Client of The Week

It’s early Wednesday morning – and yet have I already worked with my “client of the week?”
Well, normally I’d say it’s best to wait until late on Sunday before making that judgement – however there are those “golden clients” who you meet for the first time and your mutual interactions unfold into a succession of closely packed jaw-dropping moments!
Something aligns their mind to yours, they understand your “lingo” right out of the gate, they follow your advice and discover the hidden ability they always had – but never knew they had. Suddenly the fledgling in your hand is taking flight …

Coach or Therapist

I’m a shade lucky, to be fair, in that - as both a coach and a therapist – I have clients in the age range 5 – 75. Most of my coaching is with the younger end of the spectrum, and most of the therapy is with the Over 35s!

However, the cross-over area between coach and therapist is surprisingly vague and undefined – like how the colours in a rainbow merge one with the next. Some of my therapy work is coaching – and some of my coaching is therapeutic. Plus, coaching children is, for me anyway, a kind of Pre-therapy!

Helping them get and feel a sense of achievement; improving their confidence and self-confidence; building their self-esteem; getting them to appreciate – in an autotelic way - the love and joy of sporting activity for something just in and of itself; improving their health and fitness, body image and sense of wellbeing; etc.
The pre-therapy list goes on!

Why do I say pre-therapy?

Well, when children are armed with all the things I’ve listed above, they become more rounded and grounded; plus, there’s less of a likelihood they’ll need some therapeutic expertise when they reach 35+.

Working with my “Client of the Week”

He arrived at one of my After-School Cricket Clubs saying,
“I can’t bowl. I’m not very good at it,” as an opening statement.

I hear words like this quite often – both from sporting AND therapy clients; they are telling me about their view of themselves.
“Ok,” I said. “Just bowl some balls and then we’ll have a look at how that’s happening, and seeing what we might change, for you.”

I saw a young lad who bowled off the wrong foot, lost his balance in delivery, released the ball out of the side of his hand with a weak wrist, was not focussed on his target, and had a quirky and inconsistent run-up.
He did, however, have the bowler’s number 1 pre-requisite technical ability – a straight arm. Great!

The other, and perhaps most encouraging, pre-requisite from both our perspectives was this:-
He was eminently “coachable”. By this I mean he listened 100% and enabled his body to execute what he heard through my instruction.

Within 10 – 15 minutes he had ironed out all the quirks and inconsistencies he showed at the start and was landing the ball where he wanted instead of it happening by chance.
This was rapid change, to be honest – and it continued when he started batting.

Once again, after minimal repeats of showing him more effective ways of standing, holding the bat, watching and striking the ball, he transformed his raw, random and ‘quirkful’ technique into something generative, improving and successful!

We ended our Club session with throwing balls in a “crossbar challenge.”
He excelled at this too and without any instruction, which left me both enthused and rewarded.

Conclusion

He was, without doubt, my client of the week – maybe of the month, or the year? Who knows?

That is what makes my job such a rewarding one. I never know who is going to rock up … NEXT?

Blind Spots

Pheasant

I was driving a road on Exmoor recently when a pheasant hove into view on the road in front of me. Now these rather scatty birds have a brain to weight ratio of at least 1:100, and they have no sense of the Highway Code! Here in my neck of the woods, they are the majority of roadkill victims – given their propensity to run towards rather than away from motor vehicles.
This particular one seemed bent on survival, however, and stayed into the hedge on the nearside of my car. Until, that was, I’d almost passed it. Whereupon, in almost vertical take-off mode, it flew into the wing mirror – smashing the mirror, the plastic casing and everything. I pulled in and dismantled the remaining pieces, so I could continue my journey without the loose and damaged bits banging against the door.
Grrrr!

Blind Spots

Almost immediately I discovered, that driving on certain roads sans nearside wing mirror, can be a real challenge. For, as drivers, we know we already have a number of blind spots in our 360 deg visibility which can be coped with somewhat, but never entirely satisfactorily. 

It is the multi-lane highways that are the real issue – for now the only way to see what is nearby on the lane(s) inside the one I’m driving in, involves my looking over my left shoulder. And motorways are the worst, since there are those drivers that overtake on the inside as well as the outside!
Grrrr!

Life’s Highways

As is often the way, our driving experiences have a number of metaphorical parallels with how we journey along Life’s Highways. The potholes we encounter, the rough and uneven surfaces, the punctures, the running out of fuel, trying to get out of second gear, swerving to avoid peasants and pheasants, getting stuck in traffic, losing our way – the out of date maps – having no signal – losing our bearings – even losing our marbles!

And now, here, is another metaphor for how we might find ourselves lacking, or under pressure, in dealing with the things that the rocky road of Life throws at us.

The blind spots in our mental resources.

To my mind, our greatest resource is in understanding how we make up our experience – moment to moment. Understanding how our perceptual apparatus processes millions of bits of data coming in through our sensual gateways by predicting and paring that huge number - down to something more like 132.  Understanding the thought processes that go into all this, in microseconds, AND understanding also, the part played in all this by our memories, our beliefs and our previous experiences.

Yet, because we are only human, this amazing resource is also riddled with blind spots. Blind spots sometimes so vast, that they can lead to our complete and utter mis-Understanding of pretty much everything – moment to moment.

Apparently, there is a surge in “Flat Earth” believers at the moment. This is astonishing, given all the evidence both scientific AND photographic, that disproves that notion. These folks have a blind spot in their belief structure, that plays out a different perceptual tune in their lives.

And although this might seem an outrageous example to use, there will be parts of our perceptual lives - our view of the world and how it works and how we make up our experience – that are equally way off kilter. Moment to moment.

We are all, in a fashion similar to the Flat Earthists, equally duped by the illusions of our thinking, from time to time.

We are subject to mental Blind Spots – caused by the illusions of our Thinking.

When I’m driving with the Understanding that I have a huge blind spot caused by the lack of a wing mirror, I know the steps I need to take, in order to predict with a degree of sureness that there is no vehicle nearby on the lane inside of me.

If I think I DON’T need to take those steps, then I’m driving in a state of illusion – guessing, even hoping, there is nothing there to crash into. I’m as dumb, dare I say, as the pheasant.

Perceptual blindnesses, as well as perceptual distortions, are everywhere – with how we process our sensual data input, as well as with how we process our own thinking.

Plus – as we know, though perhaps don’t always understand, ALL our feelings come from our Thinking, moment to moment.

And so, this is how it is, and how we are – from time to time. We will believe our Thinking, and be seduced by the illusions we notice, and then feel. And we may colour our lives in such a way – and then believe that SQUARE A (as illustrated) is a different colour to SQUARE B.

Which of course it isn’t!

And if we are Flat Earthists, then we’ll believe all our Thinking associated with that entire subject. And if we believe we can’t do something, then we’ll prove that belief to ourselves -
By experience – if we’re adamant.
By denial – if we are adamant yet get proved wrong.
By excuse – if we’re agreeably surprised that we’ve been proved wrong.

Yet if we believe we CAN do something, or we are curious and open to the possibility that we might be able to do something …

Well, the world is now a different place!

Are you aware, yet, of the blind spots in your Life? Would having a better all-round, 360 degs of, perceptual surety be useful for you … going forward?
The best thing we can do for ourselves, to combat the pitfalls caused by our Blind Spots, is to actually Understand that we HAVE Blind Spots. And, in my case, it is to get myself a replacement wing mirror so that I can see what’s on the inside lane without having to take my eyes off the road in order to look over my left shoulder!

Blackberries

Have you ever been blackberrying?

To be fair, most of us have at some stage in our lives. It’s one of those activities that starts out with smudged fingers, and the occasional collision with a thorn. And ends up in a delicious hot crumble back home, garnished with custard, clotted cream or maybe ice cream – or maybe a combination of all three.

Of course if, like me, you really enjoy nature’s seasonal bounty, then you’ll have discovered that in the more public places where brambles dare to grow, there’s always been someone there before you. The lower-lying fruit have all been picked, and now only the smaller ripe ones remain – along with the little unripe cerise, pink and still green bullets. The rich pickings are now out of reach to us mere mortals and are only available to those well over 6ft tall, or the enterprising folk who bring a step ladder to their harvesting.

There’s going to be the need for a more daring approach if we want to go home with a container full of these remaining bigger, juicier fellows. 

More fruit – less husk!

People and Privilege

I'm just really grateful that I'm privileged enough to know some awesome and amazing people. These are the self-same people I've stood on the shoulders of, in order to reach some of the richer fruit higher up the tree I call knowledge.

Of course these wonderful people have facilitated my action; they have enabled me to reach that fruit – because very few people go around permanently with a step ladder to hand, to enable an elevated status for their fruit picking. 

There is an undeniable truth in life that “No Man is an Island” – and we need each other to get the best out of life, for sure. Even the hermit, who has written the definitive book on his status – “The Essence of Hermitry – a Qualitative Analysis” – will need a printer, a publisher, a distributor, some retail outlets, an amazon or two, and a large circle of book-buying buddies. Which is why hermits don’t write books, of course … they just mind their own business.

So, to get back to me, people and privilege – like that –

Why have I used the word Privilege, in this context?
Why do I view the knowing of these people – or indeed any people for that matter – a privilege? Was it because I was born with a silver tongue in my mouth? Am I the son of the richest-ripe-alpha-blackberry that attracts every fruit fly within miles?

No!

I was brutally shy – probably still am, if you rub the veneer down to the quick.
So “Please, Mister … !” was never going to cut any ice with my desire to get a leg-up to the higher echelons of the tree. Doors were always closed, it seemed – except to the privileged few.

And then I took a long hard look at the entire domain I’d labelled up as …

Privilege.

What if’s began to emerge from the mists – and doors began to appear in the walls where no doors had been. I read books and watched videos – for knowledgeable content; I studied closely those successful people who inspired me – first by watching and listening, and then by copying and modelling.

And then I took a leap of faith and resolved to meet, greet, talk with, and ask questions of … those inspiring people.

In taking that leap I became familiar with the other side of Shyness. I made an awesome discovery whilst doing this … I discovered the inspiring people were just as ordinary as I was, and that they too had become familiar with the other side of Shyness.

And here’s the thing:
On the other side of Shyness I found I was holding hands with Privilege.

I hadn’t just found Privilege, it was walking hand in hand with me – little me! Privilege was now my friend, my companion, and I found myself being elevated to pick those rich and juicy blackberries high up on the hill of brambles.

Was I lucky? Was I born with it? – NO!
Had I earned it? Did I embrace it? – YES!

For this, and for the giants on whose shoulders I have stood, and continue to stand, I am eternally grateful. I found my Privilege.

And now, I can enjoy endless crumbles!

The Far Look

“He has given himself up to an influence outside his everyday consciousness, which is none other than his own deeply buried unconscious, whose presence he was never hitherto aware of.”

~ Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Focus your eyes at infinity

On a summer’s day, have you ever paused to lie on your back and stare up at the sky, looking way beyond? That’s rather like focussing at infinity. What do you notice happened when you did that?

Did you notice the clouds seemed to be coming towards you instead of just floating across your field of vision?

Did you find your eyes blinking more, less or the same?

Did you find the 4^th or 5th blinks being much longer – and was it hard to keep your eyes open after blink number 4-5?

Did you find that, as your eyes stayed closed, 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 change or difference?

Have you ever looked up at the sky on a starry night when all the stars were twinkling?
Did you notice what happened when you tried to focus on a particular star – how it seemed to grow dimmer and stop twinkling - 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.

Focus in Sport and Performance

In terms of focus, I’d always approached coaching players from the perspective of watching the target – whether that is a ball, shuttlecock, goal, stumps, pin, pocket, dart board, fence, hoop, jaw, or whatever. It has always been either by taking dead-aim, closely watching with a narrow focus, or a mixture of both.

Until, that is, a good friend 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, that one or two connective light bulbs went on for me.

At that moment, amusingly, I realised there is a lot more to focus than just meets the eye!  And that includes both our physical eyes and also our “Mind's eyes” – which is another way of describing our Mental Focus.

So, what is the relevance of this Mental Focus in our lives?

Well, for me it came down to the contradiction I always encountered when comparing the need for some “amazing powers of concentration” and the fact that when “in flow,” when The Zone is being experienced, then concentration just seems to happen effortlessly.

I concluded that when people are in The Zone then they must concentrate in a different way. Their level of absorption must be 100%, as we know and that doesn’t change in its nature, so their Focus must be what changes to make their concentration different. That was certainly how it was in my experience of The Zone.

The Far Look

Well over forty years ago I read quite a lot of science fiction. There was a particular short story called The Far Look, by Theodore L Thomas, written in 1956. A Google search reveals it is currently described as...

A classic tale about a long and lonely watch on a Lunar station where ... a "wider perspective" (a "far look") on all things is easily achieved.

Essentially, astronauts returning from a duty at the Lunar Station, all had The Far Look, which gave them not just a wider perspective on all things, but also deep powers of perception about life, the universe and everything, much more than everyone back on Earth. All quite regular yet fanciful stuff, although with a good degree of insight on certain matters, especially for 1956.

One of those insights, as I saw it, was all about an open (or broader) focus. Now, at the time I first read it, I merely concluded it was all about the senses and, primarily, the Visual in particular. 

However – what Theodore L Thomas captured in his narrative was an idea that the astronauts, spending time alone ¼ million miles from Earth, gained a transformation in their perceptive powers via their exposure to the vast dimensions of outer space relative to their home planet, the sun, and beyond.

Interestingly, Dr Fehmi’s work on Open Focus® explores the dimensions of our own inner space relative to our mental perspective, and – I’ve discovered – that that perspective changes, broadens slightly, with every exploration!

Links and Connections

Now in terms of Focus, concentration and The Zone, when a person is performing in that particular state of Flow, they do have considerably enhanced powers of perception. They have an effortless awareness characterised by an innate ability to turn up at the right place at the right time and do the right things – which feels as though things are just happening right for them, almost as if directed by some unseen hand, some invisible force.  ** (Wu Wei)

Now as it happens I hold firm to the view that all people are amazing, when freed up enough to demonstrate that to be so. Therefore, in “Far Look” terms, I think that these powers of perception are readily accessible to us all at any time. This way these powers can in no way be described as ‘enhanced’, but rather they are normal – the default setting, if you like.

The difference, in our normal everyday lives, is that we actually DIMINISH our capabilities through diluting our attention, narrowing our mental focus for far too long, filling our conscious mind with unnecessary baggage, and creating – through our own thoughts and imagination – an egocentric world that we regularly convince ourselves as being utterly real.

** Wu Wei

Wu Wei refers to the cultivation of a state of being in which our actions are quite effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the elemental cycles of the natural world.
It is a kind of “going with the flow” that is characterized by great ease and awareness, in which - without even trying - we’re able to respond perfectly to whatever situations arise.