This comes from Nick Bollettieri, director of Bolletierie/IMG Academies, and leading coach to tennis champions:
"Most of us, especially athletes, are all too familiar with the misery of Aristotle, commonly known as overthinking. Ever since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet nearly 150,000 years ago, our well-developed brains (blame it on the cerebral cortex) have enabled us to think, reason, create, and empathize - all good things - but also to worry, doubt, and obsessively self-analyze - not good things, especially if you are a tennis player serving for game, set, match, and championship at the US Open. Think of it as the "centipede effect": if the lowly centipede had to think about coordinating each of its legs to get from Point A to Point B, it would be totally immobilized - and I have worked with some athletes who were not far from that state of mind!"
This is taken directly from the foreword of the book Mental Training for Peak Performance, Top Athletes Reveal the Mind Exercises They Use to Excel, by Steven Ungerleider, Ph.D. (Rodale, 2005)
Looking forward to reading this book, as I reflect on my recent tennis loss where my brain felt as if it were soaking in molasses...
I have a feeling that what is coming is a model for envisioning whole body movement, rather than focusing on one leg at a time, like the centipede. When athletes are able to visualize the flow of body movement and ball motion they can get out of the molasses and create results. It's the inability to shake of thoughts of the last error that interfere with the next positive visualization.
Clearly "being in the moment" has its rewards in sports, like in life.
Now, if only I can remember all that tomorrow for the match...
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