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“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” – Abraham Maslow “Unless you stake your life, life will not be won.” – Werner Heisenberg, Germany, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1932 “I didn’t become a champion because I kept training. I kept training because that was the only way I could become a champion.” – Don Budge, winner of the tennis grand slam, 1938 In 2002, Sporting News magazine declared that the greatest player in the history of the NFL was a former running back for the Cleveland Browns. He played from 1957 to 1965, and his name, Jim Brown, is iconic still today. It goes without saying that Brown commanded respect both on and off the field. But a 2011 NBC documentary about black players in the early days of the NFL took this space one step further. The consensus among other players of the time was that Brown not only commanded respect, his persona took the matter straight to the next level: Brown’s presence required respect; it was the only spontaneous and honest response possible around the man. In Brown’s case, requiring respect was the context that both surrounded and superseded commanding it. Notice that this higher space requires no force; it happens willfully and naturally. “Every career has an ignition point somewhere, and in my case it was not watching a giant batting, but merely watching a giant walk out to bat.” – English cricket great Colin Cowdrey, regarding cricket great Walter Hammond “My acting is atrocious, to say the least. But I've found that it's not acting that people are concerned about, it's your presence.” – Chuck Norris, actor and martial artist “You have to defeat a great player’s aura more than his game.” – Pat Riley, NBA coach “What you respect you will attract.” – televangelist Mike Murdock, Fort Worth, Texas “I don’t get no respect. I met the surgeon general and he offered me a cigarette.” – comedian Rodney Dangerfield “The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, MD “The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.” – Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich Said Buckminster Fuller, you can argue endlessly about the most strategic way to forge your way through a river or hike through a deep valley. But once someone builds a bridge, it’s apparent to all the best way to travel, and people will adopt this route spontaneously, without deliberation. If Brown and the bridge don’t help illustrate the difference between commitment and context, perhaps there’s little else that can, outside of Mr. Single Guy learning the proper way to woo Ms. Right at the wedding reception. "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." – Winston Churchill "You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results." – test pilot Chuck Yeager Commitment to a result is an inspiring trait, a necessary starting point. Said renowned German psychologist Karen Horney (1885-1952, a darling of academics, and before you start snickering, her last name is pronounced ‘Horn-eye’): “Failure is a function of withholding commitment.” "Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as one is leaping." – J.C. and A.W. Hare, 1827 "We’ve never surrendered before. It’s not part of our training." – Mike Norman, British marine commander in the Falklands War "Two leaps per chasm is fatal." – Chinese proverb "He who hesitates, meditates horizontally." – Ed Parker, karate instructor and author "The minute you hesitate, you’re in trouble." – Steve Waugh, Australian cricketer "The more you hesitate in a game, the more your chances of getting hit. Your focus isn’t there. When you hesitate, usually you’re in trouble." – Sidney Crosby, captain, Pittsburgh Penguins, NHL "If there is a fear of falling, the only safety consists in deliberately jumping." – Carl Jung "Defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory." – General Douglas MacArthur "Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity." – Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1832 "A fortress that parleys is half taken." – Margaret de Valois, Queen of France (1553-1615) In retrospect, Ms. Horn Eye was 100% correct by the parameters and languaging of her day, but only two-thirds on target by current standards. As you can see, this type of commitment is more like a turbocharged variation of willpower, and it concentrates too much energy in the neck and head. We’re talking about a more subtle form of commitment here, partially defined by Werner Erhard: “The difference between commitment and mere involvement can be seen on the Egg McMuffin. The chicken was certainly involved. But the pig? He was committed.” (His arse was on the line, and then some.) “Any person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut off all sources of retreat.” – Napoleon Hill “I demolish my bridges behind me – then there is no choice but forward.” – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian polar explorer and Nobel Prize winner “Put all you eggs in one basket. Then you’re less likely to drop that basket.” – English boxer David Haye “If you are not in the process of becoming the person you want to be, you are automatically engaged in becoming the person you don't want to be.” – Dale Carnegie “Anything less than the conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.” – Stephen Covey, best-selling author on personal development “There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.” – NBA coach/executive Pat Riley “You're either on the bus or off the bus.” – author Ken Kesey, as quoted by Tom Wolfe, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test “Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.” – Edwin Land, co-founder of Polaroid “The secret of all those who make discoveries is that they regard nothing as impossible.” – Justus von Liebig (1808-73), Germany, ‘founder’ of organic chemistry “The airplane stays up because it doesn’t have the time to fall.” – Orville Wright "The way to succeed is to double your failure rate." – Thomas Watson, founder of IBM Now here’s the situation we’re trying to surmount: on a "good day," peak performance might last for a few moments. Is it possible to aim for a space that’s more sustained and timeless, one without such a clearly defined beginning and end? Can we make it last for an entire game? For a few days? Instead of achieving performance, which implies an unspoken presupposition of limitation and linearity, can we become performance? This more diffuse space is an indication of operating out of context as opposed to commitment, however laudable and even necessary this latter stance may be. “Beginning and end shake hands with each other.” – German proverb “The beginning is half of the whole.” – Plato In archery, the farther back we draw the longbow the farther ahead we can shoot. In a similar way, can we take a few steps back and envelop this mental construct known as commitment within a space that’s even more satisfying and effective? The word context itself suggests a degree of enveloping, like a corset, in the sense of “the surroundings or environment which determine the meaning of an event.” If they don’t determine the event, they at least clarify it and give it direction. A good example is that of a joke being funny in one setting but lifeless in another. “The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.” – George Jean Nathan, drama critic and magazine editor “A comedian does funny things. A good comedian does things funny.” – actor/director Buster Keaton (1895-1966) Another example is the United States Constitution, which guides and informs the law like a mother cat herding her litter, rather than being a law in and by itself, though without which laws as we know them cannot properly function. Although there are different approaches to the subject, many believe there exists in sports (and in life itself, of course) a psychological place called The Zone. When we are in The Zone, suddenly what was once difficult is now achievable, as if we're spinning a dozen plates in the circus without gimmickry. Virtually everything we try works, whereas previously the very same effort would produce non-workability. “I was rising above myself, doing things I had no right to be doing.” – Bruce Jenner, gold medalist in the decathlon, 1976 “An internal sense of rightness – it is not merely mechanical.” – Arnold Palmer “When I’m in a zone, I don’t think about the shot or the wind or the distance or the gallery or anything – I just pull a club and swing.” – pro golfer Mark Calcavecchia Says bodywork writer Joan Budilovsky in 1998’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Massage, all of us who've performed massage at a professional level have experienced the satisfaction of putting a client smack-dab in the middle of The Zone. (Despite the titles, many books in the Idiot’s series contain material of substance.) The difference between a professional and amateur masseur: When the amateur makes a mistake, he says "Ooops." When the professional makes a mistake, he says "There." (The same distinction applies to surgeons.) "Some part of a mistake is always correct." – former Polish chess grandmaster/author Savielly Tartakower "Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied." – novelist Pearl S. Buck (echoing a core principle of the Alexander Technique) "Before I make a mistake, I don’t make that mistake." – Johann Cruyff, Dutch football great "Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired." – Lou Holtz, Notre Dame football "When coaches get fired, the players have a lot to do with it." – Allen Iverson, Most Valuable Player for 2001 in the NBA While some consider the zone a bunch of balderdash, there’s enough evidence to the contrary, particularly when contrasted with the “Anti-Zone” (Route 666), as Budilovsky describes: Suddenly our confidence slips away. We become clumsy, we can’t quite think fast enough, we make one mistake after another, even when performing tasks we can normally accomplish with our eyes closed. Per Bud Winter, track coach at San Jose State for 30 years: it is relaxation that reclaims this type of lost confidence, functioning as the antidote for fear and its attendant clumsiness. “How come the little things bother you when you’re in a bad position? They don’t bother you in good positions.” – Yasser Seirawan, Syrian-American chess grandmaster “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” – attributed to Joseph Campbell, professor of comparative mythology and religion Loehr gets a bit more specific, saying confidence engenders volition, our ability to translate intention into reality. Garfield gets even more specific, saying that confidence is a byproduct of knowing that our volition (will/intention) will work. Peak performers say this belief in themselves is almost palpable, indicating there's a physical dimension to confidence and belief. "Short of actual blunders, lack of faith in one’s position is the chief cause of defeat." – Fred Reinfeld, chess master and author "This force is called forth and directed by volition." – Jan Baptista van Helmont (1577-1644), a leading Belgian physician (did the good doctor spend time in China?) "The body must be perfection (in harmony) before the will (volition) becomes a functioning unit." – Carlos Castañeda, Tales of Power "Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality.” – Werner Erhard (like speed and velocity, does power also travel from core to periphery?) Arete: A Greek noun that combines the concepts of excellence and virtue, along with the ability to translate these traits into effective action. This Stoic concept has also been translated as 'valor'. “The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.” – Talleyrand (1754-1838), French bishop and diplomat BRIDGE KEEPER: What … is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? KING ARTHUR: What do you mean? An African or European swallow? – Monty Python and the Holy Grail Likewise, we can also demonstrate a physical counterpart to the matter of intention, beyond the assertion that it can be felt in the chest when generated. After most muscle tissue gives out after a high-endurance event such as a marathon, it takes high intention to fire the remaining muscle tissue. These remaining muscles require a stimulus of higher frequency, preferably from within alpha's realm, and thus we’re seeing the physical counterpart we suspected. Expressed differently, these remaining muscle fibers have a higher threshold of recruitment. (Thanks to David Costill, director of the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University in Indiana for this marvelously accurate expression.) The main point is this: there is a connection between relaxation and the power of volition, which we'll accept for the moment as but one additional aspect of "The Zone." "When you’re putting well, the only question is what part of the hole it’s going to fall in, not if it’s going in." – Jack Nicklaus "My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will." – German artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) "What is volitional in voluntary movement is its purpose." – Ragnar Granit, Finnish neuro-physiologist and Nobel Prize winner in 1957 The matter of firing up underused muscle tissue also helps resolve some confusion regarding the existence of "fast twitch" vs. "slow twitch" muscle. It's commonly accepted that every muscle contains a mixture of slow and fast-twitch fibers. Per Ylinen and Cash (1988), endurance sportsmen such as marathoners can have up to 90% slow-twitch fibers in their quadriceps. These muscles tend to be small, softer and more relaxed. On the other hand, a fast-burst sprinter can have up to 90% fast-twitch fibers in the quads. These muscles are larger and contain more natural tension. The masseur must adjust accordingly, trying to restore the level of tension that’s normal for the athlete and not try to achieve the same level of softness as the endurance sportsman. In sports requiring fast performance and reaction times, too much relaxation can yield negative results. Per John Jerome (The Sweet Spot in Time, 1980/98), the slow-twitchers fire first and more easily. If we can now add 2+2, we can deduce that fast-twitch refers not only to a physical difference, but in the degree of intention we instill into our performance. (Does your coach make this connection?) Intention is palpable (housed in the chest and solar plexus), and this explains why some top athletes say they can feel a superior performance in their bones. They are not exaggerrating, and perhaps the full linkage between the etymological similarities of 'intend' and 'tendon' has yet to see print. We're also seeing the potential for firing up the "intention muscle" known as the solar plexus by activating its related point on the foot (as your client breathes in deeply, please remember). As Garfield explained in 1984, there’s another common trait among high-level performers, whether in the realm of sports or elsewhere: an ability to extend themselves far beyond the capabilities of the average person. On the surface this statement appears boringly obvious, shedding no light on the matter. But if we reframe it a tad, perhaps we can rewrite it like this: the ability to generate higher levels of intention (calling upon muscle groups that demand Costill's "higher thresholds of recruitment"). This additional level of intention has been equated to a "sense of mission" that lesser athletes lack, a sense of purpose that actually fosters endurance. As Erhard said, those in touch with their sense of purpose can accomplish anything. "May I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?" – from The Common Denominator of Success, a classic speech delivered by Albert Gray at a 1940 insurance convention in Philadelphia "Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.” – Alan Watts Deeply versed in the history of Eastern methods, Dr. Yang defines intention as "our firm and steady mind." Yang tells us it is intention itself that leads qi, and intention has a name: yi, which can also be translated as "wisdom mind." Yi, which goes hand in hand with calmness, leads qi in translating intention into reality. Without yi leading the way, says Yang, we're just treading water. To now equate yi with "higher threshold" begins to make sense. An additional insight into yi and intention comes from the massively popular author Eckhart Tolle of Power of Now fame (1997). Says Tolle, the more consciousness we direct into the inner body (yi), the higher its vibrational frequency (qi) becomes. Then we tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency. Through the ages, Yi has also been translated as inner body, soul, and celestial pivot. Confucius saw it in the sense of duty and action appropriate to the moment at hand. Early on this page we noted that negative thoughts can decrease our frequency by up to 12 kilohertz. Once again, in a sports context we have raised our threshold of recruitment, allowing ourselves to call upon physical reserves previously resistant to our efforts. We may have even stumbled sideways onto a more faithful rendition of the ancient Greek ataraxia, the form of equanimity/shizentai that will befuddle lexicographers for decades to come. “Your yi cannot be on your ki.” – Chinese admonition regarding self-consciousness, as in focusing on balancing the bike rather than moving forward “He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it and secures its achievement.” – Scottish-born Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, 1859 “A champion is one who gets up when he can’t.” – boxing champ Jack Dempsey (1895-1983) “A lobster, when left high and dry among the rocks, does not have the sense enough to work his way back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does not come, he remains where he is and dies, although the slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves, which are perhaps within a yard of him. The world is full of human lobsters.” – Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924), founder of Success magazine “Mussels flexin'.” – The B-52s, Rock Lobster As Garfield describes it, when athletes lose the peak-performance state they sense things moving too fast. They sense losing control; tension creeps in. “A poor player isn't poor because he tends to kick the ball in his own goal. It's because when you put intense pressure on him, he loses control. So you have to increase the tempo of the game and he'll automatically give the ball away.” – Johann Cruyff, Dutch football great “The tempo, the essential beat of the game, ultimately will be controlled by one team – the winning one.” – Gail Goodrich, Los Angeles Lakers “Only the guy who controls his opponent wins.” – Lennox Lewis, world heavyweight boxing champion “The commander must make the enemy dance to his tune from the beginning, and not vice-versa.” – field marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, British army “The more you can win by, the more doubts you put in other players’ minds the next time out.” – golf icon Sam Snead “If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” – 1969 parody on the whirlwind nature of European vacation tours When they regain their focus, when their 'constitution' returns, logical and analytical processes are shrunk back to their proper proportion. In fact, logic and analysis, particularly regarding form and technique, are temporarily suspended. Fear, anxiety and anger, major constituents of the Anti-Zone, are now lesser motivators. We're once again able to anticipate and react to the moves of other athletes. “Playing shortstop is 75 to 80 percent anticipation, knowing the hitter and the pitch being thrown.” – shortstop Lou Boudreau, baseball Hall of Fame “The great player prepares his shot on the way to it, while the lesser player starts to prepare it when he reaches the ball.” – tennis great Bill Tilden (1893-1953) “I start reading a putt when I’m still fifty yards from the green.” – Jack Nicklaus “By the time you get to your ball, if you don’t know what to do with it, try another sport." – pro golfer Julius Boros (1920-94) “If you're up against a girl with big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys." – Billie Jean King, Tennis Hall of Fame 'Paul's Grandfather' Wilfrid Brambell (peering at a woman’s ample bosom): “I bet you're a great swimmer.” – A Hard Day's Night, 1964 To continue with Garfield: We've regained a sense of control without the need to exert it or impose it. Feelings are directed toward performing well rather than showing up another player, proving a point or expressing anger. Anger, a demon that diminishes our attentional focus, also interferes with our ability to translate intention (volition) into physical results on the field. It also eats into our endurance. “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.” – Bruce Lee “Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.” – George Savile, English statesman (1633-95) “In anger, you look ten years older.” – Hedda Hopper, Hollywood gossip columnist A few notes on anger:
– Benjamin Franklin "No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger." – St. John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) "You can’t run and stay mad." – Kathrine Switzer, first woman to run the Boston Marathon, 1967 Let me add a few personal observations regarding being Zoned-In. First, we recover from lost opportunities more quickly, usually to our surprise. Also, we’re not so divorced from our environment. We feel like we can reach out and touch it, as does a baby in a crib. Also, we can take a space, usually a social situation, and instead of adding more junk to it move it forward. Previously we just added mass; the jams, particularly unspoken communications, remained stuck. In contrast, the atmosphere of the room now lightens to a palpable degree. You can suddenly feel conversations, not just hear them, and then maneuver them toward productive conclusions. "The meaning of your communication is the response you get." – English anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) "The reaction you got was the communication you intended." – Werner Erhard "It’s not what you tell them, it’s what they hear." – Red Auerbach, head coach, Boston Celtics "Whatever the attitude, so is the response." – Ed Parker, karate instructor and author "How you give signs matters almost as much as what signs you call." – Paul O’Neill, Yankees outfielder and broadcaster, speaking of catchers (9-18-20) "If you play a tune and a person don’t tap their feet, don’t play that tune." – Count Basie, jazz pianist/composer/bandleader Dr. Frank Laubach, author of Prayer, the Mightiest Power in the World, described a similar phenomena when he discussed changing the entire atmosphere of a car or bus full of people by the process of "swishing love and prayers all around the place." (Quoted in the classic The Power of Positive Thinking, 1952, by Norman Vincent Peale.) While we don’t necessarily have to “swish prayers,” the process is similar, and there’s actually little we need physically do save for giving people around us the experience that their communications and other modes of expressing themselves are being understood. Notice how Laubach’s approach is highly trim-tabbian, by the way; he’s operating unnoticed, beneath the radar screen of our typical standards of logic and communication or even physical movement. "A good umpire is the umpire you don’t even notice." – Ban Johnson (1865-1931), first president of the American (baseball) League "The best-umpired game is the game in which the fans cannot recall the umpires who worked it." – umpire Bill Klem, “The Old Arbitrator” (1874-1951) "One reason I never called balks is that I never understood the rule." – baseball umpire Ron Luciano "The lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf course." – evangelist Billy Graham I’ve also noticed that The Zone rarely if ever arrives on cue (even on the massage table), as Gallwey reports as well. And the harder we seek it, the more it eludes us (Mack). And there’s always a time-lag, as if to verify the ancient adage “patience is bitter but the fruits are sweet,” attributed to Aristotle. "Woodworking minus patience equals firewood." – unattributed "Good teams score late goals." – Gareth Southgate OBE, manager of England’s national team These final slow-and-steady moments before The Zone announces its arrival take a strong commitment and a disciplined training regimen on our part, backing up another shopworn adage: “Slow and steady wins the race.” We need a strong commitment to push us through the often highly unsettling last moments before flow/context settles in. "In the moment of victory, tighten your helmet strap." – Japanese lieutenant and novelist Tadayoshi Sakurai, Human Bullets, 1907 "If you start to take Vienna – take Vienna." – Napoleon "I’m boring, but effective." – Vladimir Klitschko, world heavyweight boxing champion from Ukraine "My game isn't a carnival. I am simple and consistent, but dangerous." – Jose Parica, professional pool player, Philippines "Prepare for the trauma of success." (For our paradigms are shaken.) – sales trainer/author Tom Hopkins (In ancient Greek, the word 'trauma' meant 'wound'.) In traditional literature, this context has been described as one’s “constitution,” a word that enjoys etymological similarities to ‘context.’ In this type of usage, constitution means the aggregate of a person's physical and psychological characteristics, and a “strong constitution” indicates a degree of equanimity and its attendant physical equilibrium, one of the major goals of traditional massage. "When one's thoughts are neither frivolous nor flippant, when one's thoughts are neither stiff-necked nor stupid, but rather, are harmonious, they habitually render physical calm and deep insight." – Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), German mystic, regarding einsicht "He who would be useful, strong, and happy must cease to be a passive receptacle for the negative, beggarly, and impure streams of thought." – James Allen, British 'new thought' writer (1864-1912) "Calmness is the graceful form of confidence." – Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian novelist (1830-1916) Budilovsky continues: Although we usually can’t invoke The Zone at will, we can certainly increase our chances of landing there, and this is our main concern here. One of the best ways for athletes to do so, she says, is to get a regular sports massage, though unfortunately that’s about as specific as she gets. So let’s try to fill in some of her missing material. First, we’ll take an example from an angle we’re familiar with, that of visualization. “Trying to possess it (the zone) gets in the way of experiencing it.” – sport psychologist Joe Parent, Zen Putting, 2007 Because it’s the place where our brain spends most of its day, it’s safe to assume that most visualization in a sports context occurs while our brainwaves are in beta mode, meaning that the linear/logical mind is still in charge. However, it stands to reason we can make visualization far more effective if we operate from the slower alpha frequency, and perhaps from the deeper-yet and lesser-reached theta state. The deeper and looser the soil, the better the veggies, and the Greens in fact did forward such a hypothesis through their biofeedback research at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas. The Greens have also suggested that with practice we can even shorten our periods of visualization, a factor we'll include among our rationales for performing sports massage in the first place. Since the late 1980s, similar work has been pursued by Dr. Eugene Peniston of Texas in the realm of recovery from addiction. Peniston has also used this approach within the Veterans Administration system, helping clients overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. Years ago, this web site wondered allowed if there were a connection between high-intention massage and recovery from addiction, and now the roots of such a connection have been established. "When we forget to use visualization and imagination, it is like not using our minds." – José Silva (1914-99) "Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution." – Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ukrainian-American geneticist/biologist "I pictured myself as a virus or cancer cell and tried to sense what it would be like." – Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine "A good athlete mentally replays a competition over and over, even in victory, to see what might be done to improve the performance the next time." – Frank Shorter, gold medalist in the marathon, 1972 Per Garfield, the relaxation/imagery combination can even help athletes accelerate their reaction times. Note that a standard full-body massage sequence has the capacity to take the recipient into alpha within 30 minutes or less. It's been said, by the way, that we spend at least 90% of our time in beta. It's also been stated authoritatively by Erhard that we spend 90% or more of our lives in some form of upset (or in some variation of the choke-producing startle pattern). Maybe there's a connection here as well? "If you react too slowly your chance is gone." – English runner Steve Cram, silver medalist in the 1500 meters, 1986 Not only can the alpha state facilitate visualization, it stands to reason that from within this zone we're more predisposed to both perceive and direct ki. Even more importantly, the state can help germinate our ability to create contextual shifts, such as the one from "feed-backing" to "feed-forwarding." The ability to create context is superior to an act of will, and it happens in and out of time, as do great musical compositions. Notice how The Beatles help us to temporarily forget the tyranny of time, whereas lightweight opportunists like Nirvana and Pearl Jam keep us stuck there. "You will either step forward into growth or you will step backward into safety." – Abraham Maslow "If you are in the same place today as you were yesterday, you are a backslider." – Smith Wigglesworth, British evangelist (1859-1947) "A great composer does not imitate. He steals." – Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." – T.S. Eliot "The secret is to follow the advice the masters give you in their works while doing something different from them." – French artist Edgar Degas "The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion." – Jean-Claude Killy, French gold-medalist skier "The better you are, the closer they watch." – magician Darwin Ortiz "The best classroom of all times was about two car-lengths behind Juan Manuel Fangio." – English racer Stirling Moss, speaking of the Formula One champ from Argentina "My greatest teacher was not a vocal coach, nor the work of other singers, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed and phrased on the trombone." – Frank Sinatra Phrase: the smallest musical unit that conveys a complete musical thought From a different perspective, the creation of context happens in the spaces between units of time (kairos/clearing), outside of the rules of logic and willpower. Note that kairos has also been described as "pregnant (pleroma) time, the defining/propitious (apropos) moment, God's time, time outside of time." "When the time is right, I, the Lord, will make it happen." Isaiah 60:22 "Not gradual, not sudden." – Zen-master saying about the arrival of enlightenment "God works in moments." – French proverb "I work in minutes, not hours." – Russian field marshal Aleksandr Suvorov (1730-1800) "It isn’t the hours that you put in at practice that count, it’s the way you spend those minutes. " – pro golfer Tony Lema (1934-1966) "Context has no time. It allows time." – Werner Erhard “A person is neither a thing nor a process, but an opening (clearing) through which the Absolute can manifest.” – German philosopher Martin Heidegger “You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.” – Alan Watts, British philosopher and Zen educator "Tennis for me is creating an opening (not waiting for the opponent to make a mistake)." – Stefan Edberg of Sweden, International Tennis Hall of Fame “The sources of invention are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves.” – Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), German mathematician/philosopher “A conversation that initiates conversation.” – Werner Erhard Says author Maureen Helen, kairos also suggests a period of confusion, disruption, where the old rules, apparently based on linear time, no longer function. Without having the precise words in her arsenal, Helen is also clearly describing the process of breakdown preceding breakthrough. "The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions." – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American physician (1809-1894) "I try not to break the rules, but merely test their elasticity." – Bill Veeck, former owner of the Chicago White Sox "Stretch the rules to the breaking point." – English cricket great Fred Trueman "Study the rules so that you won't beat yourself by not knowing something." – Babe Zaharias, greatest female athlete of the 20th century "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." – Pablo Picasso "If your ball lands within a club-length of a rattlesnake you are allowed to move the ball." – posted at the Glen Canyon Golf Club in Arizona “The trouble with referees is that they know the rules but they do not know the game.” – Bill Shankly (1913-81), Liverpool manager “You are remembered for the rules you break.” – General Douglas MacArthur “When the great master appears, he does not keep to guidelines.” – Zen saying “Football is something like war. Whoever behaves too properly, is lost.” – Rinus Michels, iconic Dutch football coach A structured program of relaxation aimed toward producing the alpha state, rarely tapped on a regular basis, can help us make such a breakthrough from the lowly world of willpower into the superior realm of contextualization. It was Neitszche who said that people can be defined by their capacity to promise, which for the sake of argument we'll assume to include the ability to hit paydirt through creative visualization. "95% of the capacity of the human mind remains dormant throughout life." – motivational author Napoleon Hill "Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them." – polar explorer Richard Byrd (1888-1957) "The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted." – Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, 1859 "The duties of each moment are the shadows beneath which hides the divine operation." – Jean-Pierre de Caussade, French Jesuit (1675-1751) (astounding insight) "Love can do much, but duty more." – Goethe (duty in the sense of 'yi') "Do the duty that lies nearest to you. The next duty will then become clearer." – Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher/mathematician (1795-1881) "Provision (assistance) is only guaranteed at the place of your assignment (duty)." – televangelist Mike Murdoch, Fort Worth, Texas To repeat the words of José Silva in his highly influential Silva Mind Control Method (1977): By visualizing – with conviction – in Alpha and Theta we are now causing things to be (narrowing the mysterious gap between volition and actuality). Previous to this point we were a mere action/reaction, wishful-thinking machine, manipulating content. Time is altered at this level (kairos/clearing), so we replace “I will become”-type thinking with "I am." Says Silva, we must visualize the results we want, with conviction, as already being achieved. It can now be asserted that willpower and the early stages of commitment are but beta forms of declaring a context for real results. "I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself." – Goethe "You're over here doubting yourself while so many are afraid of your potential." – heard at yoga class "Don’t doubt me, because that’s when I get stronger." – middleweight boxing champ Marvin Hagler What separates the pros from the hacks is their ability to visualize from a more generative level of brainwave activity, and I've even seen the difference among building contractors and household repairmen. Their easel is more steady, so the portrait emerges more clearly. If you notice, pros can also notice when they’re “on it,” and the top tier can flip “off it” with a figurative flick of the wrist. Per sports psychologist Bob Rotella (2015), average performers get much further off track before they catch themselves. “The difference between the winner and the near-winner is the ability to be on the lookout against one’s self." – England's John Henry Taylor, World Golf Hall of Fame “You must first spend some time getting your model to relax. Then you'll get a natural expression." – artist Norman Rockwell “My valleys are higher than most people’s peaks." – Dan Gable, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, 1972 “The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are at their worst." – Czech-born Martina Navratilova, tennis Hall of Fame Perhaps nowhere else in the literature on visualization, outside of the Greens and Silva, do we see this essential distinction: that of visualizing out of the alpha state versus beta. And perhaps this is why for most people visualization produces less-than-spectacular results. This is a contextual difference that helps define the word itself for us. In beta, the pre-contextual state, visualization works poorly if at all; the ki gates are blocked. From alpha, we now have a shot at workability and accomplishment, and this backs up Erhard’s declaration that “context determines content,” much as the Constitution informs the direction and spirit of the law. “Form is the shape of content.” – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian/American artist For the record, sports psychologist Steven Ungerleider surveyed some 1,200 Olympic athletes at the Seoul summer games of 1996. Most of those competitors said they needed to achieve a state of relaxation before imagery and visualization became effective (Ungerleider, Mental Training for Peak Performance, 1996). “Morning dreams come true.” – English proverb, also attributed to Ovid, Horace, Dante and Dryden; during the "morning dream" state (hypnopompic) we are beginning the daily transition from alpha into beta "The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me." – Sir Walter Scott, Scottish man of letters "Start off every day with a smile, and get it over with." – comedian W.C. Fields “Your imaginings can have as much power over you as your reality, or even more." – psychologist Charles Tart, Altered States of Consciousness, 1969 Let's note at this point that author/practitioner Frankie Avalon Wolfe (Complete Idiot's Guide to Reflexology, 1999) asserts that the pineal and pituitary glands are associated with enhanced dreaming, from which one can take that leap of faith into the realm of enhanced visualization. If true, we must consider the potential of working the associated pineal/pituitary points on the body, particularly on the big toe. Aim for the center of the swirl of the toe-print. Harvey, previously cited, also makes a connection between tension and a diminished capacity for dreaming. “Keep the pineal gland operating and you will never grow old, you will always be young.” – Edgar Cayce (René Descartes placed the soul's location at the pineal gland. For the record, Greek philosopher Strato of Lampsacus, 3rd century BC, placed the soul between the eyebrows, also known as the third-eye point.) Aside: The pineal gland is apparently larger in women than in men, and the name stems from its pine-cone shape. The big toe is said to be a microcosm for the whole body, and it's called a marma or power-point. One of the common features of a body in orgasm is a big toe that juts out while the other toes bend away from the arched sole. This reflex is called the carpopedal spasm (which also can occur in the hands). Getting back to less steamy matters, a marma is similar to a tsubo. Marmas have been described as spiraling whirlpools that either retain energy or radiate it outward. For all practical purposes the same as a shiatsu point, marma literally means "point that can kill" (so there). The American sports community has made strides, by the way, in the realm of visualization to the point where the word is in danger of becoming pedestrian or trite. The word "imagery" is now more in vogue, consistent with Jack Nicklaus' term "going to the movies," which he viewed forwards and backwards. “The more an athlete can image the entire package, the better it’s going to be,” says Nicole Detling, a sports psychologist with the United States Olympic team. More than ever, preparation for competition is a multisensory endeavor, which is why the word “imagery” is now the term of choice. “Visualization, for me, doesn’t take in all the senses,” said Emily Cook, the veteran American aerialist. “You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it, everything.” Detling says research had shown that athletes who were adept at imaginary play as children — “imaginary friends, make believe, things like that” — were better at imagery. (Clarey, Christopher. Olympians Use Imagery as Mental Training, New York Times, February 22, 2014) “Imagination plays its part, too, in the game of pocket billiards, just as it does in any sport.” – billiards great Willie Mosconi (1913-1993) “The billiards table is better than a doctor.” – Mark Twain “Every air current has a color of its own.” – Valentin Mankin, Soviet gold medalist in sailing, 1980 “Skill without imagination is (mere) craftsmanship.” – Tom Stoppard, Czech-English playwright “I go to a very visual place when I'm singing. It's very cinematic and I get this feeling of space.” – Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode “The disclosure of a new fact, the leap forward, the conquest over yesterday's ignorance, is an act not of reason but of imagination, of intuition.” – Charles Nicolle, French bacteriologist, Nobel Prize winner (1866-1936) “Learn the craft, then set it aside.” – Italian proverb “The possible ranks higher than the actual.” – Martin Heidegger, one of the premier thinkers of the 20th century Garfield, by the way, was saying pretty much the same thing some 30 years earlier. Back then he wrote that "impressionistic mental imagery" with many nuances of emotion is most effective for achieving broad, long-term goals, as Monet and Renoir might have concurred. In a nod to Maltz, whether acknowledged or not, Garfield asserted that visualization and mental images must include movement – actions – rather than static postures. “The most ominous of fallacies: the belief that things can be kept static by inaction.” – Freya Stark, Anglo-Italian explorer and travel writer (1893-1993) Without this creation of mental holograms, the benefits of physical training will be decimated, at least at the upper-tier level. We must also visualize the complete action, not just the beginning, middle or end. Even race car drivers who don't visualize will find out that things are happening too quickly, says champion driver Jackie Stewart. With visualization, he says, drivers can have clear vision even at 195 miles (314 km) per hour. “The crashes people remember, but drivers remember the near-misses.” – racer Mario Andretti “I always have a picture in my mind when I am composing, and I follow its outlines.” – Beethoven Visualization: all non-verbal thought-forms that the brain organizes into a spatial pattern … not just a mental picture. – sport psychologist Harvey Dorfman And we must visualize/image the process in detail, as asserted by Soviet researcher Alexander Romen at least another 30 years before Garfield. Romen at the time referred to "construction of formulas" and "phraseology" which must be crafted with care, acknowledging the crucial role of precise languaging. Likewise, per Garfield, the more clear and detailed our goals, the more we can bear with fatigue and distractions. “Precision of intent is crucial, for once a movement has begun, any effort to correct it leads to a distortion of the alignment of the pattern intended.” – dancer and choreographer Martha Myers, Dancemagazine, June 1982 “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.” – Willie Sutton, ‘professional’ bank robber (1901-1980) “Depression is the inability to construct a future.” – psychologist Rollo May Romen's influence certainly reached the Olympic level. For instance, British gold medalist in track and field David Hemery (1968) has written that the actions we visualize must become "as close to perfection as the mind can conceive." Hemery also asserts that the less we visualize, the more our results are dictated to us. "Set your ideal as near to perfection as your imagination is capable of forming the conception." – Wallace Wattles (1860-1911), 'New Thought' writer "A gladiator's first distraction is his last." – Oenomaus, gladiator and rebel slave, first century BC "A problem adequately stated is a problem solved theoretically and immediately, and therefore subsequently to be solved, realistically." – Buckminster Fuller "The reward for being a good problem solver is to be heaped with more and more difficult problems to solve." – Buckminster Fuller "What people call success is only preparation for the next failure." – Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) "The further the soul advances, the greater are the adversaries against which it must contend." – Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD) "You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles." – Arthur Conan Doyle Clearly, one of the key components of sports massage is therefore to help induce the alpha state. (Seminars that purport to teach sports massage rarely mention this.) This cannot generally be accomplished during a quick “pre-event” massage; it needs to happen at least a day before the main event during the standard 60-to-70 minute protocol. A common rule of thumb, by the way, is that a "pre-event" massage need be stimulating, not sedating. But leading sports massage writer Mel Cash challenges this belief, claiming that too many athletes are over-pumped and need a little settling down in order to perform better. At a minimum, we can determine that Cash is an independent thinker unconcerned about challenging prevailing opinion. "A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it." – Marcel Proust, premier French novelist "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." – Danish physicist Niels Bohr (Mystical insight teaches us that one profound truth is contained within the next, which depends upon the former one yet turns it inside out. When experienced, this inside-outing is visualized, not just understood intellectually, and it can resemble the traditional yin/yang symbol. This "unity of opposites" permeated medieval thought, by the way, expressed as coincidentia oppositorum.) "80% of all questions are statements in disguise." – Dr. Phil "Let me tell you a question." – demeanor of some journalists at press conferences We're also seeing more language limitations here, for in English, as far as I can determine, there is no one word to signify both 'visualization' and 'declaration' ("I will achieve this goal") simultaneously. So please entertain the possibility that the two words are incomplete without each other, and that both states are virtually impotent in the absence of full relaxation. "We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down." – Niels Bohr "Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability." – Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1932 "God gave humans language so they could conceal their thoughts from one another." – Talleyrand, French clergyman and diplomat (1754-1838) "I don't drop players, I make changes." – Bill Shankly, former manager for Liverpool "My goals in Holland were known as 'stiffies,' which means something quite different in England." – Dennis Bergkamp, the 'Non-Flying Dutchman' Back to Maxwell Maltz: We must learn to trust our creative subconscious (accessed during alpha) to do its work. We don't "jam it" by becoming too concerned or anxious as to whether or not it will work (or by looking at the scoreboard), or by attempting to force it by too much conscious effort. "Take less time to read the score-card and more time to read the hole." – Chi-Chi Rodriguez, World Golf Hall of Fame "If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted. If you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end." – Tom Seaver, New York Mets, hall-of-fame baseball pitcher "The day I stopped worrying about stats is the day I started winning." – Shaquille O’Neal, basketball Hall of Fame “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” – Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), the 'father' of nuclear physics "Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic." – Andre Agassi, tennis Hall of Fame "I wanted to be a better (golf) player, but after a while I realized I'd always stink. And that's when I really started to enjoy the game." – comedian Don Rickles Our aim is to "let it" work rather than "make it" work. Its nature is to operate spontaneously, according to present need. It comes into operation as we act. We can’t wait to act until we have proof (unless we prefer getting struck out on three pitches). We must act as if it's already there, and it will come through. "Do the thing and you will have the power." – Emerson " 'Seeing-is-believing' is a blind spot in man’s vision." – Buckminster Fuller "It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know; the principles of things escape our most persevering researches." – Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia "It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting." – psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) "If you can truly believe what you are pretending to do is really happening, then your audience will believe it, too." – magician Richard Osterlind "Change will lead to insight more often than insight will lead to change." – psychiatrist Milton Erickson "Fake it 'til you make it." – catchphrase of pop psychology "Look THAT up in your Funk & Wagnall’s." – Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In For better or worse, a smooth road to this higher level of accomplishment is not likely. Said the great Napoleon Hill, achievement virtually requires setback before it’s attained. Or as Werner Erhard said, “Breakdown precedes breakthrough.” "Life always gets harder towards the summit – the cold increases, responsibility increases." – Nietzsche “Struggle is not optional – it’s neurologically required.” – Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code, 2009 “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” – former NFL coach John Madden “Water too pure breeds no fish.” – Chairman Mao “Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal.” – Goethe “The great storm always arrives at harvest time.” – French proverb “Success looks a lot like failure up until the moment you break through the finish line.” – Dan Waldschmidt, business speaker and ‘extreme’ athlete “Failure is where success likes to hide in plain sight.” – cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of ‘Dilbert’ “Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance.” – Ross Perot, business magnate and presidential candidate “The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.” – Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), social philosopher and critic “Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement.” – Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It, (1925) “Every battle has a turning point when the slack water of uncertainty becomes the ebb tide of defeat or the flood water of victory.” – vice admiral Charles Turner Joy “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” – Bluto, Animal House Nature won’t give us the keys, says Hill, until we demonstrate persistence, which is the absolute determination (pre-context level of commitment) to achieve what we’re aiming at, the hammer that cracks open the nut. We must keep banging away until that small still voice within us (the one that says, 'What voice?'), an indicator of context’s arrival, says the purpose will be realized. That context, which never emerges on call, has now been tapped. (The Law of Success, 1925). “If you aim for it, you are turning away from it.” – Zen saying “The descent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent.” – Carl Jung “One rarely hears of people achieving great things unless they first stumble.” – Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), medieval mystic “Steep and craggy is the path of the gods.” – Porphyry (233-304 AD) “We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.” – writer Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) “When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action to take, choose the bolder.” – field marshal William Slim, British military commander “There are cases in which the utmost daring is the greatest wisdom.” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1832 To paint an even more disheartening picture, breakdown is not the only hair-raising prerequisite that precedes breakthrough. To complicate matters, commitment spurs reactivation, setting off most of our hot-buttons at once. When we chart a new course for superior performance, all the negatives seem to come at us in short order, from different angles, before we process them out, just as Kennedy found out when he vowed to land a man on the moon. (Does your coach say this?) "The smiles returning to the faces." – The Beatles, Here Comes the Sun "The greater and more beautiful the work is, the more terrible will be the storms that rage against it." – St. Mary Faustina Kowalska of Poland (1905-38) "Among the cultivated and mentally active, hagiography (biographies of saints) is now a very unpopular form of literature." – Aldous Huxley What separates the achievers from those who go through the motions at this point is not letting the negatives overwhelm us. That’s the domain of amateurs, says Hopkins, referring to top-tier salespeople who've turned into drone-like 'order takers'. Chess masters call them 'wood pushers.' Another source of reactivation is the unsettling nature of letting go of the strict logic of beta, transitioning into the moment-by-moment experience of alpha. "Every moment of every moment." – Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish scientist/philosopher/mystic (It appears that Swedenborg has nailed the working criteria for operating in delta and theta.) "No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now." – Alan Watts "Every brushstroke is a decision." – Robert Motherwell, American artist This transition can be very disconcerting as we leave familiar territory, our "linear kick" if you will, away from merely reacting to stimuli, into a realm with higher potentials. In fact, says Erhard, a master is someone who deliberately chooses this discomfort zone with its attendant uneasiness, knowing it’s the path to accomplishment and growth. "I am comfortable in the uncomfortable." – Conor McGregor, mixed martial arts champ from Ireland "The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide." – Longfellow "We learn geology the morning after the earthquake." – Ralph Waldo Emerson "The way you react to adversity is the key to success." – Tom Landry, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys “A great sailor can navigate even if the sail is ripped.” – Seneca the Younger (5 BC – 65 AD) “You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player.” – José Capablanca, Cuban chess grandmaster (1888-1942) "Your first 1000 massages are just practice." – saying in the field of massage therapy The great Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) touched upon this same concept with his oft-analyzed but briefly used term "negative capability." Keats expressed it as a willingness to accept uncertainties and doubts without any "irritable reaching" (angst-laden search) after fact and reason. Overly focused minds are not a "thoroughfare for all thoughts," he once said. They are inflexible and will never gain answers to the deeper mysteries of life. (Remember Gallwey's assertion that over-thinking addles musculature.) In a philosophical context, Keats' approach resembles the "learned ignorance" espoused by medieval thinkers such as St. Augustine and the mystic Nicholas of Cusa. "At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously. I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." – Keats "Commit to the ugly zone." – performance coach Dave Alred, The Pressure Principle, 2016 "Strive upwards unknowingly." – Pseudo-Dionysius, sixth century AD "The rate at which a person matures is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate." – Douglas Engelbart, engineer and computer pioneer "Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it’s an element of faith." – German-born theologian Paul Tillich "The mature religious sentiment is ordinarily fashioned in the workshop of doubt." – psychologist Gordon Allport (1897-1967) "A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt." – Ludwig Wittgenstein "Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation." – Edward R. Murrow, television newsman, commenting upon the Vietnam War "In life, understanding is the booby prize." – Werner Erhard “True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.” – Winston Churchill “We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them.” – William Blake, mystical poet/painter (1757-1827) “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!” – Dr. Strangelove, 1964 Only by willingly entering into these uncertainties can we transcend our current self-imposed boundaries, to alter our self-limiting contexts. The term negative capability has been used by other poets and philosophers to describe the ability of the individual to operate beyond any presupposed self-assumed barriers, to transcend one's self, a necessary element of upper-tier sports competition. “If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.” – management consultant and author Tom Peters "Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood." – author Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn 'Life is doubt, And faith without doubt is nothing but death.' – Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1937), Basque poet/philosopher/scholar "A man once told me to walk with the Lord. I’d rather walk with the bases loaded." – misattributed to Ken Singleton, baseball player/announcer; may have started with Orioles manager Earl Weaver “Commitment is healthiest when it’s not without doubt but in spite of doubt.” – psychologist Rollo May "It's better to throw a poor pitch wholeheartedly than to throw the so-called right pitch with a feeling of doubt." – attributed to Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles Dodgers "The path of least resistance is the path of the loser." – English novelist H.G. Wells Covey touches upon this dynamic when he says upper levels of performance entail choosing to be composed regardless of circumstances. When we choose this freedom to choose, as he puts it, we operate out of commitment (declaration, which is enhanced by relaxation) rather than circumstance, which is the land of excuses. "When I joined the Tour I studied the best players to see what they did that I didn't do. I came to the conclusion that the successful players had the Three Cs: Confidence, Composure, Concentration." – Bob Toski, golf Hall of Fame "To ask for an explanation is to explain the obscure by the more obscure." – Maurice Merleau-Ponty, French philosopher (1908-1961) "The rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness." – Agatha Christie "No room for the weak." – Joy Division, Day of the Lords "The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." – Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-88 "We will either find a way – or make one." – Hannibal (247-181 BC) "Think highly of yourself because the world takes you at your own estimate." – Kurt Hahn, German educator (1886-1974) We’re now focusing on outcomes and goals, rather than trying to determine their causality, says Loughlin. This approach offers more effective strategies than blaming our misfortunes, in psycho-babble fashion, upon the traumatic day when we were six years old and daddy didn’t buy us the bike we wanted. “Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford, Jack?” – Stephen King, The Shining “The very fact that you are a complainer, shows that you deserve your lot.” – James Allen, British 'new thought' writer (1864-1912) “No one ever complained their way to the top.” – Frank Perdue, chicken entrepreneur "The truth is not found in a different set of circumstances. The truth is always and only found in the circumstances you’ve got." – Werner Erhard "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." – Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, 1973 "One must use the weapons one finds in one’s path.” – Isabelle Eberhardt, Swiss explorer and author (1877-1904) "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “The truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe.” – Aristophanes, ancient Greek dramatist Aside: A cursory review of the literature regarding goal-achievement reveals a curious omission: Few authors on the topic discuss the importance of attaching a timeline to the goal. Without a deadline for achievement, a goal is just an amorphous blob of wishful thinking. Just ask a newspaper editor trying to get a story out of a reporter. "A goal is a dream with a deadline." – Napoleon Hill "What may be done at any time will be done at no time." – Scottish proverb "To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time." – Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor "The busiest day of the week is often Mañana." – Spanish proverb However: "Never do today what intuition says to do tomorrow." – Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940), American artist and New Thought writer It also stands apparent that top performance needs experienced, frequent and empathic feedback. But too much feedback, as with too much talking, can indicate a coach or trainer out of control, out of his element, stuck in past ways of thinking. "If the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change." – Czech-American tennis great Ivan Lendl "If you’re in control, they’re in control." – Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry We want empowerment, which does not necessarily mean words, aimed at freeing the athlete from the anxiety of performing and winning, inducing a timeless episode of space, if you will, in which the performer allows the mind and body to do what they've been trained to do. Part of this empowerment process involves a contextual shift from "feeding back" into feeding forward, as if we're training an astronaut to contend with eventualities he or she can't foresee. The Russian sports psychologist Alexander Romen was a pioneer in this regard, giving the Soviets a two-decade jump on the Americans (Garfield), helping them to look through the windshield rather than the rear-view mirror. "Good coaches for ski jumpers stand at the top of the slope and watch the jumpers prepare, rather than standing at the bottom and watching them land." – British film director Roland Joffé "Introspection is always retro-spection." – Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th century French philosopher of the first order "More matches are lost through carelessness at the beginning than any other cause." – Harry Vardon (1870-1937), six-time winner of the British Open "Most mistakes are made before the club is swung." – Harvey Penick (1904-95), golf pro and writer "What invariably distinguishes a good player from a poor one is their respective address-positions or setups." – English golf instructor David Leadbetter "An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality." – composer John Cage Regarding empowerment: "He perfected the art of gaining power by giving it away." – historian Garry Wills, on George Washington "A leader is someone who puts their people in position to be successful." – Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball "It's not my job to look good. It's my job to make other people look good." – Wes Unseld, basketball Hall of Fame "Taking initiative is a form of self-empowerment." – Stephen Covey Many describe this empowerment-moment as trance-like, suggests Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience (1991). But if you look at mundane performers, most of them are already in a deadened trance state, one more tree in the petrified forest. Said Gallwey, most players hypnotize (brainwash) themselves into acting the roles of worse performers than they really are. To break out of this negative trance, partially defined by A+B=C thinking, to help context emerge, our starting point of course (even before we attempt alpha-based visualization) is that of full muscular relaxation. This is the prerequisite for any type of successful muscular retraining, which includes the repatterned movements we’re now visualizing (Rankin and Dempsey, "Respiratory Muscles," American Journal of Physical Medicine, Feb. 1967). Dr. Trager espoused a similar approach. In Tragerwork, the focus is not upon specific localized conditions, such as a client presenting himself with a "bad back." The purpose, said Trager, is to break up sensory and mental patterns that inhibit free movement and cause pain and disruption in the first place. Without this deeper contextual-level work, attempts to alleviate pain and restricted movement suffer to a commensurate degree. You can't grow juicy tomatoes in fallow soil, no matter how good the seed and trellis. Loehr expresses it a speck differently, saying that attempting to perform well in the presence of the "wrong emotional climate" is analogous to planting a seed in frozen soil. "The first step is to enter the spiritual dimension, the alpha level, and determine what your purpose in life is." – José Silva (1914-99) (Thus taking the role of alpha one speck further.) This deeper approach will facilitate giving up old barriers, hang-ups and “can’t do’s.” As California chiropractor and health writer Lexi Fisher once put it (speaking of a more flexible spinal cord which permits more energy flow), we won’t be so “invested” in our old ways of resisting life. In the language of the human potential movement, we’re now able to act appropriately without the benefit of patterns and programs (mental beliefs, tapes, constraints, self-imposed restrictions, dysfunctional paradigms and diaphragms). "It is the theory that decides what can be observed." – Einstein "We see what we believe rather than what we see." – Alan Watts "Long experience has taught me not always to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These, as we well know, are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors." – Marconi, acknowledged as the inventor of radio transmission "My capabilities exceed my limitations." – Bruce Lee "If you must doubt something, doubt your limits." – Price Pritchett, business consultant and author "Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run against a paradigm and the editors will turn it down." – Fred Hoyle, English astronomer We’re now beginning to achieve our originally-defined purpose of sports massage: The systematic reduction (not necessarily elimination) of physical impediments to higher levels of performance (so we can zip down the highway at 70 miles per hour with barely a finger on the wheel). "An army is efficient for action and motion exactly in the inverse ratio of its impedimenta." – Civil War general William T. Sherman, 1875 "The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage." – Richard S. Ewell, Confederate army general "Eliminating one weakness is better than adding one strength." – karate master Tsutomu Ohshima Aside: Back in 1963, Ida Rolf (Mrs. Elbow) made a perceptive physical/psychological connection that still hasn't produced a blip on the radar screen of public consciousness. Publishing in the journal article "Structural Integration" (cited in the bibliography below), Rolf asserted that fascial limitations impede emotional expression. (Partly by restricting the free flow of ki?) "Emotions become more violent when expression is stifled." – Philo of Alexandria (25 BC - 50 AD) "My philosophy of defense is to keep the pressure on an opponent until you get to his emotions." – John Wooden, basketball coach, UCLA (Some pro baseball players call it "getting into his kitchen.") "The one thing a player dreads most when he’s under time-pressure is seeing his opponent calmly making strong moves." – Pal Benko, Hungarian-American chess grandmaster The under-performing individual is no longer acting "in the moment," Rolf says. He's now at the mercy of pre-existing attitudes. We can easily take these attitudes to mean pre-written scripts, unconscious tapes (which are never positive) that produce choking in the clutch. Conclusion: if our tapes are counter-productive, it's our fascia that's choking us at the same time. To loosen the fascia is to mitigate the tape. You'll never see this connection made by proponents of the tape metaphor, though Starlanyl did provide a good metaphor when she remarked that constricted fascia feels like wearing a three-dimensional wetsuit that's a couple sizes too small. "Most people act, not according to their meditations, and not according to their feelings, but as if hypnotized, based on some senseless repetition of patterns." (Tapes, which become more potent with each replaying.) – Tolstoy "But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions." – English novelist D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) "99%, or possibly 99.9% of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night." – William James "Your doubts are not the product of accurate thinking, but habitual thinking." – Price Pritchett, business consultant and author "It's not a slam at you when people are rude. It's a slam at the people they've met before." – novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald "A scalded dog fears even cold water." – Randle Cotgrave, French-English Dictionary, 1611 "In duty the individual finds his liberation … from dependence on mere natural impulse." – G.W.F. Hegel, premier German philosopher (1770-1831) (How to break free from tapes) "Every person, to the extent that he is neurotic, is like an airplane directed by remote control." – Karen Horney, German psychoanalyst Getting back to zipping down the highway, Rolf adds an important perspective. The muscular retraining/repatterning we’re talking about here (achieving a null point), comes from a context of integrating the body, not merely or even necessarily restoring it (synthesis upends analysis). This puts our work in a different class altogether, she says, moving beyond the realm of traditional therapy and into the domain designated by the word ‘education.’ "If you stay in the nothing of the zero-center, you are balanced and in perspective." – German-born psychiatrist Fritz Perls (1893-1970), echoing the state of wuji "The power of vision must itself be colorless, if one is to see every color." – Aristotle "Perspective is worth eighty IQ points." – Alan Kay, computer scientist This type of integrity bears little resemblance to the moral rectitude that goes by the same name, but the following rule of the self-improvement movement still applies in either case: When things stop working, find out where the space lacks integrity, and then provide it. Only then do we give ourselves permission to let go, to enjoy the freedom to be, which is the most concise definition of context we’ll find anywhere. The word itself stems from the Latin contexere, meaning “to weave together,” indicating that Rolf’s concept of integration vs. restoration was right on the money. "To the degree that integrity is diminished, the opportunity for performance is diminished." – Werner Erhard, 'The Ontological Law of Integrity' To sum up, while it's quite the achievement to remain in The Zone for any length of time, it's an even bigger accomplishment to create a regimen for inducing the space, expanding it in time, and then following it successfully. The ultimate accomplishment, it should be said, is to learn how to reliably impart The Zone, or at least a temporary glimpse of it, to others, whether on the field or on the massage table. Such an enabler is no longer just a coach but true mentor. “Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Culture and Value, published in 1970 "Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right." – Aldous Huxley Michael O'Hara Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA pocono1013@verizon.net Main page: Proactive massage for the Scranton and Pocono region Archer, Pat. Therapeutic Massage in Athletics, 2007 Baker, Julian. Bowen (Technique) Unraveled, 2013. Barlow, Wilfred (MD). The Alexander Principle, 1973 Benjamin, Patricia and Scott Lamp. Understanding Sports Massage, 2004 Benson, Dr. Herbert. The Relaxation Response, 1975 Burger, Bruce. Esoteric Anatomy, 1998 Calvert, Robert Noah. The History of Massage, 2002 Capellini, Steve. Massage for Dummies, 1999 (a stronger introductory title than the series name would suggest) Cash, Mel. Sport & Remedial Massage Therapy, 1996 Chaitow, Leon (MD). Muscle Energy Techniques, 1996 Chaitow, Leon. Positional Release Techniques, 1997 Chaitow, Leon. Soft Tissue Manipulation, 1988 Chow, Kam Thye. Thai Yoga Massage, 2002 Clarey, Christopher. 'Olympians Use Imagery as Mental Training,' NY Times, 2-22-14 Clay, James. Basic Clinical Massage Therapy, 2003 Collins, Jim. Good to Great, 2001 Covey, Stephen. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 1989 Cross, John. The Complete Book of Acupoints, 2010 Csikszenthihalyi, Mihali. Flow, 1990 (over-rated) Davies, Clair. Frozen Shoulder Workbook, 2006 Davies, Clair. Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, 2001 Dorfman, Harvey. Coaching the Mental Game, 2003 Dougans, Inge. The New Reflexology, 2006 Dubitsky, Carl. Bodywork Shiatsu, 1997 Dychtwald, Ken. Bodymind, 1986 Earls, James with Thomas Myers. Fascial Release for Structural Balance, 2010 (recommended) Ebner, Maria. Connective Tissue Manipulations, 1985 (mediocre) Endo, Ryokyu. The New Shiatsu Method, 2004 (recommended) Endo, Ryokyu. Tao Shiatsu, 1995 Faure-Alderson, Martine. Total Reflexology, 2007 Feldenkrais, Moshe. Body & Mature Behavior, 1949 Feldenkrais, Moshe. The Potent Self, 1985 Fernandez, Fabian. Deep Tissue Massage Treatment, 2006 Franklin, Eric. Relax Your Neck, Liberate Your Shoulders, 2000 Gach, Michael Reed. Acupressure's Potent Points, 1990 Gallwey, W. Timothy. The Inner Game of Tennis, 1974 Garfield, Charles. Peak Performance, 1985 Gibbons, John. The Vital Glutes, 2014 Giswold, John. Beyond Basic Training, 2004 Green, Elmer and Alyce. Beyond Biofeedback, 1977 Green, Jean Louise. Structural Integration and Energy Medicine, 2019 (mediocre) Greene, Robert. Mastery, 2012 Harris, Dorothy & Bette. Sports Psychology, 1984 Harrold, Fiona. The Complete Body Massage, 1992 Harvey, John. Total Relaxation, 1998 Hendrickson, Thomas. Massage for Orthopedic Conditions, 2003 Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery, 1953 Hosler, Ray. The Runner's World Massage Book, 1982 Ingham, Eunice. Stories the Feet Can Tell Thru Reflexology, 1938 Inkeles, Gordon. The New Massage: Total Body Conditioning for People Who Exercise, 1980 Jelvéus, Anders. Integrated Sports Massage Therapy, 2011 Jerome, John. Sweet Spot in Time: The Search for Athletic Perfection, 1998 (weak overall) Johnson, Joan. The Healing Art of Sports Massage, 1995 Juhan, Deane. Job's Body, 1987 (wordy but essential) King, Robert. Performance Massage, 1993 Koch, Liz. The Psoas Book, 1981 (fair at best) Kolata, Gina. 'Lactic Acid is not Muscles' Foe', New York Times, 5-16-06 Laughlin, Kit. Overcome Neck & Back Pain, 1995 Lidell, Lucinda. The Book of Massage, 1984 Loehr, James. Ideal Performance State, from "Research & Technology in Sport," Jan. '83 Loehr, Jim and Tony Schwartz. The Power of Full Engagement, 1983 Lundberg, Paul. The Book of Shiatsu, 1992 Mack, Gary. Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence, 2001 (only fair) Maitland, Jeffrey. Spinal Manipulation Made Simple, 2001 Mally, Dr. James. Sports Massage (video), 1996 Maltz, Maxwell. Psycho-Cybernetics, 1960 Mann, Niclaire & Eleanor McKenzie. Thai Bodywork, 2002 Masunaga, Shizuto with Wataru Ohashi. Zen Shiatsu, 1977 (brilliant) McGillicuddy, Michael. Massage for Sports Performance, 2011 Meagher, Jack. SportsMassage, 1980 Mercati, Maria. Handbook of Chinese Massage, 1997 (weak overall) Millman, Dan. Body Mind Mastery, 1999 (weak overall) Montagu, Ashley. Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, 1971 (seminal) Muscolino, Joseph. Muscle & Bone Palpation Manual, 2009 Myers, Thomas. Anatomy Trains, 2001 Myers, Thomas. The Opinionated Psoas, a series from Massage & Bodywork magazine, 2001 Namikoshi, Toru. Complete Book of Shiatsu Therapy, 1981 Neil-Asher, Simeon. The Complete Book of Trigger Points, 2005 Osar, Evan. The Psoas Solution, 2017 (only fair) Parent, Joe. Zen Putting, 2007 Pert, Candace. Molecules of Emotion, 1999 Phaigh, Rich (with Paul Perry). Athletic Massage, 1984 Prudden, Bonnie. Pain Erasure, 1980 Rolf, Ida. Rolfing and Physical Reality, 1990 (recommended) Rolf, Ida. Structural Integration (journal article from Systematics 6:67-84), 1963 Rotella, Dr. Bob. How Champions Think, 2015 (just fair) Roth, Steven. 'Why Does Lactic Acid Build Up In Muscles?', Scientific American, Jan. '06 Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life, 1956 (seminal) Serizawa, Katsusuke. Tsubo: Vital Points for Oriental Therapy, 1976 Shen, Peijian. Massage for Pain Relief, 1996 Silva, José. The Silva Mind Control Method, 1977 Starlanyl and Sharkey, Healing Through Trigger Point Therapy, 2013 Staugaard-Jones, Jo Ann. The Vital Psoas Muscle, 2012 (only fair) Tappan, Frances. Healing Massage Techniques, 1998 Ungerleider, Steven. Mental Training for Peak Performance, 1996 Upledger, John. SomatoEmotional Release, 2002 Verstegen, Mark. Core Performance, 2004 Wills, Pauline. The Reflexology Manual, 1995 Wolfe, Frankie Avalon. Complete Idiot's Guide to Reflexology, 1999. Yang, Dr. Jwing-Ming. Qigong Massage, 2005 Ylinen, Jari (MD) and Cash, Mel. Sports Massage, 1988 Zaffron, Steve and Dave Logan. The Three Laws of Performance, 2009 |