zone, unless you control excitement, your nervous system will gradually evolve to an arousal state that will hinder performance. That’s why tour players consciously avoid getting too excited too early and around PGA tour players, Tom kite and David fairity both described the importance of controlling emotions during play recall again, that Tom kite said he wanted to jump in the air after holding his pitch shot on the seventh hole of the 1992 us open. He said he didn’t because he still had 11 holes to play. Arousal levels are very individual. Many of you take an arousal state to the golf course. Your arousal may be a personal style taken from our high stress, fast paced society deadlines, a constant focus and anticipation about the future.

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00:14:42

Concerned with things that need to be done or thoughts of what others are thinking about pertaining to you are a few examples. Others of you have a frequent feeling of urgency and concern for time, you set your watches ahead, as well as your thoughts. You flush the toilet before you have finished urinating, you are in a hurry and on your way to the next life event, perhaps running your hands under the faucet as you pass the sink, OnCourse a state of physical arousal evolves on the course. When you think about how others might judge your performance, physical arousal is also produced by that three-foot putt for the lowest score you’ve ever recorded. Playing with people you perceive to be slow, or when you feel pushed by the group behind you, the out of bounds markers and hazards, especially when they’re looming in front of your next shot or noting you’re well below your usual score.

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00:15:39

After nine holes can also alter that balanced internal, physical state of comfort and relaxation. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to practice on the range with people talking while you’re hitting? What about the secluded eighth tee when someone moves or makes a noise? Why is that so distracting? You are aroused because of what you were telling yourself about the situation. When you stand on the first tee of a tournament with a gallery of 20 people watching, when you have a water hazard or larger bunker to hit over these conditions, trigger or cue thought routines, you have a choice at this point, a choice. Most players don’t know they have. If you are like Sam Snead or Fred couples, you breathe deeply relieve all the tension from your body and begin to focus on a time when you successfully hit the shot you were about to play successfully.

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00:16:32

You have confidence. If you are like most players, the gallery of 20 produces a distraction from the shots you were hitting to thoughts of their judgment of your performance. If you have had recent problems out of bunkers or over hazards, a distraction of thoughts and images of those failed shots, intrudes and your confidence deteriorates. Jack Nicholas says you can overcome the, get it over with can’t stand the suspense syndrome by consciously slowing down, step back and take a deep breath or two or three while focusing your mind exclusively on the various practical factors, distance lie, ground conditions, wind hazards, et cetera, that you must evaluate to decide your best course of action. Don’t even take a club from your bag until you’ve done this clearly. And conclusively. When you walk on the first tee, you carry the events of the day and the associated physiological state with you, your physiology can affect your performance on the course positively or negatively.

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00:17:36

When you relax, this state will positively affect your performance. If you are tense or aroused, your performance will deteriorate in direct relationship to your level of arousal. If you practice on the range by hitting one ball after another, without stopping between shots to go through your routine, your swing tempo will gradually increase. As you continue to practice, your performance will deteriorate with his faster tempo. Go through your entire routine on each shot, hit shorter clubs to get a feeling of the tempo, slow and quiet your movement. As you do, leave the range and go to the putting green. If this doesn’t work, what happens when you arrive at the practice range or course running late? Do you rush? If so arousal will result. I have a plane partner who was often putting on his shoes on the first tee is always late, no matter where he goes and his focus is in the future, it takes nine holes for him to mentally join us.

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00:18:40

Then he asked why he plays better on the back nine than on the front. Off-course most of us stay mentally in the future. When at home, as we shower and dress in our car with our children at work and on the golf course, when our thoughts accelerate to the future, our nervous system accelerates, we become increasingly aroused. Thus, most of us undergo constant arousal as part of our daily routine and arousal state produces a condition of vigilance. This vigilance produces a continuous scanning of the environment. Concentration tends to be short, the internal agitation or arousal of the nervous system results in a lowered frustration, tolerance, irritability, distractibility, and quick and movement. If this state exists off the course, it will be with you on the course. And off course, state of higher arousal can disturb sleep. These difficulties usually are expressed as problems falling asleep or a restless night.

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00:19:45

You’re awake periods are spent intermittently looking at the clock and mentally calculating how many hours of sleep you can get. If you can just fall asleep. Now, this mental calculation is as disruptive for sleep as mentally calculating your score during your round is for play learning to slow down movement, developing a moment to moment focus and applying the breathing and cognitive therapy procedures outlined in this book will not only benefit your performance on the course, but also your performance, your health and mood off of the course, I have successfully used these same strategies for years in treating a variety of physical disorders from migraine headaches and nausea associated with chemotherapy to irritable bowel syndrome, panic and sleep disorders. I also mentioned mood. How can this arousal state affect mood? When we are late for an appointment we began to rush. It is at these times when lapses that we spill or break things or make mistakes on simple task or have close calls or accidents, why arousal, we are future focused.

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00:20:59

We leave the moment. We don’t concentrate. What happens at these times? Our IQ goes up. That doesn’t mean you get smarter here. IQ means irritability quotient. Have you ever noticed how irritable you become at times like this? How short tempered you can be, how your tolerance to frustration is lowered, how things you usually ignore become major irritants, all because of arousal. You bet the irritability we experienced internally as increased nervous system. Arousal is externalized. As short tempered irritability. Thoughts can produce an internal state of tension, a phone call, a letter, a picture, or a song may serve as a cue to focus on a problem. The physiological changes. These thoughts produce can cause your heart to raise your blood pressure, to rise muscles, to tense your breathing rate, to accelerate and so on. As a generalized state of arousal, if this state goes uncorrected, it will be carried to the course or to bed on the course.

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00:22:07

Your golf performance will deteriorate in bed, your sleep and sexual performance deteriorates practice the relaxation and thinking strategies in this book. And you can improve everything from golf to sleep performance and oh yes, even sexual performance, other causes it. Isn’t just the conditions of play or pressures from work or family or social situations that will produce this state of arousal, diet and personality type may predispose you to accessive nervous system arousal that will impede your performance. The following is a list of some of these factors that can affect arousal diet, your caffeine intake, your breathing rate, your off-course stress. We work home or stress that’s internally created your personality style may also predispose you to a higher arousal levels. As I already noted the nervous system’s electrical storm associated with arousal causes an acceleration of physiology and movement and swing tempo, all creating a deterioration in physical and mental performance, numerous physical problems like peptic, ulcers, colitis, and digestion, migraine, and many other conditions are triggered by an internally aroused state over a prolonged period.

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00:23:27

Similarly, some people even seasoned tour players experience a restless sleep the night before a tournament due to an arousal state from anticipation. When anxiety is extreme, it is not uncommon for a person to experience nausea, constipation, diarrhea, or some other organ system involvement. As mentioned, Bobby Jones reportedly lost between 10 and 15 pounds. Every time he played in a tournament, he only had one meal a day and ate that one at 10:00 PM. After he’d had a few drinks and had mellowed, he couldn’t keep breakfast or lunch down Henry Cotton and Nancy Lopez were also known for their stomach problems and associated nausea and vomiting. Nancy experienced her difficulties during her amateur years like Bobby Jones cotton’s ability would place him in a dominating position only to slide in the final round in the 1931 British open at Carnoustie cotton was ahead after three rounds only to shoot a 79 on the last day in the 1933, British open at St.

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00:24:33

Andrews. He again shot a 79 in the final round to finish three strokes behind the winter, Denny chute, cotton stomach ache problems would often accompany their final round. The K he would reportedly vomit just prior to the round future focus. People who focus on the future tend to be anxious. Most of us live mentally in the future. The majority of the time. What do you think about during your morning shower? Do you think about the soothing quality of the water, or are you thinking about the afternoon, the next day, next month? And so on this type of future focus is arousing. If your thoughts accelerate to the future off of the course, these mental habits will be with you on the course. Remember when top players play their best rounds, they report a one-shot at a time, 100% focus in the present, only on the shot.

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00:25:29

They airplane your thoughts on the course that reflect a future focus may be on score and what you have to get, do to get it back. What you will have to shoot on the backside to improve your round, the difficult shot on the next hole or something pending that doesn’t even pertain to your round of golf, arousal and control. So what is arousal? We know the neurochemistry, the physiological changes that occur and the impact it has on our health and performance. The signs of arousal and the stress response are the same. This higher arousal state is stress. How do we recognize it? One form of stress or higher arousal is easy to recognize. Simply stated. It is a loss of control. Any situation in which you don’t perceive yourself. 100% in control is a stressor. And the physical changes described will occur. Consider the following examples.

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00:26:27

Number one, you were playing with players better than you. You hit a shot out of one green side, bunker over the green into another bunker. Your next shot also flies the green. You notice your shoulders tight. And as you heard your ball wondering what the others are thinking about your performance, who is in control. Number two, you realize that the group playing behind you is waiting on your group. After every shot, you find yourself rushing and thinking about the group behind you during your shots, who is in control. Number three, you enter a room with a group of people. You think about the judgment of others regarding your appearance, your presentation, et cetera, who is in control. Number four, you were playing a tournament round and began to wonder what the cut will be, who or what is in control. Number five, you were playing at a professional event.

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00:27:26

You begin to think about where you must finish to be eligible to play in the next event, who or what is in control. Number six, you are approaching the last couple of tournaments of the year. You find yourself thinking about how much you will need on the money list to retain your exempt status on tour, who or what is in control. Number seven, you’ll have a talk plan to a group. And your thought focuses on what people will think of your presentation, who is in control. Number eight, someone asks you for assistance or your boss requests that you do extra work. You don’t want to, but you worry about what they might think or do. If you decline who is in control, number nine, any situation you avoid for reasons of conflict, judgment, loss of love, et cetera, is not in your control, who is in control in any situation in which your behavior occurs for others out of fear or concern for future consequences, you are not in control.

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00:28:35

Number 10 habits of rushing urgency, a focus on time and living mentally in the future or past or a loss of control. Number 11, any situation in which you lack confidence in which you don’t believe in your ability to perform well is a loss of control. Number 12, how many things can go wrong in the morning? Or how many red lights does it take when you were running late? Or how many bad shots can you hit before you become frustrated, angry and so on? How does this state affect your performance? Who or what is in control? Number 13, many of us are taught during our childhood to be aware and concerned about what the neighbors will think. The concern for judgment of others is indoctrinated. At an early age, our clothing styles are a clear illustration of our level of social self-consciousness, who is in control results of arousal, PGA tour player.

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00:29:41

Johnny Miller says he enjoyed playing with a tournament leader and watching how he would handle the pressure. Miller describes two types of players. The first player he describes as the fear of failure type, he notes that this player changes his plane routine. Usually rushes more, takes fewer waggles and starts blaming his equipment. Or the course, he describes the other player as just the opposite. He notes. The other player anticipate success, and you can tell he couldn’t wait for the opportunity to succeed. People like him. Get a look in their eye. Raymond Floyd is one. When he’s focused, he looks like he stuck his finger into a light socket tour player. David ferret. He further states that the guys who went all the money are the ones who control blind panic. He describes coming down to the final holes of a tournament in the lead, by a shot with my backside, the size of a shirt, but nervous anticipation produces an arousal level.

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00:30:43

In most people that creates a flood of undesired sensory information to the brain. This information processing is so rapid. That concentration for more than a brief moment is difficult before intrusive thoughts, override your thought focus with new content. Usually unrelated to the moment. Many people with this style of nervous anticipation, have a fear of embarrassment and concern for what others will think, or at the very least a period of anticipation of what’s to come. Things begin to occur in your body related to your thought patterns, a mood state of irritability and nervousness, and a Lorde frustration tolerance and anger are often part of this process. Other players get excited about how well they’re playing and thoughts of score and a great finish. Take them mentally to holes ahead, or even to the end of the round. When some players aren’t putting well there’s pressure to hit it close to the hole, we all become nervous.

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00:31:46

At times. Each of us shows pressure differently. These telltale signs are followed by a change in tempo, a breakdown in the pre swing routine, a lowered frustration tolerance or similar Quicken movement around the ball or similar indications of an aroused nervous system. The performance consequences of arousal, Johnny Miller described the effects of arousal as he perceived them. He says, the first step toward dealing with pressure is to admit you get tight under pressure, then recognize how it manifests itself. He states the arousal produced by pressure and I quote, heightens your awareness. Your brain gets knocked up a notch or two. It speeds up. And the way you process data is messed up. You’ve got all this information coming to you real fast, and you’re not used to it. So you get confused. You have to take deep breaths to slow your heartbeat or sing a song slowly or walk more slowly.

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00:32:46

I’ve done all these things. I’ve likened pressure to tuning into radio. Get too excited. Tell yourself you want it badly. And it’s static time. You can’t let the moment overwhelm you and hold you captive in quote, as a psychologist, teaching professional in player, I believe the too much physical arousal and the associated tension are the greatest obstacles of the golf swing. Obviously the exceptions are those few under aroused players for whom arousal increases their focus and improves performance. Johnny Miller intuitively recognized that excessive physical arousal creates increased muscle tension and changes in the nervous system that result in everything from a Quicken swing, pace to disrupted concentration, regardless of the cause the vigilance and internal acceleration created by this aroused physical state cause changes in your nervous system that impede optimum performance. First, these changes produce an overload of sensory information as your brain gathers content from the environment in preparation for action.

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00:33:55

This flood of information interferes with concentration and the desired present focus. Two mental states necessary for peak performance intern. As your nervous system accelerates physical movement. Quickens performance suffers with a faster than normal swing tempo and timing and balance are compromised. Let’s review some events cues, a thought that is expressed as a pattern, which results in an alarm that triggers emotional and physical changes. These physical changes include increased heart rate, increased respiration or breath holding increased muscle tension. When we experience negative anticipation, fear, alarm or anger, our body’s mobilized for action. This mobilization is the fight or flight mechanism. When primitive man saw danger on the horizon, an internal alarm went off and his body mobilized in preparation to either stand and fight or flee the situation. This internal alarm is cued by thoughts of anger, pending danger or fear resulting in both physiological and mood changes.

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00:35:08

How much has changed since the days of primitive man? However, the physical mechanism of fight or flight has not Sam Snead experienced this physical mobilization on the first tee in 1936, when he had to use both hands to tee up his ball and he had trouble focusing his vision. Obviously when the alarm response occurs, the subsequent physical changes don’t help performance. The muscle tension alone can create swing changes. There result in poor performance. This sets off a cycle of tension, frustration, anger, or anxiety, and repeat poor performance. The most obvious change in your swing is tempo. The pace of your swing quickens as the pace of your internal physiology quickens your overall movement on the course quickens the faster swing tempo, magnifies swing errors and your performance deteriorates as the entire process cycles. When some off-course event sets off the alarm response like a home or work situation or being late for tee time, performance is affected in the same way.

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00:36:20

For example, a pattern of rushing a sense of urgency or worry produces physical changes of muscle tension, breath holding and so on, which will result in an impaired swing. When carried to the course, many people believe that the golf course is their place of relaxation. The course may help to refocus your attention away from troubling or distressing thoughts. However, your habitual physical patterns once established as a daily routine, don’t quiet during a four or five hour round of golf swing pace speed of speech and walking pace are good indicators of how internally revved up someone is under arousal and performance. Now there is a population of people who are just the opposite for these few players. Their biggest problem is being under aroused. These under aroused players are usually the tour players who need assistance with concentration skills to increase their ability to focus more on the present and shot at hand.

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00:37:28

These players need arousal induction, especially in the area of learning to focus concentration. These under aroused players perform best when their levels of arousal increase. If you are unhurried, not focused on time, have few of any concerns of being late, or if you feel more focused and performance improves during periods of what you perceive as anxiety and higher arousal, you may be one of the few fortunate under aroused. John Adams tied the Dubsdread course record in 1993 in the third round of the PGA tour, Western open with a 63, he recorded seven birdies and an Eagle. He described picking up his pace during putting as the turning point. I hadn’t made a putt for two days. So today I decided to speed up my pace on the greens. I just kept rolling them in the right pace is not always a slow pace, especially for the under aroused.

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00:38:27

One of the first professionals I worked with years ago played on the United States, LPGA and Japanese LPGA tours. She described an inability to perform well when she had a routine six or seven iron to the green, but she quickly added put me behind a tree and watch me play. She was what we call laid back. She appeared very relaxed and unshakeable. You could see it in her deliberate pace and hear it in her voice. She was laid back. However, she wasn’t focused that routine six or seven iron was just that it was routine. The difficult shots from behind a tree required, creative thoughts and a discussion with herself and her caddy about what she was going to do with the shot. She used the same procedures for the routine shots that she used for the more difficult shots around and over obstacles. She would stand behind the routine fairway shots described to herself and her caddy, the shot she was going to hit go through her routine with that focus and hit it.

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00:39:31

For example, she would check the wind, her lie, the terrain enter target. Then she would identify the landing area on the green, taking several deep breaths during this process and say something to the effect of I’m going to start this ball out at the right edge of the top branch on that large Oak tree and draw it into my target. Watch it bounced twice and roll in the whole, whether you are relaxed and under aroused or fast moving and over aroused, the same principles apply. The under aroused player is definitely in the minority. I recently did a plane workshop for the PGA of America, where there were 50 club professionals and former PGA tour professionals in attendance, after an extensive introduction regarding the physiology and characteristics of over and arouse players. I asked for a show of hands of those individuals who would categorize themselves as under aroused or perceive themselves as needing to get up to play.

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00:40:33

Well, not one person raised his hand. The majority of players are over aroused, both on and off the course. These over aroused players have to tone down their nervous system to reach an optimum level of arousal so they can focus as already discussed a cascade of events, occurs with nervous system arousal. If the nervous system is naturally under aroused, this cascade of events moves the person closer to optimum arousal for performance. If our normal level of arousal is moderate to high, minor increases in arousal or anxiety cause a flood of thoughts to begin movement quickens, breathing and heart rate accelerate frustration tolerance is lowered and the ability to focus a singular thought on one event diminishes. I was working with a player on the putting green one day after several prior discussions regarding his low arousal. We were discussing conditions under which he experienced increased focus and improved imagery, especially during putty.

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00:41:38

He said, when he experienced more anxiety, he got more focused. My thought was that makes no sense, especially with what I know about the way the nervous system works. I know that anxiety tends to impair a singular, concentrated focus and produces a hair trigger for distraction. Then I began to wonder if he was talking about the same anxiety I was after continued discussion. I realized we weren’t. This is a guy who calls and doesn’t seem to ever be in a hurry to get off the phone when he has a plane to catch no worry. If he misses the flight, there’s always another one. The same players can be pushed to the point of too much arousal under conditions of extreme pressure, place them in contention to win a tournament, let them know where they are on the leaderboard. And arousal kicks in. This is the time they need to quiet their nervous system and work toward an internal balance.

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00:42:32

As they walk the tight rope of arousal while sustaining peak performance performance model of arousal, the stress response creates an internal state of arousal. This arousal state relates directly to performance. Research shows too much or too little arousal affects performance, optimum arousal levels produce optimum performance levels. So researchers say earlier in this chapter, I addressed the irritable mood often associated with arousal. This same arousal state can impede performance. What happens to your performance when you were running late or thinking about things other than what you were doing, what happens to your thinking when you were rushing, do you feel physically aroused? Is this the time you spill or break something or injure yourself or almost have an accident in your car? Is your thinking in the present or in the future, what happens to your social or physical performance? When you worry about what others are thinking, these questions imply that there are a number of different kinds of arousal, the mental states of concentration images and thoughts, and the physical signs I’ve reviewed the role.

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00:43:46

Each of these plays and performance is highly individual. Although related in a chain of internal events, high arousal characteristics. Now, how do you know whether you have a high arousal or a low arousal personality style? The following are a few of the indicators of the highly aroused person. These indicators are not an all or none situation. They occur along a continuum depending on the degree of arousal. Number one, acceleration in thought, which has also translated to a short concentration span. Number two Quicken movement, and a tendency to rush number three, breathing rate that exceeds five complete breaths in a 32nd period, unless you hold your breath at times, stress, that is number four, fist clenched, number five, neck and shoulder tension. Number six, there’s a tendency to spill break or forget things. Number seven easily startled number eight, easily frustrated, and a tendency to be irritable.

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00:44:52

Number nine time-oriented purposely sets. Watch ahead and frequently checks, clock or watch number 10, rapid speech number 11, easily distracted. Number 12, impatient number 13. Thoughts are future-focused number 14. There’s a sense of urgency. Number 15, difficulty falling asleep. Number 16 concerned regarding the judgment of others. Number 17 when experiencing higher arousal judgment is impaired and performance deteriorates. And these similar characteristics in older years would include number 18 tendency to have minor accidents. Number 19 physical complaints, headaches, nausea, shoulder, and neck tension and bouts with minor illnesses within one or more target organ systems. Now let’s look at the low arousal characteristics. The characteristics of the lower Raul’s person are just the opposite of a highly aroused. A few of the low arousal characteristics are as follows. Number one, easygoing. Don’t just look easy, going to some of us do seldom aroused internally. Number two, low arouse.

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00:46:11

People are not worriers. Number three, there’s no urgency in life. They always have time to talk. Number four, they are not governed by the clock. So I miss my flight. There’ll be another one. Number five, they have a great tolerance to frustration. They have more patients than the average person. Number six, they have slower deliberate movement and their speech reflects an under aroused nervous system. Number seven, the under aroused player must get mentally aroused to focus more clearly in order to perform at his peak. Number eight breathing rate in 30 seconds is five or less and they don’t hold their breath. Number nine, relaxed laid back posture. Number 10, they enjoy life in the present. Number 11, no difficulty falling asleep. Number 12, they talk and move more slowly than others. Number 13, noise and distractions will have little impact on the lower rails player. And finally, number 14, they are not easily startled. The under aroused player can fall victim to the negative effects of too much arousal, especially in times of close competition in the final round or last few holes. At these times, they can use arousal reduction and focus techniques to end the tournament.

Performance and higher arousal, just because players have a tendency to be overalls doesn’t mean they can’t play well. It’s a matter of diagnosing nervous system style. Then teaching strategies to control arousal for improved performance. Remember all peak performers report, the same internal state when they perform their best, they don’t all use the same strategies to get to that state. Some need to increase arousal, to get more focused while some need to quiet their nervous system to reduce arousal, PGA and Australian tours player. Patrick Burke is a good example of the over aroused player. According to Patrick, the majority of the tour players fit his nervous system style. Patrick has one of the nicest golf swings I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard other PGA tour players and television analyst make similar comments swinging and playing are two different things. Patrick and I have spent a good bit of time working on strategies for him to think and move that would quiet his nervous system while remaining mentally focused.

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00:01:06

Both the under aroused and highly aroused personality styles are part of the nervous systems, anatomical neuronal network and neurochemical. Make-up therefore to change your nervous systems, programmed responses, you will need to practice the prescribed daily changes over several weeks and in a variety of low to high stress conditions. Repeated exposure to a variety of situations is necessary before learning in codes, anatomically, and neurochemically this encoding process evolves as behavior occurs across many levels of low and high arousal situations. These experiences will bring gradual success in arousal management and performance. It’s like climbing a ladder one rung at a time. Johnny Miller describes this process as follows. Everyone has his own choking level, a level at which he fails to play his normal golf. As you get more experienced, your choking level rises, you will experience changes in your performance dependent upon the conditions in which you play.

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00:02:14

Your level of arousal will change from a casual round to a term it round to playing partners. For example, how would plane with an LPGA or PGA tour player affect your arousal levels? Rookie tour players tend to struggle to make the cut and experience arousal. Once they have a little success. Their first major is the cue for arousal. The final rung for those who make it that far is qualifying for and playing as a member of the Ryder cup team, PGA tour player, Steve pate needed a top 10 finish in the 1991 PGA championship at crooked stick to qualify for the Ryder cup team paint needed a par on the last hole to finish in the top 10, he made the par and the team mark wavy described the conversation he had with pate. After that round, I was so happy for him because we have together.

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00:03:08

He meaning paid said, man, I was choking my butt off. It wasn’t because it was the PGA championship. It could have been Hattiesburg. Now Hattiesburg is a PGA tour event that was formerly played the same week as the masters. It’s because the Ryder cup is just about the ultimate in golf, European and PGA tour player, David ferret. He says everyone who has success has choked. Absolutely everyone has done it. He further states. It’s not what happens to you that matters in the long run. It’s your attitude. That’s what determines how you cope with the next experience that comes along quite often. It’s how you deal with failure. That determines how you achieve success. The mental process is like building a muscle. It’s not letting your whole framework of thinking fall down around you. It’s having the resolve and mental toughness to take it on the chin.

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00:04:03

Keep your head up and feel good about yourself for having done that. You can either feel bad because you fail or good because of your positive reactions to it. That will give you the armor to cope with it. The next time arousal reduction for improved performance as already noted during a physically aroused state, your brain increases the sensory information. It processes in the event of crisis. This overload blocks the ability to focus for any period on a singular event, nervous system activities like visualization are hard to capture during an arousal state to overcome, overcome this aroused state apply the relaxation techniques you are going to learn. Your concentration will improve. You will feel more relaxed, confident, and in control producing a state of relaxation assist in quieting the sensory overload to the brain and sets the stage for selective information processing for a focus in the present on the golf course.

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00:05:09

This is a one-shot at a time focus. There is no consideration of score. What others are thinking, the hazards of the course home work or anything else other than the shot at hand and your target Eastern practitioners of meditation. Call this present focus. Mindfulness. Have you ever stood behind your ball on the putting green reading, a putt, trying to find the line or path your ball is going to take to the hole or attempting to get a sense of the feeling of the stroke without success. The next time this happens, begin breathing deeply. Step away from the ball, quiet your movement, resume your routine and become mindful. As you continue breathing deeply, you will find that this strategy clear your focus, increase your ability to visualize and relax. You have you ever stood over a putt distracted and suddenly realized where you are as you’re ready to make your stroke.

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00:06:09

You find yourself wondering where the line is because you lost your concentration and you were just going through the motions behind the ball. The difference between the tour player and the amateur in this situation is that the tour player describes stepping away from the ball as he gathers his concentration and reads the putt. Again, the amateur says, I just go ahead and stroke it and hope it gets close. I’m sure you can relate to this in the full swing as well. The correction of this is obvious. Step off the ball become mindful and start your routine over arousal reduction strategies, some sports psychologist refer to low arousal training as a band-aid approach. I agree if the singular goal is to teach someone to quiet his nervous system, without consideration of focus, concentration, visualization, movement, confidence, routine, and a plan for management of emotions as well.

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00:07:08

I have presented nine strategies for arousal reduction on the following, and I have provided the mechanism and rationale for each. These strategies are number one, breathing number two, movement, number three, focused thought or mindfulness number four, visualization, number five, routine number six, stretching number seven, posture, number eight, biofeedback, number nine, confidence. And let’s start with breathing. Our breathing style and frequency directly affect our performance and quality of life. A relaxed person breathe deeply and slowly. A person who is tense, anxious, and aroused breeze in a rapid shallow fashion, or he has periods of breath holding PGA tour player and former us open champion. Curtis strange says under pressure. One of the things most important I have to remember to do is breathe. Tour players who use deep breathing during pressure situations include Tom Watson, Paul Lazar singer Mike Reed, Helen Alfredson, Johnny Miller, Dennis Paulson, Patrick Burke, Jan Stevenson, Marta Figueras Dodie, Jennifer Wyatt, Laurie Rinker and Marie Polly.

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00:08:30

And the list goes on. Some players like fuzzy Zeller and Jerry herd are well-known for whistling during a round. Have you ever tried to whistle without taking a deep breath whistling, perpetuates, deep breathing and thus helps sustain relaxation. Let’s look at why breathing produces relaxation. The physiological events that make up the arousal state occur as a chain, as all internal and external behaviors do, you can learn to quiet this chain of arousal by controlling one of the links. And that link is breathing. Learning. Deep diaphragmatic breathing is essential to relaxation and improve performance. This breathing instruction is provided in an audio tape from the mine under par series routine guided practice in developing consistent performance. If you alter or remove a link in any chain, the rest of the chain changes in some way. When you experience arousal and the associated signs of increases in heart rate, blood pressure and so on, diaphragmatic breathing will quiet these and the other links in the arousal chain.

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00:09:41

When you use this deep breathing procedure, it is important to remember that your exhalation should last twice. As long as your inhalation place, one hand on your chest. And one hand on your stomach. Now take a deep breath. What expanded most your stomach or your chest? Your stomach will expand most with proper deep breathing. The abdominal contents pushed downward on the diaphragm, causing the stomach to expand chest expansion alone. With breathing points to shallow breathing. As you exhale, find areas of tension throughout your body and relax them. Start with your forehead and scan your body and your mind looking for tension scan from your forehead to neck, shoulders, chest back, arms, buttocks, legs, and feet. This procedure is called a body scan, scan your body for tension and relax through deep breathing during any work play or social activity. As you use these breathing and body scan procedures, your nervous system will calm and you will be able to maintain clear mental images of targets and produce greater total body relaxation.

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00:10:59

The physical changes associated with acceleration of your nervous system reverse. When you practice relaxation strategies like diaphragmatic breathing, blood flow resumed in the periphery, your hands warm muscles, relax, breathing returns to a normal rate, digestion resumed and so on. However, unless thinking remains calm, confident, and positive. The arousal state of the accelerated nervous system will return resulting in a resumption of the physical signs of fight or flight strategies for restructuring, intrusive thoughts and staying focused in the present up here in later chapters. How can you tell if you are relaxed or aroused, once you get used to an arousal state, it becomes your reference for relaxation. You can determine just how aroused you are by counting your breasts for a 32nd period, one full breath. And that is inhalation and exhalation is a count of one. Try not to alter your breathing rate or the quality of your breathing as you count.

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00:12:09

Our relaxed breath count is three to five in a 32nd period. Anything above five suggest an aroused nervous system. If you are aroused, your breath count will be high. The greater the level of your arousal, the higher your breath count will be. If you were going to impact upon your level of arousal, you will need to practice deep diaphragmatic breathing and body scans 60 to 70 times per day. Every time you hear a phone ring, walk through doorways, apply the brakes in your car. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath, use deep diaphragmatic breathing in your practice in play. As you walk between shots. When you walk on and off greens, when you mark your ball, when you are behind the ball as part of your pre swing routine, just before you stroke your putt, as you walk on and off the team. And when you pull a club from your bag, take a deep diaphragmatic breath, take a deep breath and hold it.

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00:13:10

Notice the tension in your chest, shoulders and neck. Can you imagine trying to putt or swing a club while holding your breath? Many players unknowingly do for putting you should be starting your stroke. As you complete your exhalation, your shoulders drop with relaxation. As you exhale in your full swing, you should be approaching the end of exhalation of a deep diaphragmatic breath. As you begin to move the club away and your backswing, you should feel a relaxed heaviness in your upper body as you do. If however, you focus on your breathing during a putting stroke or swing, poor performance will follow thoughts of breathing or related mental strategies are as bad as a mechanics focused during your swim. Just think of the mental strategies as mental mechanics, as noted. You need to practice these skills off the course and on the range until they become automatic and occur in all settings.

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00:14:09

Without conscious thought, breath holding is common in conditions such as high winds and extreme tension. Try breathing as you hold your head out the window of a car going 30 miles per hour, your breathing will be shallow, or you will hold your breath. Breath. Holding reduces the supply of oxygen to muscles causing increased tension and quickness and movement. The first place the quickness will likely show up is in your putting stroke. Then the full swing tour players will tell you that playing in the wind will result in a shorter, faster swing. When playing in the wind, turn your back to the breeze, breathe deeply and stay relaxed. PGA tour player, Dennis Paulson experienced this breath, holding phenomenon while playing in 30 to 40 mile per hour winds at the 1994 at and T at pebble beach, he had ingrained a deep breath in his routine.

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00:15:03

This was especially important in his putting in the high winds at pebble beach on Saturday, he began to unknowingly hold his breath. He struggled with his putting the entire round. After the round, he corrected his breathing and on Sunday began to put with deep breathing and relaxation. And once again, he began to roll the ball well on the greens, as I noted the N the audio tapes and the mind under par series routine guided practice and developing consistent performance, provide instruction in various relaxation and focus strategies, including pre play and Encore strategies. There are a number of other strategies you can do with breathing that will quiet arousal and promote improved performance. Diaphragmatic breathing is one of the oldest used in both clinical and performance conditions slowing down your movement. While focusing on the activity you are doing is another one of these strategies, movement advice to a tour player, quiet your movement.

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00:16:02

In June of 1974, the us open was at Wingfoot country club in New York. Tom Watson was leading after three rounds on Sunday in the final round, he shot a 79 Byron Nelson in analyzing Watson. Sunday performance told him his swing was too fast and jerky indicating that’s why his performance deteriorated and he shot the high score. I’m sure you can imagine what the level of arousal must be for a PGA player who is leading a major after three rounds, looking for his first tournament win as Watson was while still trying to remain focused and relaxed. Byron Nelson went on to explain that he felt Watson had one fault. He was too smart and his mind was too active. Tom Watson does everything quickly. Nelson continued that due to this quickness in his off-course personality, he would always swing fast. He needed to learn to control the increased quickness produced by the arousal of competition, especially under pressure to help him slow down his swing.

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00:17:07

Byron Nelson, Todd Watson, to move more deliberately as he set up to his shots by shuffling his feet into a stance at a slower speed and feeling the slow waggle of the club before his takeaway ingrained a more fluid feeling into his swing. Tom Watson said the most important lesson he learned from Byron Nelson was tempo. Watson says my rhythm is better now than it ever has been. I’ve learned that rhythm is the basic factor. Why people play well or badly under pressure. Your rhythm gets faster. It is hard not to swing a little bit faster or think a little bit faster when you were under pressure. How many tournaments are one on the last nine holes where the leader is overtaken? I would suggest that a good percentage of these wins result from the leader, losing a moment to moment one stroke at a time focus and Quicken swing, pace and movement.

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00:18:02

As he comes down the stretch due to arousal produced by the thoughts of score or position your golf game is no different. If you know how you and top athletes feel and behave when experienced peak performance, you can strive to facilitate this state. You can correct a higher arousal state by practicing the relaxation and concentration strategies. You will learn in this book. The faster pace swing produced under pressure is usually self-diagnosed as a swing fall faster than your ideal tempo will produce swing flaws. That is not to suggest, however, that all swing flaws result from poor tempo. Jack Nicholas says, the more you hurry and golf, the worse you will probably play, which leads to even heavier pressure and greater tension. The other side of this discussion is Nick price who was known to have a fast swing price says being really slow. Under pressure can be just as bad as being really quick.

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00:19:03

Just don’t go against what you normally do. The key is to recognize that pressure results in quick and movement and tempo. That’s a difficult thing to feel during play. A feeling of slowing down will bring you back to your best performance zone. Some of you naturally swing too quickly, slow down for improved performance. Jack Nicholas notes. That first tee nerves have the potential to ruin an entire round. Especially if these nerves spill into the first swing and you play the first hole poorly, he doesn’t describe it as such, but Nicholas recognizes that an aroused nervous system produces a faster tempo. His strategy is to see the swing he is about to make on the first tee in his mind’s eye, almost as if it’s happening in slow motion with no effort to force the shot in any way. He further notes that this strategy will often produce the best drive of the round.

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00:19:57

Some tour players have intuitively developed their own relaxation strategies while others have incorporated deliberate movement into their routines. Ray Floyd describes his periods of peak performance. I feel like I’m going half-speed I’m not hitting the ground very hard. When I walk I’m aware there are people around, but I don’t see them. I might talk to a player I’m walking with, but I don’t know it I’m alone. And at ease, Tom, Weiskopf described a similar feeling of slow motion when he won the U S senior open in July, 1995, Sam Snead described removing all the tension from his body, making his first swing with that tension removed, and then trying to keep that up for 18 holes. When Jack Nicklaus wants to hit it long, he says he builds up to it while walking from the last green to the T, his primary objective is to get good and relaxed.

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00:20:54

Then once he is loose, he hits before any muscular or mental tension evolves. Nicholas also says that starting the club back too quickly is a common fault, especially under pressure. Again, he says he gains a visual image of shoulders, arms, hands, shaft, and club head moving back together in one piece with a picture of slow movement, John Jacobs, a well-known teacher and former European tour player describes preparing for a tournament day upon arriving at the course, he took 10 minutes to put his shoes on. Johnny Miller says he would often take up to 20 minutes to shave on Sunday. The morning of the first round of a tournament. Gary player prepared for the 1965 us open by slowing down his pace in life weeks before the event shaving and dining became prolong rituals. Additionally player says he saw his name next to the number one spot. Every time he passed the leaderboard, the week of the open Davis loved the third and Byron Nelson described slowing down movement.

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00:22:01

As pressure increased during play love said he would walk slower, play slower and swing slower. John Jacobs, Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Gary player by her Nelson and Davis loved the third intuitively quiet their nervous system by slowing down movement. Ray Floyd noticed that his times of peak performance were associated with a feeling of moving at half speed as discussed. You will recognize it slowing down. Your movement will give you a feeling of control. When your nervous system is aroused, your physical movement quickens and your mental focus goes to the future. There’s also a feeling of loss of control that builds with increased arousal in it long by quieting your movement, PGA tour player, mark. Calcavecchia his advice to hit it long is to slow down the club going back low and slow is common advice from tour players as a pre swing thought calcavecchia notes that amateurs tend to move the club away too quickly.

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00:23:04

Again, we visit tempo. Tom Weiskopf describes slowing the pace of his swing to calender. Anxiety. Pressure speeds you up. I tell myself to swing a little bit slower and let the anxiety pick up the pace of my swing. Remember, everybody gets a little nervous. So when you have that feeling or sensation swing a little bit easier when the club moves quickly away from address in the backswing, the player tends to lift the club rather than turn his body. Often. There is also a re gripping that when paired with lifting increases tension, this increased tempo intention produce a rush transition from the backswing to downswing resulting in an arid shot. Simply stated it started the club back from a dress with a smooth even tempo practice on the range with a feeling that your grip pressure never changes in the swing and that your down swing is at the same speed as your backswing.

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00:24:01

In reality, neither of these is the case. Notice how much more in balance you feel with these drills, applying movement and breathing in a pressurized situation. PGA tour player, Patrick Burke finished in the top 10 of the 1992 in 1994, PGA tour qualifying schools to qualify for the PGA tour. You have to complete three stages. The first two stages have anywhere from 90 to 120 players attempting to qualify at each site about one third of the players in each of the first two stages, qualify to move to the next stage. If you don’t finish in the top one-third of any stage, you don’t advance to the next stage. The first two stages consists of four rounds each and the last stage is six rounds. Imagine you were 30 years old and your life’s goal is to play the PGA tour to do so. You need to play 14 consecutive rounds of golf.

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00:24:57

The majority of which must be subpar rounds. On top of that, you must pay a $3,000 entry fee. Johnny Miller describes the stress level of the PGA tour qualifying school as pressurized atmospheres go. The qualifying school ranks with the us open and the Ryder cup Patrick’s primary goal at the 1992 tour school was to stay away from mechanics and slow down his movement. He not only slowed down his movement during the various realms, but it also, he began to slow down his movement. As soon as his eyes opened in the morning and he rolled over to get out of bed. He continued to quiet his movement and stay focused in the present as he got ready to leave for the course. And in preparation for play, he admits that the arousal got to him a bit, the morning of the last round of tour school, he realized he had already had his shoes on when he remembered he was to have taken five minutes to do so.

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00:25:50

He simply stepped back into a slow deliberate routine. As he hit balls and putted, he shot a 68 the last day with one out of bounds and one unplayable line. Most importantly, he reported that the out of bounds and unplayable lie didn’t phase him, Patrick describes using the same breathing and movement strategies on his way to winning the 1994 tournament players championship on the Australian tour. He noted that his anxiety was high, especially the last two rounds. He led the tournament from the second through fourth rounds and won by a shot to her players will also tell you that overtaking the leader in the final round is much less pressure than holding a lead over three or four rounds as noted by Byron Nelson. You’re faster paced individuals off. The course will speed up under pressure on the course. It is only natural. I’m not suggesting the all players should swing with the same tempo.

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00:26:46

I am suggesting that each of you should have the same tempo in every swing and that you should employ specific strategies to keep a consistent tempo. It isn’t necessarily that players swing too fast. It’s just that increased arousal increases their swing pace, no matter how fast they normally swing this Quicken swing pace often results in a separation of arms and body. And this produces an errand shot. Remember if you move quickly off the course, you will move quickly on the course. If you are going to learn to quiet your nervous system, it requires off-course movement breathing and focused concentration practice focus, thought be mindful after winning the 1992 kind poly classic in Hawaii. Tommy Aaron said it feels great to win. I was so wrapped up in playing each shot that it hasn’t sunk in July 11th, 1993. Nancy Lopez recorded her 47th win at the Youngstown Warren LPGA classic Lopez played a three iron 198 yards to the green that came to a stop 25 feet from the cup on the par five 18th hole.

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00:28:00

She rolled in the pot for an Eagle to tie Deborah shard and one on the first playoff hole with a birding Lopez. And her caddy had talked before the final round about the importance of her staying calm. This is something she had not done well when she got him contingent earlier in 1993, I told my caddy that I had to be patient today. I knew I was hitting the ball well, but in the past I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself in the last round. Why do you have problems concentrating on one shot at a time on the golf course? Why is it that your mental focus is on your last shot score or getting it back on the backside? That’s simply because this focus on things other than what you were doing is a well-practiced habit off the course. When you took a shower this morning, what did you think about?

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00:28:50

Did you think about the water as it hits your body or the texture of your washcloth as you left your home, did you feel the front door knob in your hand or see the colors in the trees, the grass or flowers as you drove in your car, did you notice what the steering wheel felt like? Most of us have a constant future focus of concentration. When we take a shower, leave home or drive mentally, we are someplace else. This focus can produce a constant state of arousal. As I said earlier, peak performers describe a 100% mentally present focus of concentration. How can you expect yourself to be 100% mentally present on the golf course? If you are seldom 100% mentally present off the course, when your thoughts go to score what others are going to think if you don’t do well, or if you begin to think about something off the course, it’s because it is a well-practiced habit pattern off the course practitioners of Eastern meditation techniques called a 100% concentrated focus in the present.

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00:29:56

Mindfulness, you will find increased control and improve performance in both your life and golf game. If you will only learn to channel your attention 100% into the present while practicing slowed deliberate movement die from attic breathing and self-supporting conversations with yourself. The practice of mindfulness began with Buddhists 2,500 years ago. In addition to being 100% mentally present mindfulness calls for an ease dropping on your thinking with a dispassionate response to intruding thoughts, assume a non-emotional indifference to the content of your thinking. While you observe the themes of your thoughts, this will give you insight into the themes of thoughts that drive your moods and nervous system. As events occur, listen to your thinking and be dispassionate. You simply practice accepting things, void of any emotion. Then after a brief period of listening to your thoughts, remind yourself to return your thinking to a 100% present.

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00:31:04

Focus, experienced this physical feelings, the colors, the sounds and smells of your surroundings. Be 100% mentally in the present, narrate your behavior. Describe the intent of every move you make. And the sensations associated with each movement. Do this with everything, from eating bathing and dressing to opening doors, driving and answering the telephone. Notice the sensations of peacefulness, calm and relaxation that come with this exercise. Start your day with mindfulness and plan to build it into your day-to-day life and routines off the course. When you feel a need to rush don’t when you experience an internal feeling of urgency, remind yourself to slow down, breathe deeply and be mindful. Once you become proficient at mindfulness off the course, you can apply these same strategies on the course, be dispassionate in response to your performance without emotionally responding, except the outcome of each swing. The conditions of the course and situations that arise with other players remain mindful and calm practice, deep diaphragmatic breathing and supportive, reinforcing dialogue.

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00:32:23

While Patrick Burke was quieting his off-course pace during tour school, he focused his thoughts in the present. He focused his thoughts on every move he made. He felt the floor under his feet, and he heard the air conditioning as he moved to the bathroom and then slowly to the shower, he refocused his attention concentration on the water. As it hit his body, he felt the faucet knobs in his hand, and he experienced the sensation of the soap. As he washed his thoughts were 100% in the present deliberate movement and mindfulness are strategies you can use in times of distress as a thought restructuring procedure, or as a lifestyle you incorporate into your day. From the time you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night, let’s assume you have left your office upset over some event. You find yourself holding tension in your arms and shoulders.

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00:33:17

You have a stranglehold on the steering wheel practice. A non-emotional dispassionate response to the upsetting event, accept the situation fully and consume it before it consumes you, quieting your movement and focusing your thoughts in the present will bring you into the moment and quiet your nervous system. If some action is necessary, for example, a meeting or a phone call schedule it, then returned to your mindful focus. Feel the relaxation move from your forehead to your feet like a wave. Notice the sounds and smells and other cars as your hands relaxed, gently around the steering wheel. While using mindfulness, you will have a feeling of control in the slowed movement and a demonstrable positive change in your mood. As you begin to disrupt the chain of distressful, thinking through a dispassionate non-emotional accepting response, mechanically slowing down activity with an awareness of each movement, you make produces a slowing down of your internal physiology and promotes relaxation.

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00:34:22

Mindful activity creates a here and now present focus. It directs all of your attention to the events of the moment you can use this attention. Focus is a thought changing strategy. It takes you away from excited or negative thoughts of the future or past and places you totally in the present moment here and now use the relaxation strategies. During this procedure. World-class athletes experience a number of mental characteristics in common during their best performances. One of these characteristics is a 100% focus in the present on the course, feel the back of your golf shoes. As you slip them on one at a time, look at the colors, hear the sounds and experience the smells of your environment. Feel the texture of your golf balls and teas. As you remove them from your golf bag. Note what your golf glove feels like as you slip it slowly and deliberately on your hand experience the feeling of your club EDD.

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00:35:22

As you remove the club from your bag, be in the present, be mindful as you move from course management to club selection, your concentration should become more and more narrow. It’s like walking a funnel of concentration, where you start with a broad focus and move progressively to a narrow focus. As you approach your set up to the ball, the more narrow your focus becomes after you hit the shot, you returned to a broad focus of positive, casual conversation or thoughts about the landscape. As you approach your ball on the next shot, your focus should begin to narrow again, as you start your course management, some degree of mental arousal is important for concentration, fine tuning. Your level of desire. Arousal is a goal. The window for success is relatively small. It’s a matter of knowing how to quiet thought and physiology while at the same time, directing all of your senses into the present practice off-course concentration.

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00:36:27

How often is your body in the present, which your mind is on the events of the last hour, week, or year, or your thoughts are anticipating the events of tomorrow next week or next month. At these times, you put your body and mind on full automatic and go about your day as a robot. Mindfulness will take you out of this automatic behavior pattern and place you in the present. How often have you heard people talk about requiring two or three days of vacation before they can really relax? That’s like sending your body on vacation to the countryside with your mind, still in the city repeated practice of mindfulness with vacation activity will put your mind with your body and you will experience increased relaxation and a feeling of control. You don’t have to wait for a vacation to practice being mindful. Try starting in the morning when you awaken and use it on your way to work as you do errands, or as you work, you will note a positive impact in whatever you do, work or play consistent.

speaker 0

00:37:30

And persistent practice is necessary for success. Remember, you have taken a lifetime to arrive at your present habits. Change will be gradual and in small steps, it is a bond. These small steps that you will build major gains. If you were someone who demands immediate results or is looking for a quick cure, you won’t find it here. These strategies require planned hard work to impact upon the neuroanatomical and neurochemical structure of your nervous system. The neurocircuitry of your brain will continue to fire in the same sequence unless you change the network through daily practice over several days, how long has several days? There’s no set number? No, it doesn’t take 21 days. It takes as long as necessary to change the neuroanatomical and neurochemical structure of the brain. The time to change is dependent on a number of variables. How long, how frequently, and in what conditions did the old habit occur and how frequently and under what conditions will you practice?

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00:38:34

The new habit, building quiet movement and mindfulness into a daily routine will provide you with practice. With this strategy. This practice will start your day in a more relaxed fashion and give you well-practiced thought changing and relaxation strategies. You can draw upon as needed. Remember, your present thinking habits are encoded in the neural circuitry of your brain and are triggered by our environmental events. If you choose to change these habits, either on or off the course set goals and times to practice the alternative habits, neuroanatomical changes will occur only with extended repeated practice in a variety of situations. The chapter lift clean in place provides hypothetical situations and a recommended structure to begin change visualization. A recent research study had a group of people perform physical movement while the parts of their brain involved in the movement were mapped. These same people visualize the physical movement.

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00:39:37

They had performed. Interestingly, the same parts of the brain showed activity with both physical and visualized movement, with the exception of the motor cortex, that part of the brain responsible for initiating physical movement. This study shows that visualize movement creates a firing in the neural circuitry of the brain that prepares the nervous system to perform the visualized behavior. The visualization process is an integral part of constructing the motor program. The brain scans from this study appear in the chapter title visualization recall that neuroscientists have found that it takes 1.5 seconds for the brain to construct a motor program. And just 0.1 second to re initiate movement. This 1.5 second period is called the readiness potential. The brain takes 15 times longer to plan movement than it does to initiate it. Visualization helps formulate the motor plan and establish a target for the behavior.

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00:40:38

Thus far, we have discussed quieting the nervous system through breathing movement and focusing attention through mindfulness, practicing positive visualization can produce a present focus, increase relaxation, and confidence, and prepare the nervous system for peak performance. Conversely, negative visualization. That’s out of hazards out of bounds conflict and so on will create arousal, decreased confidence and prepare the nervous system for poor performance. The chapter visualization details the use of this important strategy for improving performance. By drawing upon images of past success, increasing confidence, increasing relaxation, developing a present focus, and lighting up the appropriate areas of the brain for success routine. The first chapter of this book covered routine in great detail. I am not going to elaborate except to note that a set routine will establish a structure of links and a mental and physical chain that provides a barrier for distraction and associated lapses in physical and mental routines.

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00:41:48

This mental focus blocks, intrusive tension, producing thoughts and facilitates relaxation stretching. When Ray Floyd turned 50 years of age, he was asked what kind of exercise program he used. He said he had done nothing but a stretching program for 20 to 25 minutes a day. When the body is in an arousal state muscle tension is one characteristic of the chain of physical events. Stretching exercises produce an elongation and relaxation of these tense muscles. Arousal is not the only cause of tense muscles. A prolonged posture of sitting, standing or reclining can also cause tension as we age and are less physically active muscle tension, accumulates, much more readily. The golf swing requires a flexible muscular system without flexibility. Your joints can’t reach their full range of motion and you won’t experience your maximum performance capabilities.

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00:42:51

Older players will notice that they played better and hit longer shots as around progresses, especially in warm weather. This is often due to the increased muscular flexibility and relaxation that comes with a heat and continuous play. I’m not going to fill the pages of this book with pictures and instructions for a stretching program. There’s some excellent resources available. Please look in the reference section for the following. Bob Anderson stretching Frank Jobe, 30 exercises for better golf and pita gospel. The gospel method of health through motion posture. When you were happy, positive, and relaxed, you walk with your shoulders back. Your head are wrecked and a smile on your face. When you were down and depressed, your shoulders are forward. Your head is down and you are not smiling. And even perhaps frowning, you can affect your mood and attitude by changing your posture. Assume an as if posture behave as if you just hit the shot of your life and you were on your way to more success, put your shoulders back with your head high.

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00:44:04

Never let your eyes drop below the horizon practice, deep diaphragmatic breathing and body scans. As you move around the course and your ball, your internal mood and physical state will begin to assume the same style as your external posture is as if style of behaving was first used as a clinical treatment by Alfred Adler, a Viennese psychiatrist in the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds Adler had his patients act as if they were the person they wanted to be. It is an extremely effective therapeutic style. Try it. You won’t be disappointed. Note both the mood and performance changes that occur research shows that there is a change in physiology that matches postural changes and anxious or angry posture produces an acceleration in nervous system activity. A relaxed, calm posture produces a deceleration of nervous system activity. Biofeedback biofeedback is a clinical procedure that was first used by psychologists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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00:45:15

A good bit of the early research centered on yoga and meditation practitioners who could alter their physiological state. Biofeedback is a procedure where biological information is picked up through surface electrodes and converted to information that is fed back to a person through audio or video signals. This knowledge of results enables a person to voluntarily induce a more relaxed state. A comprehensive biofeedback evaluation will establish your baseline levels of arousal. The other strategies listed here are practiced for five or six weeks. At the end of this practice period, the biofeedback evaluation is repeated. A comparison of the two evaluations will show the effects of the practice of the other strategies on your generalized arousal level. Anyone can learn to relax in a darkened room, seated in a recliner while being provided with feedback regarding muscle tension or skin temperature. The real test is staying relaxed throughout the day at home at work on the course or out socially confidence.

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00:46:24

The feeling of control is at the heart of both arousal and relaxation control brings us full circle back to the word confidence. We are confident. We are in control and relaxed when we are tentative, apprehensive, second guessing or fearful, we are not in control and we become tense. Jack Nicholas describes the number one tension reliever for anyone in golf as confidence. If you know, you can hit a shot, you will have a relaxed swing. He says the second biggest tension reliever is concentrating. Focusing on your routine, describing your shot, quieting your thinking and your movement and images of success are examples of this many great players are different from the rest of the field, in their belief. That, and I quote, nobody is better in nearly all inferior in quote. This style of thinking will definitely quiet the nervous system of the over aroused player.

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00:47:23

Anything you attempt with that kind of confidence you do relaxed. I am not going to elaborate further on confidence here. It is the topic of a later chapter. The nervous system consists of billions of neurons. Our day-to-day experiences cause these neurons to communicate at lightening speed. The pathways of these neurons fall into a pattern circuitry and they’re triggered by conditions in the environment we call these patterns, learning your level of arousal across a variety of conditions tends to follow a predictable set style. If you are going to change the neural circuitry that leads to arousal, you will have to practice the corrective strategies both on and off the course. And in both low and high arousal states, for example, you should be practicing deep diaphragmatic breathing, quieted movement, positive visualization, focus thinking, or mindfulness, and a confident internal dialogue throughout your day. These strategies require some form of guided practice instruction. Guided practice is instruction that provides step-by-step guidelines for learning repeated practice produces neuroanatomical and behavioral changes that result in improved performance. The mine under par series routine guided practice in developing consistent performance provides instruction in all the areas listed except biofeedback and stretching.