Extremely useful book! Practical tips, exercises and routines to become more emotionally robust--not just in sports but in life. Very much worth reading.
Notes:
Good forward with Arthur Ashe: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." On Ashe having to control his behavior and decorum. His "nonplussed game face" (as he puts it): not showing emotion no matter what the score. It rattles the opposition, plus it doesn't waste energy on unproductive frustrations. Mental and emotional control is a learned skill.
Introduction:
* There's more to competition than simply learning physical skills, the challenge is self-control. Every athletic contest is a contest of control of the delicate mind/body connection.
* "The struggle brings us face-to-face with ourselves, our insecurities, our doubts, our inadequacies, our inner fears. Success and competition demands we move beyond the struggle into mastery of ourselves."
Acquired mental skills:
controlling attitude
concentrating
managing pressure
thinking right
controlling energy
staying motivated and
visualizing
* Savoring the moment: "every moment of every performance is something to be fully experienced and enjoyed."
* "My answer to try harder and be stronger was wrong. No one ever told me that trying "softer" might be the key." Trying harder is going against the current rather than going with it.
* "If only I could get others to understand, but... would it all seem like just so many meaningless words as it did to me?"
Chapter 1: Mental Toughness
* "The object to be understood (namely, the human mind) and that which must understand (the mind) are of equal complexity." This is a simple articulation of the central problem!
* "I loved the game but I hated myself... What was the matter with me? As a young player, I was overwhelmed by frustration, anger, and self-doubt.... As I look back, I can see that I fought myself every inch of the way." The author's inner world was a mixture of panic and rage. No one told him relaxation, calmness, and quiet were important.
* "The mentally tough competitor is consistent in performance precisely because he is consistent psychologically." Mental toughness is learned.
* The constellation of mental skills, all of which are learned. A mentally tough competitor is:
Self motivated and self-directed
Positive but realistic
In control of his emotions
Calm and relaxed under fire (adversity an opportunity to explore your potential)
Highly energetic and ready for action
Determined
Mentally alert and focused
Doggedly self-confident
Fully responsible
* The ultimate battle is with yourself. You should have one focus which is doing the best that you can. The opposite, focusing on winning or losing, leads to tightness, anxiety, performance paralysis. Doing the very best you can is winning the contest with yourself and this rarely leads to such performance problems.
* If you answer yes to each of the following three questions at the end of play or practice, you have won the most important contest.
1: Did I give my best effort?
2: Did I maintain a predominantly positive, healthy, and optimistic attitude with myself?
3: Did I accept full responsibility for me, for what I did and didn't do?
* Self discipline, self-control, self-confidence, self-realization. Four steps that lead to each other.
* The foundation of the AET (athletic excellence training) model:
1: Mental toughness is learned
2: The ultimate measure of mental toughness is consistency
Chapter 2: The AET Model
* "Excepting the influence of physical factors, performance consistency is the result of psychological consistency." Consistency on the outside requires consistency on the inside. Psychological control is a prerequisite for performance control. The ability to establish and maintain a stable internal climate during competitive play has proved to be one of the most important factors in competitive success.
* Creating and maintaining a particular kind of mental climate within oneself. When athletes are performing well, they invariably are experiencing a highly distinct and specific mental state.
* The ideal performance state: similar conditions across many many athletes across many sports. Maintaining this mental state during play, and maintaining control over your internal mental state with practice. On discovering this psychological state, and what the characteristics were:
- Physically relaxed but energized
- No anxiety or fear
- Calmness and quiet inside
- I didn't have to think about what to do
- Effortless
- I always seem to have enough time and energy and rarely felt rushed
- I felt confident and positive
- I was totally tuned in to what I was doing
- I was super aware, aware of everything but distracted by nothing
* This led to these six conclusions:
1: your level of performance is a reflection of the way you feel inside
2: when you feel right, you can perform right
3: playing well is a natural consequence of the right kind of internal feelings
4: playing as well as you can at the moment occurs automatically when the right emotional balance has been established
5: mental toughness is the ability to create and maintain the right kind of internal feeling regardless of the circumstances
6: the most important step you can take to perform to your best is to create a particular climate within yourself and maintain it, no matter what!
* 12 distinct internal aspects of the ideal performance state:
Physically relaxed: as opposed to being psyched up or emotionally charged up. Fine motor skills are better when your muscles are relaxed and loose and free.
Mentally calm: again in contrast from being psyched or pumped up.
Low anxiety: good performers take tough and difficult situations and make them pressure free.
Energized: the source of the energy is joy, not frustration or anger. Feelings of enjoyment and fun and loving what you're doing. Illustrates the need to differentiate between positive and negative sources of energy. Note also the paradox of a profound sense of inner calmness with high levels of positive energy.
Optimistic: positive feelings makes staying loose and calm easy.
Enjoyment: what you enjoy you can perform. When your sports ceases to be fun, performance problems are inevitable. You do not have fun because you play well, you play well because you have fun. Also: learning to love the struggle, the battle.
Effortless: playing well cannot be forced. Trying harder does not work. "Trying softer" is the answer.
Automatic: when we analyze it paralyzes us. The paradox of letting go and playing automatically. Playing by instinct is always swifter and more precise.
Alert: bright eyed and intelligent. Extraordinary awareness. The ability to anticipate, to read what is about to happen.
Mentally focused: the ability to focus one's attention to a specific target and resist distraction from it. Attentional control stems from calmness and high positive energy. You are likely to concentrate well when you have an inner calmness. Attentional control is impossible when the mind is in a state of turmoil. Athletes who are performing well are not trying to concentrate.
Self-confident: nothing more than the feeling that you can do it. That you can be successful. This can be cultivated and controlled.
In control: "I am in control of me." You can stay in complete control by controlling your emotional response to events, adversity etc.
Pressure: nobody plays well under pressure. Mentally tough competitors eliminate the pressure. They don't feel the pressure because pressure is something you put on yourself.
Playing for fun versus playing competitively: they are the same! You keep score, the rules are the same, you're playing the same people. The only difference is what you make of it in your head. Competition can be just as much fun and just as pressure free as "fun" play.
Sample thoughts that reduce pressure:
* I'm going to have a hell of a lot of fun out there, no matter what.
* Pressure is something I put on myself
* I love tough situations
* I'm going to be okay no matter what.
Seeming something as "a threat" versus "a challenge." How do you mentally structure the situation in your own head? Whether you see a situation as threatening or challenging is under your control. Under a threat situation there's a physiological response in the body that's a catastrophe for an athlete (tight muscles, tunnel vision, slowed reaction time, elevated heart rate and adrenaline levels, etc).
You must insulate yourself against that biological alarm reaction. You will need calmness, relaxation, positive energy, and self-control. Controlling this trigger means controlling the way we think about situations we face as competitors. Transform a threat into a challenge, and transform pressure into an opportunity.
"When an athlete can start loving adversity, then he or she is becoming a competitor!" (I embrace adversity, I'm looking forward to the adversity to see how I respond to it, this is an opportunity for me to work on my response to adversity, etc.)
Ritual: helps in performing under pressure, deepens concentration, helps you stay loose. Often under pressure we short circuit our rituals and start rushing.
Positive versus negative energy: See the charts on mapping high and low energy with pleasant or unpleasant energy, and nothing with your muscle/physiological state (photos below). In a mental state of high positive energy you will not be in a state of overarousal. This is the energy associated with fun, enjoyment, determination, and self-motivation.
The author encourages athletes to associate a color with the high positive energy state: a deep vibrant blue, associated with calmness, strength, power, and control.
The positive energy state the author discusses is analogous to ki (the Japanese word) or chi (the Chinese word). Universal life force/life energy which can exist in both a positive or negative form. "Extending your ki," "remember to extend your ki."
"Soft energy": positive energy with accompanying calmness, embracing of challenge, determination, enjoyment, with relaxed muscles and good concentration.
"Trying not to" doesn't work. Trying not to have negative energy, trying not to be nervous, etc. Instead increase your positive intensity and positive energy.
On your attitude: "Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought." (Sounds a lot like "right thinking" in Buddhism!). Reducing your negativism, an absolute rule: "To achieve your fullest potential as a competitor, you must reduce your negativism to a minimum."
On negative self-talk: Listen to what you're saying and thinking, start blowing the whistle on yourself as soon as any negative thinking happens, shout "STOP!" with your inner voice. You'll be amazed to find it actually stops. Replace the negative thought or negative self-talk with something positive and constructive.
On avoiding a preoccupation or obsession with winning. Doing the best I can at any moment is my focus, is my goal. Winning will take care of itself; I simply perform. I am performing against myself, not someone else.
On the right attitude toward mistakes: mistakes are necessary part of learning anything well. If I don't make mistakes, I won't learn. Mistakes simply represent feedback. (Compare to punishing oneself for making mistakes or changing your internal emotional state after making a mistake).
On your level of control and agency over having a positive attitude. It is a choice, and a skill that can be practiced.
On your attitude towards excellence: I will always strive to give my best effort regardless of the circumstances. My future as an athlete is in my own hands. I accept responsibility for myself. This mindset energizes performance even when things go badly. A true professional will seek excellence.
Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought. If you are a negative and pessimistic thinker, you learned it. Negative thinking and negative attitudes significantly alter our inner psychological climate. As simplistic as it may sound, the key to changing attitudes is simply to start repetitiously thinking the attitudes you wish to acquire. Hundreds of opportunities arise each day to practice new attitudes.
"I love the adversity"
"I love competition"
"I can do this" etc.
When you catch yourself with a negative attitude, say "stop" and replace it with a positive attitude.
Problems and adversity: "Problems bring out the best in me" "I choose the way a problem affects me in competition." "Problems and adversity are true test of my emotional skills." "Give me problems--I need the practice!"
On being mindful and present: "We have become masters at living somewhere other than the present in our own thoughts... we're just not accustomed to keeping our thoughts and actions together." "The successful competitor must learn to savor every moment of play as an end in itself." "When you successfully stay with the moment, there is no panic, there is always enough time, and the finish is as important as the beginning."
Flow: Going over the concept from Csikszentmihalyi, note also that when you have awareness of your awareness you will lose your flow state, likewise if you say "I can't believe I'm doing this," or "I'm really flowing," you'll lose the state. It can be quickly reestablished by properly centering your attention.
We have the right focus when what we are doing is the same as what we are thinking. The following reactions then occur naturally:
* Mental calmness
* Low anxiety
* Automatic performance
* Alertness and intensity
Concentration strategies during play:
If you are concentrating on performing well don't think about concentration--just perform. But when problems develop:
1) Check your energy level
2) Do whatever you can to become calm and quiet inside
3) Focus on the present moment
4) Focus on the target (e.g.: "watch the ball")
5) Keep your eyes very controlled during play. There is a close connection between visual focus and mental focus.
Off the field strategies for concentration:
1) improve your calming and quieting skills
2) meditate
3) do any activity that requires you to focus your full attention, or practice focusing your attention on any specific activity you're performing (walking, eating, driving, etc)
4) practice focusing your awareness, being totally mindful, in difficult situations.
Chapter 3: The Primary AET Procedures
AET awareness training procedures:
Step 1: describe in writing with as much detail as possible what your internal psychological world was like when you performed in your finest hour.
Step 2: describe in writing with as much detail as possible what your internal psychological world was like when you performed in your worst hour.
Step 3: (see photo below) fill out the following descriptive information concerning your finest and worst hours by circling the number the best corresponds how you felt inside at the time.
Step 4: fill out an IPS monitoring card (see photo below) each time you play or practice your sport. Continue this procedure for the next 3 weeks.
Step 5: for the next 3 weeks you are to substantially increase your awareness of your positive and negative energy flow during play and practice.
Step 6: for the next 3 weeks you are to substantially increase your awareness of what your internal feeling state is like as you play and practice.
 |
| Finest Hour/Worst Hour |
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| IPS Monitoring Card |
We are moving from awareness to a three-step method for emotional control: increasing awareness is the first part of this, but ultimately to become a mentally tough competitor, you are seeking emotional control.
Step 1: Close your eyes and begin feeling Joy or fun inside. Feelings of joy feeling positive, feeling high self-confidence, feeling highly determined, and relaxed and loose. Do this by focusing on a specific thought, image, or sensation that you associate with these feelings.
Step 2: Practice three visualization exercises:
1) "Playing well" visualization
2) Visualization plus ideal performance state
3) Future visualization plus ideal performance state: visualize your future performance with as much detail as possible, and simultaneously trigger the ideal internal performance state of feeling relaxed positive energy, feeling calm and focused with feelings of joy. Mentally rehearse situations that have given you trouble in the past. Picture yourself successfully working through these tough situations several times.
Step 3: From this day forward, every time you play, make a deliberate and conscious effort to create and sustain the internal climate that accompanies your best performances. You are to trigger your own IPS.
"This is the most critical step. No longer will you show up for practice or play and hope the mental skills will come. You are now taking direct control over the process, practicing mental toughness every time you play or practice your sport."
The power of your physical presence: your body language, your posture, the feelings that you project with your presence. What do you need to add to improve your presence? "I've worked as long as two full days just to improve an athlete's walk. I want to see confidence, determination, calmness, and fire... I don't want meekness or politeness communicated. Rather, I want strength and confidence."
One reason we outwardly display negative emotions is to let everyone around us know we're really much better than we're playing. "If I don't show him upset, they'll think that's how I play all the time." [Ego salving/egoic homeostasis.]
Chapter 4: Refining Your Skills
Visualization
Dr. Maxwell Maltz: your brain is unable to distinguish between something that actually happened and something that was vividly imagined.
"Visualization represents the mental reconstruction of experience"
"You have the best chance of not being surprised when you have mentally rehearsed successful solutions to the many situations that may occur during play."
Visualization is a learned skill. The more you practice, the better you get.
"Become the performer" (subjective) visualization vs. observer (objective) visualization (you view yourself as though in a movie).
* Use all your senses, sharpen the images and sensations.
* Use photos or video to strengthen and improve the accuracy of your mental pictures.
* Mentally rehearse helpful mental and emotional responses to difficult situations that may arise during play. Replace failure images with successful images.
* Many short sessions of visualization practice, approximately 5 minutes each, are much better than a few long sessions.
Self-motivation via programming a regular diet of success: intrinsic, not extrinsic; meaningful for you.
Step 1: have a dream of what you can possibly achieve as an athlete ("I view myself as a composed, calm, grateful competitor who gives his best"; "a 5.0 level tennis player" etc). Don't worry about being realistic.
Step 2: intermediate goals
6-month goals, challenging, exciting and realistic.
Step 3: short term goals (This is the real battleground)
* Physical conditioning goals (daily)
* Working on weaknesses
* Mental conditioning work
* Effort goals
* Attitude goals
Build a step by step sequence of successes via short term goals.
Muscle relaxation training:
"When your muscles become overly tense, you will appear rigid, awkward, and less skillful. ...A useful muscle awareness exercise involves monitoring the muscle tension levels that accompany many common activities performed during the course of a day. ...The goal in muscle awareness is to match the task with the effort. ...Mismatching the effort with the task happens frequently in athletics, especially in pressure situations."
Hitting harder does not always mean more muscle, generally the opposite is true. Speed is power. "Your best performances will come when your muscles are relaxed and when the links of the body can flow freely and naturally."
Examples of ways to practice muscle relaxation:
* relax your jaw,
* use 4/5ths of effort as opposed to 5/5ths
* Don't try quite so hard ("try softer")
Voluntary control of muscle tension is best acquired by increasing one's awareness of when one's muscles are tight and when they are relaxed. Furthermore mental anxiety decreases with lowered muscle tension levels.
Therefore:
1) you must learn to control what you think.
2) you must learn to discriminate increases and decreases in muscle tension.
The Jacobson System (Harvard physiologist Edmund Jacobson): involves the alternation of tensing muscles and relaxing muscles, with the specific intention of developing an acute awareness of the difference. (See photos below for 18-step process):
Managing negative energy and strategies for lowering your arousal levels during play:
* Deliberately slow your breathing as much as possible
* Take more time, deliberately slow down
* Play within yourself, not against an opponent
* If your muscles become overly tight first contract and then relax them.
* Play down the importance of performance in your mind
Note the paradox of having relaxed muscles yet absolutely no relaxation of your attention in your mind.
Autogenic training for relaxation: this section is basically a replication of the same material in the book Peak Performance by Charles A. Garfield. Using verbal cues as mental triggers to elicit the relaxation you want ("my breathing is slow, relaxed and calm").
Meditation:
"Meditation represents a form of concentration practice. It is attentional retraining leading toward attentional fitness. The practitioner of meditation initially is surprised to find how attentionally spastic he is. Dedicated practice enables you to move from mindlessness (attentionally spastic) to mindfulness (totally focused and aware without any self-consciousness). The mental state to be achieved through meditation is characterized by alertness, not dullness or sleepiness."
Selected meditation techniques:
* Breath counting meditation
* Object meditation
* Mantra meditation
* Eating or walking meditation
The goal is to become utterly mindful, to focus fully as you act. This relates directly to your skill and controlling your attention during competitive play.
Breath control training:
Your breathing plays an important role in controlling and regulating your ideal performance state during play. Short, jerky, shallow, and irregular breasts usually accompany states of high negative arousal. Learning this control begins by increasing your awareness of how you breathe when performing well. Contrast that with your breathing patterns when you are performing poorly.
You can intervene and take a direct voluntary control of your breathing when things go badly. When negative energy is flowing slow your breathing way down. Take deep, long, and regular breaths whenever possible. Coordinate the process of exhaling with critical moments of execution (hitting a serve or a ground stroke for example).
Use a verbal mantra like "easy" or "power" and slowly pronounce it as you execute the critical movement, this ensures you will properly exhale as you perform.
Proper breathing technique off the field: inhale through your nostrils using full belly breathing, pause before exhaling exhale slowly continuously through the mouth. Normal breathing rate is about 14 to 16 breaths a minute. With this technique you can comfortably reduce it to as few as four and sometimes three breaths a minute. When under pressure you can slow down and lower arousal levels with three or four deep, prolonged breaths.
Activation training: The art of getting energized
The quicker you can recognize your lowered energy level during play the better are your chances of responding.
Examples of activation:
* Increase your breathing rate.
* Jump up and down on your toes
* Think challenging thoughts and ideas, of personal excellence, pride, etc.
* Mentally review your goals and objectives as an athlete. Why are you out there playing?
* Verbally tell yourself things like "I can do it," "my energy level is rising."
* Create the strongest mental image that you can of yourself playing in your finest hour.
The performance slump, five causes:
* New changes in physical skills
* Natural learning plateaus
* Physical changes
* Mental changes
* Increased awareness
Dealing with slumps:
1) First make sure that there isn't an underlying physical factor. If it's clear that there isn't, acknowledge and accept the fact that your slump is mental, a function of your current attitudes, mindsets, or confidence levels.
2) Take a break from your training schedule which can be helpful to break a negative spiral. Make a conscious and deliberate effort to have fun with your sport and renew your enthusiasm for playing.
3) Review your personal goals and objectives. You'll need a renewed sense of motivation which will translate into high positive energy.
4) Increase your physical conditioning: remember, physically stronger means mentally tougher.
5) Spend 10 to 15 minutes twice daily reconstructing attitudes, beliefs, and thoughts. Visualization and imagery practice.
6) Finally don't try to force it. Take the pressure off and let the breakthrough occur naturally.
Building team harmony:
Adversity as the true test of team unity; players either instinctively pull together, or pull apart. What is the nature of the peer pressure on the team? Is it "I don't want to let the other guys down," meaning the teammates are playing for each other rather than for themselves?
Chapter 5: Assessing and Monitoring Your Mental Strengths and Weaknesses
This is essentially a summary of the various categories throughout the book, quite useful.
Seven mental skill areas:
1) self-confidence
Maintaining high levels of self-confidence is a skill. Top athletes are well aware that certain activities, people, thoughts, and images quickly undermine their confidence levels.
2) negative energy control
Controlling negative emotions like fear, anger, frustration, rage, temper. Staying calm and relaxed. Seeing adversity or difficult situations as challenges rather than threats.
3) attention control
The ability to sustain continuous focus on the task at hand.
4) visualization and imagery control
Successful athletes have well developed visualization and imagery control skills. Thinking in pictures rather than words.
5) motivation
Maintaining high levels of self-motivation. Goal setting, programming a steady diet of daily success, and managing failure properly are all critical components. Persevering with training schedules and discomfort.
6) positive energy
The ability to become energized from sources such as fun, joy, determination, positiveness, team spirit. Maintaining and controlling the flow of positive energy is a learned skill.
7) attitude control
Attitude control simply reflects an athlete's habits of thought.
Psychological performance inventory questionnaire, followed by graphs of different sample profiles.
"Nobody acquires these skill levels without a struggle--NOBODY!"
Strategies for overcoming deficiencies: a final summary
1) low self-confidence
Increase your physical strength and endurance levels
Work hard to improve other mental skill deficiencies
Set realistic self goals
Think positively and create enthusiasm
Constantly repeat positive affirmations to yourself (listen to your inner dialogue: substitute positive self-talk in place of negative)
Increase self-discipline
Use positive visualization
Review film of best performances
Act "as if"
Practice off the athletic field
2) low negative energy control
Increase awareness: when and why does negative energy get triggered during play? What situations lead to threat? Under what circumstances do you lose calmness and focus?
Breath control training
Muscle relaxation training
Autogenic training
Meditation training
Thought control training
Visualization and imagery rehearsal
Counter-conditioning strategies (sustaining a deeply relaxed response while maintaining a mental picture of the anxiety-producing situation. This conditions our relaxation response to a situation that once produced tension)
Self hypnosis
Physical exercise (a light jog or mild exercise prior to the event)
Create pressure situations during practice
3) no attentional control
Improve calming and quieting skills (excessive tension or negative arousal causes perception to fix on inappropriate or irrelevant aspects of play, your focus improves when your negative arousal levels dropped)
Meditation training
Time awareness training (stay in the here and now, avoid focusing on past or future events)
Centering strategies ("check for centeredness")
Get the positive energy flowing
Concentrate during practice (work during practice sessions to sustain a continuous focus on what's important)
4) low visualization and imagery skills
Practice visualizing and imagining with all five senses (several short practice sessions are considerably more effective than one or two long ones)
Visualizing vividly requires internal calmness and quiet
Use photographs, mirrors, or film
Review edited film
Start mentally rehearsing in advance
5) low self-motivation
Set meaningful long-term goals
Set realistic intermediate goals
Set daily short-term goals
Commit goals to writing with a date for completion
Keep a daily log of your successes
Associate with highly self-motivated athletes
Make it fun
6) low positive energy
Joy, fun, enthusiasm
Increase your awareness
Rehearse energy triggers both on and off the playing field
Do whatever you can to start feeling good about you
High level physical fitness/increase your conditioning
7) low attitude control
Identify positive and negative attitudes
Start repeating to yourself those attitudes you wish to acquire
Say "stop"
Read, listen, and model
Keep a record
Additional self-monitoring techniques:
Eyes: where are they focused, do they wander, how controlled are they, etc.
Rituals: keep them consistent, especially when under pressure
Pace of play: maintain your optimum pace for your performance regardless of the score or circumstances
Breathing and breath awareness
Project high positive intensity
Project relaxation and calmness
Responding appropriately to mistakes
Project a confident fighter image
Keep self-talk to a minimum, when it does occur make it brief and positive
Project a positive attitude
Project "I love the battle"
Understand what affects your emotions: diet, sleep, how much time each day you spend in mental practice, in physical practice, endurance, speed work, how much fun you have, etc. Your goal is to fine-tune emotionally.
Controlling our emotional response to events that are not under our control. You do control things that make winning possible: effort, attitude, fight, determination. You cannot control winning directly, only indirectly.
Mental toughness formula involves you consistently answering "yes" to the following four questions after a competition:
1) I gave 100% of my best effort throughout the contest regardless of outcome.
2) I kept my energy and attitude positive during the competition, most importantly during crisis and adversity.
3) I projected a strong and powerful physical presence during the competition, most importantly during crisis.
4) I offered no excuses!
"Coming home": The price you pay to obtain proficiency in competitive sport is high. The frustrations create for most the greatest obstacle. The challenge will always be the same. "It's an interesting self-discovery when you realize that you never "arrive" as a competitive athlete. You're always "in transit." You're always journeying to somewhere beyond where you are now... As we more clearly come to understand that the mastery of competitive sport is a process, not a product, the sooner we can flow with the process rather than constantly fight it."
"What is the process? It is having it... and then losing it. It is struggle. It is discovery. It is failure and defeat, and it is a victory. It is going forward in all directions--backwards, sideways, and upside down. In a word it is transformation... you will one day fully recognize that the goal is not to conquer your noble opponent or the external world, but rather, the conquering of yourself. The opponent and the challenges of the external world are simply vehicles for extending further toward those ultimate limits."
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive at the beginning and know that place for the first time." --T.S. Eliot [pretty intriguing quote selection here from the author to end the book]
Reading List:
Koichi Tohei: Ki in Daily Life
Maxwell Maltz: Psychocybernetics
Oscar Ratti: Secrets of the Samurai: The Martial Arts of Feudal Japan
Peter Klavora and Juri Daniel: Coach, Athlete, and the Sports Psychologist
George Leonard: The Ultimate Athlete
Michael Murphy: The Psychic Side of Sports
Robert Nideffer: The Inner Athlete
Terry Orlick: In Pursuit of Excellence
Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder: Superlearning
