Mind over tumbling?

There is a phrase used within certain circles of sportsmen and women that says: "What happens out there is the result of what happens in here". This implies that your actions and performances are the result of your thinking patterns, the movies or soundtracks playing in your mind.

In sport psychology this principle has been applied to help athletes improve their performance, their focus, and their ability to get into the 'zone' when competing, and the research done regarding visualization has revealed staggering results.

The issue most have with visualization is the idea that simply visualizing something can improve your performance. This concept has been proven to be the stumbling block because we get hooked on the term "Visualization" which is a bit of a misnomer. The concept of visualization is better stated as "Mental rehearsal" and the results depend on the quality and also the amount of senses used during this rehearsal in the mind. It is important to add more than one sense because we function with more than one sense, so simply using sight (viewing the image in ones mind) won't suffice. We need to insert our other senses (Auditory, touch, smell, and taste) as much as possible. our emotions could also be added in certain situations to sement the image more deeply in the mind.

There is a story about a pilot who used visualization to rehearse his reactions to emergencies during take-off every time he would fly. During one of his flights, as they were about to take off one of the wheels of the plane malfunctioned and this pilot stopped the plane and turned it around with such a speed and accuracy that his co-pilot and crew were amazed at the sudden turn-around.

This might simply be a story, or there might be a truth to it, but most professional athletes will tell you that they visualize their events before the time. Some you could even witness doing so as they move around mimicking the movements they are about to do, and with some you might even notice small twitch-like muscle contractions as the muscles contract and release. This is because most athletes use their kinesthetic (Touch) sense. This is mainly because hereunder there are several other components such as balance, pressures, as well as emotions and internal sensations that could be felt. If you're properly visualizing your muscles will be firing to some degree because our brains function like a computer to a degree, where it does not discern the difference between what is true and what is imaginary, so when we visualize properly the same neural pathways are firing as those that would be firing when actually performing the action we are visualizing.

When we use visualization in gymnastics it is for various reasons, the main one being that it helps the gymnast understand complex movement better, and it develops the type of mind-body connection needed within the sport. It also helps with memorizing the routine in a way that does not necessarily need conscious thinking and helps create the illusion of automatic movement.

But with all these positive effects our mental images or videos can have, the opposite is also true. The way we instruct the gymnast to do certain things has an influence on their ability to do it. Like a computer our brains take information, processes it, and gives feedback in accordance to the input. It is a mystery but our brains struggle to accept negative input, it is a simple case of don't think about the pink elephant and what do we do...we think of the pink elephant because the brain first needs to know what it is that it should not be doing. So a simple illustration to this would be I rarely tell my gymnasts not to bend their legs, as this would lead some to focus on 'don't bend my knees', instead of the opposite of bent knees. Rather I tell them what I want them to do, so straight knees please. And because we tend to produce mental pictures of our instructions their is a mental image of a straight knee, but it cannot stay there so I give them the feeling of a straight knee, which is tension on the knee joint, so they have an image and a sensation to go with it.

This is where the problem with our brains come in and how the input we give causes quite a lot of trouble. How many children (and grownups) have developed the habit of using 'I can't' as an excuse to avoid starting or completing a task. How often do you see a child (or grownup) telling themselves they are stupid and pathetic and not good at anything while they have not ever attempted to do that which they claim to be so terrible at?

The one who constantly calls himself a failure rarely succeeds, and completely misses and dismisses any form of success simply as a lucky strike, while the one who doesn't necessarily call himself anything but focuses on the success of the task at hand rarely fails, and dismisses failures as learning opportunities without which he would never be successful. Such a one tends to be more resourceful and more attractive to those around them.

Our minds are powerful things which can either help us grow or hinder us from doing that which we want to do because of the wrong movie or image we have given ourselves to.

It is important to realize the immense influence our words can have on others, how they can bring life, or death. We might not realize it or like to acknowledge it, but our words carry weight and it is for this reason that scripture commends those who can bridle their tongue, for the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity that defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. it can bring heaven to a person in desperate need of affirming words, or hell to a person crushed under the pressure of slander and gossip.

as a final note it is also important to note that scripture exhorts us to think on and let our minds dwell on whatever things are honest, true, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and worthy of any praise.

If we can get it right to commend others for their good work and their small successes, more than we condemn them for their small failures, even our own ones, we would more readily correct in love and speak in a way that builds up and does not tear down because the image in our mind is one of understanding, compassion, grace, love and truth.