Winning the Battle Within - April 2011

 
Managing Emotions around Amen Corner


       At Augusta National, Sunday the excitement will mount as the contending players reach the hallowed Amen corner. As they walk to the 11th tee, and the pressure mounts, the challenge for each player, will be to stay in the present, keep their emotions in check, and make sure their minds of imagination (subconscious) are fully engaged. That's the process that will keep their games at full capacity as they round the corner of a most demanding stretch of holes.   

      Our imaginative minds are full of imagery, feeling, intuition, and sensory receptors.  We connect with the environment through our senses rather than through our conscious minds (thinking brain). In terms of performance, especially with respect to golf, this means turning off the flow of information about the technical aspects of our swings that wants to flood in from the conscious mind. 

      The problem with this technical information is that it overpowers the imagery and sensory nature of the imaginative mind. Sensory information- visualization, feel, sound and touch-are a prereqisite to reach top performance. When was the last time you hit a good shot without 'seeing' it in your mind's eye or 'feeling' it before you swung? Believe me, no professional golfer I've ever known has won a tournament, and surely not journeyed Amen Corner with confidence, while thinking about technique on any swing. Top performances are always linked directly to imagery.

     There's another mind, too, that surely will arrive, and without prior notice,  while players line-up an approach to the 11th green with the pin close the the water's edge, or determining just how to keep the ball on that narrow patch called the 12th green. That's the emotional mind. And managing that fast moving pathway running from the heart to the brain - managing emotions - comes first before a switch from the thinking brain (conscious) to the mind of imagination can be made.    

     Golf is a game for not thinking, you know. It's first a game of seeing and feeling, and to enter this imaginative state on the 11th tee, Sunday,  will be every player's vow. Some will get to the "zone" state sooner, and stay here longer. And I'm sure the Green Jacket will find one of them.    

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