Mental Training

[MightyB]

I'm curious. Does anybody here practice any of the modern performance enhancement mental training strategies like daily positive affirmations and situational visualization techniques?

[MightyB]

If so, what do you do and does it help?

[Ford Prefect]

I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And gosh-darnit people like me.

Haha! I don't think daily affirmations do anything. In my experience, confidence and self-esteem is built by being successful in given tasks. You can convince yourself to have confidence or self-esteem.

I do beleive that visualisations work though.

[ZIM]

Sure. Just some off-hand answers unless you've got specific q's

Visualization is common throughout the arts, I think, especially in forms work. If you're meaning goal-setting, positive visualization for growth, etc., then thats less common.

[Although, perhaps Xingyi has that- eg, 'this pi quan is gonna smash thru EVERYTHING, no matter what it is' ]

I've used self-hypnosis to good effect in stance training, standing post, etc. I think that breathing exercises and meditation are related to that as well. It is particularly useful for achieving 'sung' and holding the stance correctly for longer periods without locking up. Also, I tend to feel refreshed, not tired after a session like that.

Affirmations are a thing I've not used. I guess if you constantly put yourself down, they might help.

I think NLP might be a category of that, but I've not used it. I hear its very good tho.

What about behaviorist stuff, like dog training? Anybody use that paradigm on students? :eek: I guess belts might fall in that category...;)

[yenhoi]

I used visualization before wrestling in highschool. Sometimes before sparring, or while jumping rope etc It doesnt hurt to imagine yourself kicking major ass.

I have never been able to keep to any sort of passive meditation except maybe stance training.

:confused:

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

mmmmmmm.....beer

[yenhoi]

mucha lucha!

I live for saturday mornings.

:eek:

[Samurai Jack]

I practice zazen (seated zen meditation) everyday. I recently read an interesting entry in the Hagakure which I'll paraphrase here:

"One should meditate daily on his own inevitable death. When one daily undergoes the rigors of being torn apart by arrows, crushed by staves, hacked apart by swords, burned in fires, drowning and the like, one will be prepared to meet his fate with dignity. When one can awaken to the fact that he is already dead, the visitudes of life will be as the falling of cherry blossoms in spring."

Maybe I'll start doing that. :D

[BaldMonk]

I've read about that as well. In differnt variations. Osho has a book on awareness were he talks about a spiritual aspirant whose teacher makes him spend the night in the house of a nobleman who spent his time drinking and carousing. To make matters worse this was in India, and the nobleman was of a lower caste than the aspirant. The aspirant was upset but spent the night at the nobleman's house, with plans to return to his teacher the following morning. The nobleman brings him to his room which is lavishly furnished with every comfort imaginable. He went to bed and was dismayed to find a huge sword suspended over his bed, hanging by a single thread. Suffice to say he didn't sleep that night.

The lesson is that the sword is death hanging by a thread. It can fall at any time. Most of us sleep throughout life. But when we become aware of the sword, we become more alive/aware.

Death is the way of the Samurai

[Mr. Bao]

I do personal mental work while I stretch or in the day time when I have free time between work or school or on the public transit. I have found the mind to be a power tool in strength conditioning and in the development of gung fu. You can see my past posts on this similar topic if you research it on the wing chun forum.