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"Basically what he helped me do is keep
from getting out of my rhythm, helped me stay in focus. What it does is it gets the brain to transfer the memory of
the way you shot when you were shooting well. It helps the brain click your body into that quicker than you normally
would...it gets you into a zone." -- New York Knicks guard Allan Houston (to the Bergen (NJ) Record, March 2000)
What Is Peak Performance Coaching?
Peak Performance Coaching helps people to perform their best more
frequently and when they most need to. It identifies a persons' mental
zone (what the brain is doing when the person is giving an outstanding performance) and provides tools to ensure
that the person is in that zone when performing. In the highly visible and competitive
world of elite athletics, performing at peak "on demand" can be the difference between going to the NBA Finals or to
the Draft Lottery, signing a maximum or a minimum contract, and having a long career versus being cut in training camp.
My Peak Performance
program for athletes is based predominantly on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a personal development technology
developed in the early 1970's by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, and incorporates tools from other personal development
technologies as well. The program is designed to work in the very unique world
of competitive sports.
Although most of us
need to perform well on a regular basis, athletes are in the unique position of performing in public, having their performances
analyzed immediately, and needing to get it right the first time. Even outstanding
movie actors get to do a number of takes to get a scene just right. By comparison,
if an elite sprinter isn't running her fastest race, she can't stop and ask all the other runners to start over so that she
can run faster!
Why Use Peak Performance Coaching?
There is a very
short window of opportunity for an athlete to perform at a World-Class level. In
many endeavors, we get better after decades of experience but, in elite sports competition, we must improve before age and
injuries cause the body to respond with less than a World-Class performance.
Much time is spent on
physical preparation and rightly so. But the brain and body work together, and
without preparing the brain for competition, games are lost, opportunities are missed, and many careers end before their time.
An Example
A professional
basketball player might play well on a regular basis; play phenomenally when the team plays in his hometown; and play poorly
in one particular gym. Identifying what is going on in his brain when he plays
in his hometown would allow us to improve normal game-to-game performance; identifying and modifying what is going on in his
brain when he plays poorly in the one gym would allow us to dramatically improve his performance when he plays there.
Skeptical? Try this on for size:
Send an email, or call. What is it you'd like
to achieve? I'll work with you -- and you'll get results.
Tips on Visualizing
Visualize a shot that you've already made. That way, you will always feel certain a shot will go in.
Visualize different situations -- one shot, two shots, technical
foul shots, early game, and end of the game with the game on the
line.
Make it as real as possible. You can visualize anything that you want any way
that you want. Make the picture quiet at home and loud on the road. Change the brightness. Change the picture until you feel very
confident when you look at it.
Remember -- visualizing doesn't replace all
of your physical practice. It does allow you to get extra practice while your
body is recovering from a game or other exertion.
From ESPN Radio's GameNight (12/16/03):
Q. How can someone who's missing a lot of shots in a game turn it around
quickly?
A. "The quickest way to get back on track in a game
is to shoot off the pass, not off the dribble. Shooting off the dribble requires
the conscious mind to get involved to decide when it's okay to shoot. When a
player's not shooting well, it's often because the conscious mind is too involved with the process..."
"...shooting
off the pass requires you to get in your shooting range and be able to catch the ball.
As soon as you catch it, you shoot. Your conscious mind is not part of
the shot process and your unconscious, which knows what to do to put the ball in the hoop because you've practiced it so many
times, takes over and does exactly what it has to do."
More about Neuro
Linguistic Programming
NLP
is the study of how the brain functions and creates our understanding of ourselves and the world. Bandler and Grinder identified a set of guidelines that our brains follow when interpreting our experiences,
as well as guidelines our brains follow when we communicate with ourselves. NLP
also provides a set of tools that can be used to enhance that interpretation and communication.
Identifying
specifically how a person interprets the world and communicates with him- or her- self provides the clues for improving performance. We can identify what the brain is doing when the person is at his/her best and we
can identify and remove obstacles that may be keeping him/her from doing it more often.
When utilizing customized Peak Performance programs, people perform optimally whenever they need to for as long as
they need to.
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