Worldgolf Golf Tips

Mental Briefs For Better Golf

Visual Rehearsal

by Nick Rosa, Ph.D

Want to lower your score? Then begin by setting up a visual mental rehearsal (visual rehearsal) program and use it. Why? Because visual rehearsal allows you to experience and reinforce perfect body mechanics and performance physiology. Voila, better golf!

Reviewing "Mental Briefs Number 2", visualization is classified as disassociated or associated. Disassociated visualization is when you imagine seeing yourself in a scene on a mental screen. Associated visualization is when you imagine that you are actually in the scene looking around.

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Step 1: Begin developing your visual rehearsal program by specifying the emotional / physiological resources you need (want) to play better. What resources do you want? Where do you want them? When do you want them? Keep in mind that it is important to state what you want positively. (See "Mental Briefs ... Number 1"). Negatively defined wants, such as "I don't want to be anxious..," and "I don't want to feel my wrists bend...", need to be framed positively. For example, (a) "I want to feel relaxed.." and (b) "I want to feel my wrists straight..." or "I want to feel my shoulders, arms and hands move as a unit..."

Steps 2 and 3: Define where and when. For example, (a) "I want to feel relaxed on the fairway when I'm making my approach shot," and (b) "I want to feel my shoulders, arms and hands move as unit when I'm putting (on the green). ".

Step 4: Disassociatively visualize yourself experiencing what you want. For example, (b) "see" what your ideal putting form and mechanics look like when your shoulders, arms and hands move as a unit.

Step 5: Associate into the picture and experience what you want. For example, (b) be on the green, looking at your surroundings so that you can "feel"' your feet on the turf, "feel" your hands gripping your putter and experience what is feels like having your shoulders, arms and hand move as a unit.

Take a moment right now and do steps 4 and 5, First, step 4, imagine "looking at" yourself on a screen, putting with perfect form and mechanics.,,. Next, step 5, imagine that you are actually standing on the green "looking around", gripping your putter and putting with perfect form and mechanics. This last, all important, step allows you to more readily and powerfully experience feelings and sensations.

After setting up your program with the first four steps, spend a few minutes a day on step 5, associative visual rehearsal. This will enable you to quickly and effectively experience peak performance feelings (physiology, kinetics and body mechanics), reinforce these peak performance feelings, build them into muscle memory, and lower your golf score.

Also, be reminded that there are other powerful visualization technicques, such as the Personal Trigger, which enables you to retrieve, preserve and make available to yourself, on the golf course, that special feeling you had after making a great shot or when in a zone. Refer to "P-3: The New Golf Psychology".

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