Tapping into Your Best Game
by Peter Lambrou, Ph.D.
(This article is re-printed with permission from San Diego Sports Magazine, where it was first published in Vol.2, Issue 2. in 2003: 619-200-7682, staff@SDsports.com)Jack Nicklaus talked about it in his 1974 book, Golf My Way. Boxer Ken Norton utilized it in his victory over Mohammed Ali in 1976. Chicago Cubs' first baseman, Bill Buckner used it in 1982 to get out of a batting slump and went from .278 to .405 later that season. More recently, rumors have indicated that Tiger Woods used it to help get control of his game, and Phil Jackson has credited it with helping him do his best as coach of the Lakers.
What is IT? This is the mental side of one's game using various techniques such as hypnosis, visualization, or guided imagery. There is no doubt that managing the mental and emotional factors in both team and individual sports is a vital part of being a winner, whether a weekend tournament player or sports professional playing on network television.
Over my fifteen years of clinical work I've used a wide variety of methods, and the two that I find most effective are hypnosis and an innovative method that combines mental focus and self-applied acupressure, which my colleague, George Pratt, Ph.D. and I call Emotional Self-Management and is the basis for our recently published book, Instant Emotional Healing: Acupressure for the Emotions, where we explain the science and teach the method. Here's how it works.
Jimmy is a contractor by profession, but he is a golf fanatic at heart who wanted to sharpen his game and get out of a bad stroke of 'hebe jebes' he couldn't seem to shake. Normally a highly competitive golfer who plays twice a week, plus a lesson, Jimmy was missing the easy putts and unable to keep a straight drive or fairway shot to save his life. He'd gotten to the point many people have sunk to where they can't get their head clear of the last mistake to give the present one a fair chance, so they add another shanked drive or sputtering putt. Inevitably the next will be even harder to focus on than the last.
There were several mental and emotional factors affecting Jimmy. First, we did an assessment of his mind/body 'togetherness' meaning to see if his mind and body are both going in the same direction (the psycho-babble term is congruence). This was done using a method called neuromuscular feedback - checking relative muscle strength under different conditions. It's amazing how the body can reveal information the conscious mind is unable to access.
Jimmy holds one arm out to his side (we could isolate other muscle groups but the deltoid of the arm is very convenient), and I press down on it at the wrist. Jimmy does his best to hold it straight and rigid. As he follows instructions to hold opposing thoughts in his mind "I want to be happy," "I want to be miserable," I check the muscle strength.
Studies at a major medical school and published in a scientific journal demonstrate that muscles reflect ļinner truth' that is, while the conscious mind may think one thing, the body reflects whether that is held as truth or not. Jimmy had what we call a "reversal" he tested strong (truth) on "I want to be miserable' and weak (untrue) on "I want to be happy." That is not the direction he intends nor is it congruent.
The correction for this form of self-sabotaging is a cognitive focus on self-acceptance in the presence of anxiety, frustration, and challenging situations, while he activates a specific acupressure point on the chest above the heart. We test his muscle strength again and the direction of strength is reversed back to the correct and congruent direction, strong on "I want to be happy," and weak on "I want to be miserable," and most important, Jimmy feels a difference, his anxiety and frustration have lessened, but we're not through by a long shot (say 300 yards).
Now that Jimmy's self-sabotage is corrected (he'll be asked to administer this simple correction before any practice, game, or tournament), we proceed to eliminate the emotional frustration with his past few months of steadily worsening play and a few awful losses in important matches that cause his blood to boil thinking about them. We move through a process that has him focus on the situation causing disappointment, grief, and frustration while he gently taps on a sequence of specific acupoints on his face, upper body, and hands. Next, he does a series of eye movements that activate the visual areas of the brain, and while tapping an acupoint on the back of his hand he alternatively activates left and right sides of his brain with a simple counting and a simple music recollection.
After a few minutes, I ask Jimmy to focus once again on the past matches, missed putts and bungled drives. His eyes look up to the right, up to the left as if searching for the feelings that he had beginning this treatment. Then he calmly says, "I feel pretty good. I've just been getting in my own way. What's really important is where I am right now. I think I'll be OK on Thursday." He smiles and shakes his head asks, "Where did all that agitation go?"
It may seem like we're done, but there was one more step. "Jimmy," I asked, "What would you like to think and feel about yourself next time you're on the course?"
I was asking him to formulate a positive self-concept and belief about himself related to his game, and after a few moments of explanation he said, "I'd like to feel I'm calm, confident, and powerful."
Then I asked him to rate how much he believed that statement, "I'm calm, condident, and powerful," 'right now' as he said it out loud. On a 0 to 10 scale with 10 meaning he fully and completely believed that he would be calm, confident, and powerful, he rated it a 5, good for a start compared with how he felt coming into the office 30 minutes earlier, but not optimal. We did another brief series of tapping while holding in mind a balanced thought, "I completely accept myself, even with some disbelief in the positive statement."
A quick muscle check to ensure all blocks were cleared and when asked again to rate his belief in the statement, he smiled and said, "It feels like a 9, and I'll bet after Thursday, it'll be a 10." That's what we were looking for, Jimmy was ready for his Thursday game. I had made an audiotape of the procedure as we went along and suggested he do the exercise once before the game and give me a call afterwards. He didn't call on Friday, but the next Tuesday he called to say his 'old game' was back. Though he did very well at the Thursday game he wanted to see if it 'held' for a Saturday game before calling to report.
Jimmy's case is relatively straightforward while some people also have a deeply held negative belief about themselves that needs to be corrected. Not long ago a father brought his 17-year-old daughter to me for hypnosis because she was having a bad season at tennis. Kayla played for her school's varsity team and was having a terrible start, so bad, that in spite of her past successes she might be moved out of the A line-up.
Using the muscle checking method, I detected that Kayla did have some reversals, but her problem went even deeper. She had a negative life belief that was limiting her ability to succeed, and her muscles couldn't lie. After asking some questions it surfaced that her older sister was a gifted student, now in college on an academic scholarship. Kayla held a belief at an unconscious level that she wasn't smart enough to be a winner. As irrational as that may have been to me or anyone else, her beliefs were forged from childhood experiences where her sister had been the bright one and she had been a bit of a 'tom-boy.' Her negative beliefs were not conscious, they had become subconscious, and even unconscious, out of her awareness until her muscles betrayed the deeply held beliefs.
With the target now clarified, we used the Emotional Self-Management tapping method to remove the reversals to changing the belief, then installed a new belief, "I'm a smart tennis player" and used some hypnotic imagery to put it all together in a mental rehearsal. Kayla went on to have a winning junior year and did get a partial scholarship in her senior year.
How can tapping an acupressure point and holding a specific thought make a difference? For thousands of years acupuncture, acupressure, and other methods of activating specific locations on the body with needles, heat, pressure, and more recently with small electrical current, laser light, and even magnets have resulted in health and healing of many sorts.
Modern brain imaging using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging has begun to reveal a unique effect on the brain from stimulating some of these locations. Research at the University of California, Irvine has shown evidence of unexpected brain activation from acupuncture stimulation. These findings have led theorists to believe that when the brain is focused on specific thought patterns associated with 'stuck' emotions or beliefs while certain acupoints are activated, the block or reversal to letting go of that unproductive emotion or belief is either dissolved or bypassed. One way of conceptualizing it is to imagine the neural pathways like streams of water. If a boulder or rock were blocking the stream it would create a disruption in the flow, whirlpools or eddies of interference. When the obstruction is removed or dissolved the flow is restored and from a human point of view, our emotions become balanced and rational thought can prevail.
While this is not a panacea for all problems, it is a powerful, rapid, and very portable method to eliminate slumps, overcome obstacles to higher levels of performance, and creating a winning mindset.
Peter Lambrou, Ph.D., is a clinical and consulting psychologist and co-author of several books including Instant Emotional Healing: Acupressure for the Emotions and Self-Hypnosis: The Complete Manual for Health and Self-Change. Dr. Lambrou is the Chairman of the Task Force for Psychology and Integrative Medicine at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla where he maintains a private practice. His web address is www.peterlambrou.com
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Nicklaus, J. (1974). Golf My Way. New York: Simon & Schuster.