They call Phil Jackson the ‘Zen Master’ for a reason….
Here’s a fascinating story about how the Lakers use meditation to calm their minds, focus on the moment, and relax with all the pressure facing them. It’s related to Game 7 of the NBA finals (which I know was a few weeks ago).
Arguably, the Celtics, and Lakers (and all professional teams for that matter) are physically pretty much the same.
When asked….they’ll all tell you that the game is mental. But even they can be resistant to some of these approaches. Read down into the article to see what some other NBA players think of meditation! How could you argue with the Lakers’ (and Coach Jackson’s) approach??
Another real-life example comes from the mental preparation for the upcoming Tour de France, from Sports Psychologist Paige Dunn of XCEL Sports Psychology. She’s writing for the Master the Shift Facebook Page as a part of Team Lance, and she’s a regular contributor to a number of magazines.
Scroll down to find the story titled: TdF 2010: How Lance Recons the Alps. It’s absolutely loaded with quotes about how mental imagery improves performance.
So here’s the question. In these examples…The most elite athletes in the world are doing it. In our Athlete’s Audio Academy video interviews below with elite sports psychologists, almost all of them discuss some sort of visualization, or mental imagery training.
So how are you training your mind? What are you visualizing about your next game, match, round, race, or practice session?
Perhaps a more interesting question is ‘what is your opponent doing‘ to visualize beating you?
We’re pretty friendly…