The Super Mental Training Book (32 page)

Vince Brookins, a forward and most valuable player (1980-81) on the University of Iowa basketball team, took up mental training during his senior year, and saw his play dramatically improve as a result. Brookins relates his experience in Dr. Gauron's book, Mental Training for Peak Performance:

For about a month, Dr. Gauron conducted team meetings with all the players. During this time, he exposed us to numerous techniques including relaxation, concentration, energizing and visualization. At the end of the period of psychological skill training, he continued to meet on an individual basis with those who were interested.

I continued to meet with Dr. Gauron two or three times a week for the rest of the season. We specifically worked on those areas which were hindering me as a basketball player. It took a while for me to see any results. When results did come, they were so convincing that I began to practice the mental techniques every day. Mental training has helped me in areas which have previously been problems for me: concentration, confidence, physical conditioning and intensity on defense. These quickly became positive factors for me. I felt that mental training gave me an added dimension and the upper hand over the athlete who had not had this training. My game is now sound and consistent. [18]

Positive results did not come to Brookins as quickly as they did to Mills or the Houston basketball team, but this can be partly attributed to the fact that the mental training strategies used differed (visualization, "energizing," etc. vs. hypnosis). In any case, Brookins realized substantial benefits from the mental training soon enough. This pleasing outcome led him to remark that "if you learn the [mental] techniques and earnestly practice, you will be assured positive results not only in athlete performance, but also in other areas of your life away from the world of sports."

Brookins' testimonial is of a general nature, making us wonder what he did specifically when he practiced the mental rehearsal techniques. [19] Dr. Gauron satisfies our curiosity on this matter, stating in part:

A few days before a game Vince began a typical session by relaxing his body and inducing an altered state of consciousness. Once this had been accomplished, he engaged in mental rehearsal, generally reviewing the mechanics of shooting while seeing himself shoot baskets with the correct form. He also visualized playing good defense, specifically focusing on hand and foot placement on defense. He then moved on to visualizing himself guarding a specific individual opponent. Assignments had already been announced by the coach and Vince had information from videotapes, scouting reports and previous experience against this ball player to know how to play him. Next Vince reviewed how to manage involvement and concentration in the basketball game. He had learned to repeat to himself as his key word "Intensity," "Intensity." He visualized what he looked like playing intensely during sequences of a basketball game. [20]

In their work with athletes sports psychologists nowadays seem to prefer using visualization, or at least calling what they do "visualization" or "imagery." As resistance to engaging in mental training may arise if the athlete-client hears the word "hypnosis," the cagy sports psychologist merely assigns an unassuming name to the technique presented. James G. Bennett and James E. Pravitz, authors of The Miracle of Sports Psychology (1982), came up with an "acceptable" name to the technique which they developed and taught to athletes: Triple Imagery. As defined by Bennett and Pravitz, Triple Imagery "is an in-depth relaxation and programming exercise designed to create a state of disassociation." The authors summarize the technique this way:

Beginning with your scene of nature, you will be taken to your very own mental training room, a room you will design with your imagination. There you will observe yourself on a view screen. This is a third-person view of yourself which can be used for perfecting athletic technique or previewing a competitive event.

You will then leave the mental training room to go mentally to your place of physical training or competition. You will experience yourself in the first person, with the same successful actions you just witnessed in the third person on your viewing screen. You had looked into the future, but now you will act out the script as if it were in the present tense. [21]

This, again, is but a brief summary of the technique. Bennett and Pravitz present 3 1/2 pages of instructions on how to carry out Triple Imagery. These instructions are so lengthy that you will probably need a friend to read them to you, or have them played to you on a tape recorder, to get the whole complicated process down right. After you master the technique, you will no longer require the services of a friend or tape recorder; but, the initial inconvenience requisite in learning Triple Imagery will likely dissuade you and most everyone else from ever giving it a try.

The authors named only one athlete who apparently mastered and applied Triple Imagery: Bill Griffith, a Canadian National Canoe Slalom Champion. [22] Bennett and Pravitz describe interesting physiological and mental powers the canoeist developed through his mastery of Triple Imagery:

Bill Griffith can control the temperature of his hands. Paddling in cold, windy, crashing waters can freeze and stiffen the fingers, causing considerable loss of muscle control that is essential to intricate maneuvering through choppy waters and gates. Through mental mastery Griffith keeps his hands warm, without other aids, enabling him to guide his boat gracefully in and out of course gates.

. . . Griffith, when in his mental training room, would sometimes imagine there was a mechanical track, under the raging river, which followed along the slalom course on which he paddled his canoe. He then imagined his boat attached to a motorized device which could pull his boat along the zigzag course, upstream, downstream, forward, and

backward at speeds that his conscious mind could not accept if he were to do it unaided. Thus he grew accustomed to seeing himself moving at speeds unthinkable by normal standards.[23]

These powers Griffith developed—of regulating the temperature of his hands, and mentally seeing himself canoeing at unthinkable speeds—supposedly played a large role in his doing well in one international race. Triple Imagery, claim Bennett and Pravitz, "worked for Bill as he moved up in the competition and in 1975 placed sixth in world championship canoe slalom competition in Skopje, Yugoslavia." The two authors' account contains no comments from Griffith. It would be interesting to hear his side of the story, and learn, for example, how pleased he was with his sixth place finish, as well as with the Triple Imagery technique.

Another story representing only the sports psychologists' side is found in Sporting Body Sporting Mind (1984), by John Syer and Christopher Connolly. The authors describe an "attunement exercise" (similar to visualization) they developed, which they then had Barbara Lynch, a trap-shooter, try out:

Imagine yourself sitting at a desk in front of a window. Look out and notice what you see, what the weather is like, what movement there may be. Then look down at the desk and notice a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Pick up the pen and write down whatever is worrying or exciting you, anything you identify as a distraction. As you write, see the shape of your handwriting on the page, hear the point of your pen slide over the paper, feel the weight of your upper body on your arm. If you find it easier, you can draw a picture to represent the distractions or your distracted mood. When you have finished, put down the pen, fold up the piece of paper and turn around. You see a box behind you. It may be on a shelf or on the floor. Notice how large it is, what color it is, whether it is in the light or the shadow. Open the lid. Then put the folded piece of paper inside the box, close the lid and turn back to the desk, settling back into your chair and once more looking out the window.

Having done this, you can open your eyes, ready to interact with those around you. [24]

Syer and Connolly indicate that Lynch employed the attunement exercise during competition; this is exactly the type of capability every athlete, in working with his favorite mental discipline, should strive to perfect. In Lynch's case, on-site utilization of attunement proved most advantageous, as the authors relate:

There are innumerable distractions that can occur between shooting and preparing for the next shot—other shooters can kick empty cartridges or eject their spent shells in your direction, or a trap machine may break down just as you begin to shoot. Barbara found she was able to pull her attention back to her shooting by finding an image for the distractions and putting that image into a black box behind her.[25]

Syer and Connolly inform us that Lynch, after mastering the attunement exercise, went on to capture the 1979 European 15 Trench Trap-Shooting title. Overall this constitutes a good story; but, like most anecdotes appearing in books by sports psychologists, it suffers from the deficiency of not including any testimonial from the athlete. We are, once again, placed in the position of having to take the authors' word for everything that happened. Until we hear what the athlete himself says, we cannot be certain that important (and perhaps embarrassing) details have not been glossed over or suppressed.

One important detail definitely worth mentioning is the outcome of the U.S. Women's Olympic Volleyball Team's participation in the 1988 Games. Before the Seoul Olympics the team's coach, Terry Liskevych, raised expectations that his squad would perform wonderfully by making

certain high-sounding comments. We are informed, for example, in the September 19, 1988 issue of Time magazine that Liskevych possesses a Ph.D. in sports psychology and believes that "the key to success comes from having the right frame of mind" (see "The Drive to Win: A coach's perspective," in the magazine just cited). To help attain this worthy state of mind, it was reported that "the coach employs the services of a 'Performance Enhancement Team'—three trained sports psychologists who work with team members to sharpen their mental focus and confidence." Between Coach Liskevych, with his Ph.D. in sports psychology, and the three other sports psychologists assigned to help the players, you would think that the U.S. women's volleyball team should have been extremely well-prepared mentally for the Olympics; and, in fact, one had to endure in reading the Time article such wishful hype as the following:

"We're operating as a whole today," Liskevych says confidently. "But we're a whole that's stronger because each individual is stronger. We're in the right frame of mind now, and we intend to take home a medal."

If you gained the impression in perusing Liskevych's remarks (not all of which, in the interests of space, have been presented here) that the world may never have heard the end of it had his team brought home a medal, you are not alone. So, did Liskevych's players return from Seoul with some loot? The reality is they did not. While the U.S. Women's Olympic Volleyball Team may have possessed the "right frame of mind" during the '88 Games, they finished in seventh place, losing to Peru and China. One does not know for sure where things went wrong—the opposing teams could have been using hypnosis or visualization, too, keep in mind—but certainly blame cannot be attributed to there being a lack of sports psychologists working with the U.S. players.

Mental training, as I pointed out at the start of this chapter, can be done for free. It is always refreshing to discover instances of athletes learning and practicing mental training strategies on their own. During the National Outdoor Racquetball Championships, in July, 1978, I refereed a men's "Open" doubles match that was unusual in one respect: one of the players, John Alcala, sat down and closed his eyes during every time out. I guessed he was meditating. After the match I asked him if this were so. He answered, "No, self-hypnosis!" We talked quite a while, and Alcala recited a typical self-hypnosis testimonial; his concentration had immeasurably improved, he was now making his kill shots, and so on. [26] Alcala had read a book on self-hypnosis, and by following its recommendations learned the discipline; he then applied the mental technique to his sport. Once again, we see that learning self-hypnosis does not require vast expenditures of money. Reading a book on the subject can suffice (followed, of course, by diligent practice).

An excellent example of an athlete learning a mental training strategy through reading, then successfully applying that acquired capability to his sport, is seen in the experience of Glenn Yothers. Yothers used visualization in the National Outdoor Racquetball Championships, held in Costa Mesa, California, in 1981 and 1982, making it to the semi-finals both years in singles and doubles in the "B" division. As of December, 1985, when I interviewed Glenn, he had placed high in 25 other racquetball tournaments, "winning three of them," he said, "with one of them being the C A' division of an indoor tournament in Rosemead"[in California]. Yothers was not taught visualization; instead, he was self-taught, stating, "I read an article in Racquetball Illustrated which was written by a pro who stressed the importance of visualization, and how he used it before, during, and after his matches." After reading the article, Yothers adopted visualization for his tournament play. He relates precisely how he employed this mental discipline:

The main technique that I used was a visualization of myself in an ideal situation. In racquetball an ideal situation for ending a rally is hitting a "kill shot"—putting the ball away. So, I would visualize myself killing the ball and ending the rally, giving me the point or serve back.

Mostly I did the visualization at night before going to bed—especially the week

before a tournament, with emphasis on the two days prior to a match. I would spend 10-15 minutes concentrating on myself hitting the perfect serve, perfect passing shot, and perfect kill shot. I pictured myself doing this sometimes in slow motion and sometimes in normal speed.

I also sometimes did visualization before the match; I'd find a quiet corner of the locker room, sit down, and spend a minimum of 10 minutes visualizing.