Advertisers often make creative use of imagery to
get the points across about their products. Currently there is one where two guys are playing table tennis with giant bats, and there are a
group of men playing golf and one either a) uses a giant club so he cannot
miss and also hit his drive a long way or b) the hole on the putting green is
enormous so, again, he cannot miss.
This brings to mind one of those well-known
metaphorical phrases in cricket when the batsman says, “I was seeing it as
big as a football.” Of course what he means is that his perception of
it (the ball) is so altered that it appears larger than life and that he cannot
fail to hit it. There is also a pre-supposition here that every shot is played
with optimum precision and requisite power. In other words, when he’s seeing it
as
big as a football everything flows in an ideal way – and he is
invincible; he is in The Zone.
Needless to say this is purely a metaphor regarding seeing
the ball – focus – extra awareness as the ball looms large in his visual field.
It pays no attention to the actual quality of whatever shot is played per se, as anyone who has ever hit a
football with a cricket bat surely knows.
Watch
The Ball!
I’ve written on many occasions about the level of
focussed attention players bring to the area of the visual field in their
particular sports. I’ve always held the view that whether striking an object, catching
an object, and aiming or throwing at a target, there is always the need for the
best quality of visual data gathering for the player to achieve optimal
execution of the task.
I also believe that the visual focus is very much enhanced by turning down the
attention input of data gathered from other senses, and also by players muting
or silencing their internal dialogue. Without distrative ‘interference’ a
player perceives a clearer vision and a better awareness.
Visualisation
I ran an experiment a few years ago, with players each
throwing a ball at a target with their eyes shut, after first committing the
target to visual memory, and then visualising hitting the target with their
throw.
Now here you might consider – on the face of it – that I was perhaps looking to
debunk my own quality data theory,
in the moment!
“Eyes shut eh, Pete – so where’s the data
then?” – I can hear you ask.
The thing is – with visualisation we can make the
data whatever we want, and we can make the volume of data contain much more
than just visual information too!
(Check with yourself by thinking of a lemon; describe the lemon; imagine you
have cut it in half with a knife and describe that; now imagine you’ve put one
of the halves in your mouth, and describe that. Loads of data – yes? Is it real
data? Although that’s for you to decide – it is as real as you have made it up,
of course!)
Now, part of my ‘blind throwers’ visualisation
exercise involved making the target physically bigger, or perhaps bringing it
nearer, so that hitting it (in imagination) would become very much easier. This
is akin to those advertisers’ video clips from the golf course.
Memorised spatial co-ordinates of targets can be easily manipulated with
visualisation.
Make it bigger – brighter – bolder!
The players imagined throwing a ball at the target –
and they were also asked to notice, to feel, the movements of their bodies as
they threw. What they felt as kinaesthetic feedback from the visualisation was
also important data.
The rest involved the process of committing the
visualisation to short term memory. Within that commitment there is no auditory
data or – interestingly – any internal dialogue or self talk.
Incidentally, one other ‘angle’ about the Eyes-Shut
throwing at targets experiment – what also lies behind it – is that the players’
assembly and delivery of good technical skills, beyond
conscious attention and interference, was of a remarkably high quality. But I
digress!
Gathering
Data
Now, in terms of conscious – and eyes open - visual
data gathering by players, I’ve always been at pains to point out certain enhancements
that they can bring to this focussing process. It isn’t so much about what they
are watching, but is more about how
they are watching and for how long.
For instance, with an approaching ball in flight which they are judging when
and how to strike or catch, it is vital they watch the ball ALL THE WAY to the
moment of striking or catching. The last couple of metres are crucial, and yet
most of us commit this bit to guesswork!
If we compare this bit of concentration technique with seeing it as big as a football,
my next questions are, “How are you
seeing that football? Does it grow in perceived size as it gets nearer, or is
it just big all through the flight path? And is there anything else about that
football?”
Delving behind the football metaphor really
then starts to open up the HOW of watching the ball, or the target, or indeed
anything upon which our attentive focus is laid.
Broadening
our Focus
My friend James Tripp has recently introduced me to the
book “The Open Focus Brain” by Dr Les
Fehmi and Jim Robbins. It was whilst reading this fascinating study on the
nature of narrow focussed attention and Open-Focussed
attention, a number of connective light bulbs went on for me.
I have always approached my coaching of players from
the perspective of watching the target – whether that is a ball, shuttlecock,
goal, stumps, hole, pocket, dart board, hoop, jaw, or whatever. It has always
been either by taking dead-aim, or closely watching.
It might also be said that closely watching an
approaching ball (say) is the same as taking dead-aim at a moving target.
As part of our decision-making
process, of making a judgement, I mention that we need to examine the
desired or optimal flight path of the projectile we are throwing, hitting,
kicking, catching etc. However, although I often talk about the attributes of
the medium between the player and the target when doing visualisation, I
hardly ever mention it when dealing with a “real” live situation.
Now I don’t mean here what is particularly going on
with atmospheric conditions such as wind and humidity, the height above sea
level, etc., or the physical attributes (spin, rotation etc) of the projectile
as it travels through the atmosphere – important as these all might be when factored into the decision-making process!
I am talking with particular regard
to the spatial dimensions of the medium, our perceptions of those dimensions,
AND (now I have read Les Fehmi’s work) how we can alter the nature of our
perceptions through the type of focus we are applying at any one time.
Proofing
Part of the process of Proof Reading involves changing our focus. We require our R.A.S
(reticular activating system; the brain’s perceptive filter) to shift focus
from the inherent meaning of the text to typographical correctness, or to
syntax, etc.
Years ago I bought and sold second hand LPs and the
price I would charge was dependent upon the condition of the disc itself –
scratches and other wear being part of the consideration. I needed therefore to
grade the ‘playing’ condition of the discs I bought in, rather than the musical
content or recording quality. This involved the Proof Listening of all incoming discs.
Wine tasters actually go through a process of Proof Tasting – where the process of
drinking wine changes focus in a sampling way. Tasters who fail to properly
step into the ‘Proof Frame’ and all that entails, tend to end up regularly
inebriated!
All these proofing functions involve directing the
R.A.S and the best proofers become really adept at changing the nature of their
particular focus, from moment to moment. Proof readers switch off the internal
voice that tends to accompany most of us when we are just reading. My proof
listening meant I wasn’t listening to music, but only sound. And wine tasters never
(or shouldn’t) swallow!
Now I’d like to draw Proofing, in the sense I’ve just described, into the context of the
way we need to focus in whatever sport we are playing, and whatever varying
actions and processes we are performing within that sport. The reason being
this:–
We all tend to focus and concentrate primarily in
the visual field. Paying attention in this field is about noticing as much as
we can in a narrow focus perspective. I believe that when we set out to try and
up the ante, concentrate better, or
focus more, that we are – as a rule – not pointing ourselves in the right
direction. The way we usually set out to do the process continues to be from a
conscious, narrow-focussed perspective – where “Pay more attention,” simply gets translated as do more detailed data gathering.
However, if we were to take the instruction as being
“Pay attention in a different way,”
– as all Proofers do - then we’ll
notice a lot of different things and, as a result, gather more data! Logical,
isn’t it!
Plus
- something else interesting will be going on for us – we will have stopped
trying. And, amazingly, one of the by-products of stopping our trying will be a
reduction of tension, a relaxing, a feeling of being more grounded, a more
stable equilibrium between unconscious skills and conscious decision making.
Alignment
So what brings about someone’s occasional capability
to see the ball as big as a football? It might seem they have just casually
stumbled across some magical facility or attribute – but there are a number of
factors that have come into conjunction
or alignment for that person to have such an experience.
Rather like eclipses take place when celestial
bodies come into alignment, the big football effect results from another
kind of alignment, a perceptual alignment.
The difference is - in the moment, eclipses diminish the light around us, whereas
with our perceptions aligned the lights get very much brighter, everything
seems to be in HD – or what we might even call 3D+.
The aligning factors, I believe, are these:-
·
A predisposed or arrived at state of
emotional equilibrium
·
A change in the nature of our focus
·
Brainwaves associated with our various
processes are ‘in sync’ at lower frequencies
In my opinion there is a clear connection between
all these factors; a connection that is an essential part of all Mind-Body
Links not just within sport, but also in our daily lives.
In The Open Focus Brain, Dr Fehmi
examines the connective link between brainwave frequencies and the nature of
our focus. In Mind How You Play I
examine the connective link between emotional equilibrium and thought.
“So,
if I want to see it as big as a football
every time, Pete, what do I need to do to improve the odds of it happening?”
This might well be your next question!
Your emotional equilibrium, and the nature of your
focus, will certainly be reflected in the frequency of your brainwaves. Your
performance, the balance of your skills, decision making and tactics, will be
better enabled by all three.
Certainly, without emotional equilibrium the odds
will be considerably lengthened. You may have struck a run of good form, but
form is elusive at best without emotional equilibrium.
You can also tinker and experiment with brainwave
entrainment, but our brainwaves are actually a reflection of what is happening and
what has already happened for us on the inside – so we can only go there in a
proactive sense by using a “vehicle” that facilitates brainwave changes. Trying
to change the speed of your car by moving the needle on the speedometer won’t
work, whereas the brakes and accelerator are what facilitate speed changes.
Interestingly there are a whole range of things available to us to brake or
accelerate brainwave activity – many of which fall under the banner of thought! And with thought, we get back to equilibrium.
But, my friend, since we are just talking here about
the seeing
of the metaphorical football, then changing the nature of your focus is a very
good way of narrowing the odds.
I’ve talked many times about the importance of The
Breath in the performance of our lives – and how we can unlearn the bad
breathing habits we have become very familiar with as we have grown up. Good
breathing, habitually breathing well, gives us many wellbeing benefits
including a number already mentioned in this article!
Similarly with our Focus, we can unlearn the perpetual gravitation towards
running our lives in the one-track habit of narrow focus. Once we broaden our
perspective on everything, things begin to shift on many levels both on the
outside AND on the inside. There are times when a narrow focus is totally
appropriate of course, but running a broader and more open focus as a default
setting is certainly going to enhance the wellbeing our lives.
Essentially, with a broader focus you will EXPERIENCE
MORE and BOTHER LESS. Now I’m not talking about care here when I use the word bother.
Broad focussed people can care about something or someone as well as the next
person – however, they don’t get drawn into wasting their attention on everything
under their microscope.
So – big as a football experiences in our
sport are going to happen more regularly for the open-focussed folk amongst us.
If you take to the field of play (and practice) in a perpetually wound-up
state, then it will never happen for you. If you want something better in any
part of your life then you have to change the way you’ve been doing it up to
now.
Focus
your eyes at infinity
Have you ever laid on your back and stared up at the
sky, looking way beyond the clouds. That’s rather like focussing at infinity.
What do you notice happened when you did that? Did you find your eyes blinking
more, less or the same? Did you find the 4th or 5th blinks being
much longer – and was it hard to keep your eyes open after blink number 4-5? Did
you find as your eyes stayed closed that your breathing got deeper, your thoughts
seemed to ‘slow down’, your attention seemed to float, and your neck and
shoulders relaxed and became warmer.
And when you opened your eyes again, still looking skywards, did you get an
embodied feeling that things felt different, somehow – and yet you couldn’t
exactly pinpoint any particular difference?
Have you ever looked up at the sky on a starry night?
Did you notice what happened when you tried to focus on a particular star – how
it seemed to grow dimmer, and yet all the ones round about it seemed to become
much clearer.
Curiously, if you pointed a telescope at that same star, this effect wouldn’t
happen. It is only in our perceptions, however, where these differences seem to
take place.
Part of Dr Fehmi’s approach to opening the focus is
to engage the imagination in terms of how we perceive the geography of the inner
spaces of our bodies.
Apropos of this, a while ago I can remember reading about an interesting study
involving the following graphic representation:-
It
involved a person visualising a whiteboard, onto which they were to draw first
a circle, and then inside the circle draw a square; then inside the square to
draw a triangle; then inside the triangle to draw an X.
Next they were to visualise putting down the marker
and then taking up an eraser. With the eraser they were to first remove the X;
and next the triangle; and next the square; then finally the circle.
Finally they were to put down the eraser and
visualise the empty space on the whiteboard.
I have shown people this visualisation process to
help them with insomnia, or to reduce their internal dialogue to a degree so
that their mind is “disengaged” from thought processing.
It is a clear example of changing and broadening focus, and certainly the
effects, for those I’ve told about it, are most beneficial.
There are some enhancements I’ve used with it also.
Allow your eyes to follow each drawing sequence in ‘forward and reverse’ modes.
So with the circle, for instance, allow your eyes to rotate clockwise for 360°
and then anticlockwise back to the start. You can repeat if you wish. Do this
for each element in the graphic.
You can do this with eyes open or closed, and remember to focus at infinity
after you have completed the erasure sequence.
Conclusion
I can thoroughly recommend the book, The Open Focus Brain by Les Fehmi and
Jim Robbins. There are some downloadable audio files of guided exercises you
can undertake, and these are also within the text of the book.
I also suggest you see what differences you notice
when you use the graphic in the way I have described. Give yourself about a
week of twice daily use to allow changes to start to integrate, and just notice
what is becoming different for you.
And if you should see it as big as a football, then
hit, catch or kick that football and remember exactly what there is about it
that made you want to continue to make changes in your sport and your life.
This article is one of a trio of articles concerning
the elements described in the paragraph headed Alignment.
