Anxiety is the worry or fear about what hasn't happened yet. It manifests itself in increased heart rate, increased muscle tension, turning off the thought centers in your head. All of this is called the "fight or flight syndrome". When you are standing over that little white ball and all you can think about is the lake off to the right, you have anxiety. When notice the lake and then it disappears from your mind because all you can see is your ball sitting in the middle of the fairway out about 265, you don't have anxiety.
You must learn, through practice, just as you practice the mechanics of the golf swing, to see what is GOOD out there and not what is BAD. Your subconscious cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined. It will do WHATEVER IT CAN to make what you "see" come true. If you see success and TRUST YOURSELF, you will succeed. If you see your ball going in the water, and it is a real image in your head, I don't care what swing thought you have, your subconscious is going to say "What PhillyGolf wants is to have his ball splash just about THERE" and it's going there, my friend.
Practice visualizing the outcome you want and ignoring, not even given a passing credence, to the outcome you don't want. One of the things that helps me a lot is to look at whomever I am playing with and say "Ok, this is starting out at that tree on the right of the fairway and drawing back into the middle." For me vocalizing what I want makes it more "real" to me and makes it easier to do. Then I just go hit the shot.
Does it work all the time ? No, does it work more often than not YES. Is it a LOT better than saying "Deal Lord, don't let me hit it in the water?" YES IT IS.
Training your golf brain is just as important as training your golf muscles. If you envision success rather than failure you will succeed more often than fail, and then you will succeed more often because it becomes easier to envision success, because you have already done so successfully. It's called builiding confidence.
Just as when I stand over a 4 foot putt, regardless of the "need" to sink it. The idea that I might miss NEVER crosses my mind. Do I make every 4 footer I ever stand over? I don't remember ever having missed one THAT IS THE KEY.
Hope this helps,
Obi WunPutt
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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read... G. Marx
Speaking of anxiety - what sort of mechanisms do you employ to control it? I'm of the opinion that it cannot be suppressed, but it can be managed.
I don't think you can eliminate anxiety, because, in the final analysis, it means you CARE about what's happening. What you can do is manage it. FIRST you have to admit that it's there. That is harder for some people to do than you might think.
Second, you CAN control your autonomic reflexes (those things like breathing and heart rate) It takes practice, primarily visualization and association work which can be taught (I can go into extreme detail if someone wants). When you SMILE, your face is not tense, it is relaxed. Smiling helps, and the only thing that we do that has been proven to break a state of tension in our bodies is to laugh. I don't think the "what's the worst thing that could possibly happen here" question/method works particularly well. I think the "OK, I am UPTIGHT about this, now let's relax, consciously, relax" works much better.
In a former life, when married to the Evil Princess, I was a road musician, and would get physically ill before every performance. It just showed I CARED. It is not unnatural to feel anxious about something. But how you handle it is to recognize it, and then control what your body is doing with the anxiety, and it will go away.
Obi WunPutt
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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read... G. Marx
Does not one of you feel that anxiety can be reversed?
Just curious.
My next post will be elaborate - but first, please, think about anxiety...how it is acquired....
Please.
I don't think it can be eliminated.....Anxiety as a feeling anyway.....but if your confidence in your skills "outweighs" your doubts, and you have the resources, everything is going well, etc. I think it can manifest itself positively.....more as energy than anxiety (assuming you think of anxiety in the way people normally think of anxiety- negatively, that is). I guess that's what happens when you're in the zone.
Anxiety is your mind readying your body for something.
I think it only becomes negative if we attach something negative to it (with our thinking.....or doubts that stem from certain things- bad experiences that are hard to shake, a chain of failures, etc.....doubts that initiate thinking)....if we're not prepared for the anxiety.....not "up to the task."
....
As I've learned anyway, anxiety can be reduced. You have to know how though.
Things that have worked for me:
-first step usually (along with Clear Key): deep breath.....sometimes I get tense and start breathing very shallow or not enough.
-occupying the conscious mind....with Clear Key...this is huge, IMO. In my experiences, the quickest way to reduce anxiety is to simply get whatever is fueling it off your mind. Negative thoughts fuel it.....trying to figure it out fuels it.....any conscious thought that adds to anxiety. This can be a tough pill to swallow....but next time you catch yourself thinking (err- worrying) about something just sing a song to yourself or something. If it starts up again.....supress it again with the same song. Keep doing it.
-stay within your style. If nothing else works....and I'm having trouble getting my mind off something, I usually just concede to not trying so hard and to getting back to my Craftsman style (easygoing). This is my last step because I figure that if my mind if completely off something (non-conscious) I'll likely fall back into my style pattern anyway. I dunno if this is consistent with what Carey would say but it makes sense to me.
-to reduce physical tension and release stress: take a short breath through your nose, overgrip your club, hold breath for a few seconds, release...start Clear Key and execute shot.
This stuff is from Carey Mumford's book...The Double Connexxion.....I really would recommend getting it.
Second, you CAN control your autonomic reflexes (those things like breathing and heart rate) It takes practice, primarily visualization and association work which can be taught (I can go into extreme detail if someone wants).
Could you go into detai on that Fred?? I won't obligate you to EXTREME detail as you said.....nonono sir(ee-Bob).....
The first thing that you need to understand is that everything in our bodies can be controlled by visualization. But there is a leap of faith that must happen before you can actually do these things. The minute you think "this is stupid" or "this can't possibly work" it won't. I am working on a golf version Of my book 'The Art of Getting Out Of Your Own Way", which is about exercising control over your levels of excitement.
Here is the first exercise. (we will add one exercise or two a week until the series is complete)
Lie on your back on the floor. Put a HEAVY book, such as an unabridged dictionary on your stomach. Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth so that the book raises and lowers without your chest rising and falling. This is the proper way to breath. As you do this and it becomes more and more natural, focus on how your breath feels going in and out of your lungs. The key is FOCUS on this, to the exclusion of all other sensations.
When you can do this without the book as a guide, and do it on demand, let me know and we will do stage 2.
By the Way, this is a GREAT way to get yourself to fall asleep at night if you are having trouble with that. It is a major relaxation exercise.
FWIW, when I was in 'Nam and firing a rifle at long distances (1000-1200 yds), I learned to fire in between my heart beats, because otherwise your pulse will throw your aim off. So bear with me, what I am talking about here REALLY works. It would be better if we could sit and work through these exercises together, but unless you all want to show up in Hemet for a seminar, that is unlikely
Lemme know when you have this down cold, and we will continue.
Obi WunPutt
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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read... G. Marx
so what happens when you birdie a difficult hole nad bogey the next without changing your emotional level..that is staying even keel..or do you need to celebrate a little i'm pretty good and being able to disconnect and focus only at what i'm trying to accomplish and don't beat myself up when i doesn't pan out
Hybrid Mode
