In every sport there are three levels of development. First we learn the physical skills needed for that "Prefect Performance" which is the raison that we practice daily. After years of Perfectimg our personal Style and many club games where we learned the game rules and finer point of strategy; we approach that point of maximun possible physical development.
The next step in the individuals development is the development of a total mental
awareness and control. At this point, the conscious mind transfers control to the subconscious mind and allow for instinctive performance using the finely tuned physical perfection which has now been created and which many call "Muscle Memory". The muscles know how to do the performance so the athletic is now allowing it to happen. The Stats at the end of February shows the actual blog readers volume and how it changes in a day (26th to 28th). But ofcourse, the blog is mostly Lawn bowls and in Australia the game is well developed giving a lot of readers. Myself, in Canada can only wait for the Lawn Bowls Season in late May.
Using Petanque as the example of a "Closed Sport" where the athlete simply looks at the Petanque ball, the target of their "takeout Shot" and with a perfect performance of developed muscles movements; throws their petanque ball and removes the opponents ball. At this point of performance, the athletic feels an absence of thought as the subconscious mind performs. The shooter must feel this "VOID " which occurs when the subconscious is in control and instinctively performs those rehearsed muscle movements.
All is good as shot after shot at the opponent's ball are successfully removed. But, at some point in the game the athletic finds that the opponent"s ball is within inches of the “Cochon”. This situration is common in the end of a end of play when the opponent has unsuccessfully played or attempted take-out shot and now finds themself with only two remaining ball to play.
Anyone knowing petanque know that if the "Cochon" is knocked out of bounds and the opponent has a remaining ball to be played; then the end of play is finished without any points having been marked. If that petanque ball which is very close to the "Cochon"(small green ball in photo) is removed without touching the "cochon" then the shooter has a "Total Advantage". After such a shot when the opponent has played his last ball and no longer has any bowls to play; the shooter now has all his balls of his team's possession to be counted as point; if they are closest to the "Cochon".However, if in doing the take-out shot you had remove the jack from the legal playing surface the round ends without any points earned. Of course this is what the opponent wanted to happen while he still has a ball to be played.
A common end to the round being played and a situration where in strategy the athletic may create such a"Take-out opportunity" situration and know that with this type of shot that it requires a careful attention on how the take-out is played. In the Youtube Video of Pascal Latoublon we see the "Y take-out" shot a bit into their short video. So of importance here, is that athletic must communcate with the subconscious mind without allowing the conscious mind to take control of the "Take-out". This communication and the successful "Muscle Memory" performance which follows will requires hours of practice. The reason for practice in this mental communication is to be able to think the instruction to the subconscious and that memory or thought be so short that the subconscious mind still has control and will perform the "Muscle Memory" shot.
As an example of how the Subconscious mind mixes with your "Muscle Memory" other instinctive actions is the need to maintain your balance. Since we were first learning to walk, when we felt that we were losing our balance our body (Muscle Memory) would shift our weight to regain our balance. In any action, in any sport, when you began to lose your balance the instinctive action of gaining our balance happens and ofcourse can happen during our Delivery or sport action "Muscle Memory".
Another example which show bad communication with the subconscious is attempting to do a type of shot where we think of what will happen instead of an instruction to the subconscious. In the photo the Petnque shot is to point and after hitting the left ball on it side, have their "pointing" shot rebounds into the ball just in front of the Jack. Yes, a good Petanque player can do the "Y" Take-out shot but like the previously mention, if the petanque ball in front of the "cochon" is hit as a normal "Take-out"; there is the danger of it being moved forward and into the "cochon" and thereby moving the "cochon". The thought should be "Hit the ball on the left side" either by looking at the spot (visual) or "there" (auditive instruction). But if you were to think of the shot you would discovered that the shot would be missed because it would pass between the two balls because the subconscious would not know the action wanted and would probably throw the petanque shot between the two balls.
Eventually this subconscious communication practice will become natural and after time the "Tag" or communicated suggestion given to the Subconscious become part of the athletic flows into the "Mental Void" and the successful performance of the Take-out shot.
In the pre-shot analysis routine of creating this "Y-split take-out shot" (Video above) the coach must know if the athletic is "visual" or "auditive" in their nature of thinking. Some of us see the action and some of us hear the instruction verbally to the mind. Yes, the athletic after many years of physical practice has reached this point of development where the conscious mind no longer is giving instructions and is in total absence of control, During their performance they may have felt the " Void" of thought which allows "Muscle Memory" or instinctive actions.
In the atheltic's "Pre-performance routine", the athletic has decided what is the next action and in doing his take-out shot, the thrown petanque ball must just strike the edge of thee opponent ball causing a "Y-split" take-out. A fine shot as per the attempt to strike the ball anywhere and accept the results. A thought or image from the athletic's conscious mind is a "Tag" or remainder; and it is communicated to the subconscious mind just prior to entering the void which is followed by the "Muscle Memory" performance.
As with the years of physical practice where the conscious mind told the muscles what action to perform now the "conscious mind" seeks out the feeling of the " Void" of thought which means all performance control is transferred to the subconscious mind. This "Instinctive Performance' allows a "Muscle Memory" action which results in the removal of the opponent's ball.
First, part of this "Mental practice" is the seeking and feeling this "Void of thought". To understand how one seeks out this "Zen Void" look at something and then close your eyes. While your eyes are closed, you will feel an emptiness or "void of thought " and if you have developed a "Muscle Memory" take-out Petanque shot; they you know and have felt during your practice this void or emptiness just as you were looking at the target and doing the "take-out".
But the mental practice is not just feel this void but to give a suggestion of the shot expected and then to seek the " void". The void is the actual start of the "Muscle Memory" performance and if you seek this "void" you will not have thought of the shot but actually saw it finished as you instinctive performance ended. You saw the shot performed and now feel the void as control is returned to the conscious mind. The shot is performed because when your conscious mind was feeling the void the subconscious mind was actually doing the shot instinctively.
The reason the mental practice is needed and eventually after several months of practice; the "Tag" which was the thought or visual image will no longer be needed and you will just have transmitted a micro-second thought. You have taught your two minds to exchange control just before the "Muscle Memory" or instinctive performance and then for the conscious mind to regain control as it see the actual shot having been performed. Thhis "Mental Practice" is intended to have taught the conscious to not take control, to instead to have given the "Tag" or thought which the subconscious mind has added or modified into the "Muscle Memory".
Another term you will see in my blogs of Subconscious communication is "Tells" which like in the card game of poker is a term used to indicates a subconscious action which a viewer can identify as the subconscious mind doing something. There are two types of "Tells". First a tell indicates the subconscious mind is doing something wheather an action or a thought. In a later part of this group of three blogs it will show the athletic using a memory of performance to identify the distance. Sort of seeing a memory of having done the action at that distance. Or the distance feeling is wrong and the athletic does another visualization of the shot. With each visualization, we the viewer can see the "Tell" of the subconscious thought.
The second "Tell" type is a incorrect action which the subconscious attempts to correct. An example is the Petanque player losing a bit of balance or doing a body twist during the "take-out" shot. This tell may be as simple as lifting a foot as if to regain balance. Remember, the human body does re-balance instinctively when it feels the balance being shifted. This "Tell" may indicate the error created by the "Muscle Memory" as in all it physical movement; it is doing a balance correction. This "Tell" is what a coach will work with the athletic to remove and thus not cause the performance to have a error of performance. Example, Maybe the coach will tell the athletic to feel the foot being pushed into the ground. This action will not affect the performance but will prevent the "instinctive" nature of the body to want to regain balance.
The physical movement of delivery in Lawn bowls and Curling are almost idential except for the Curling athletic will do a small wrist twist to place an effect on the curling stone. In helping a Curling athletic who was learning lawn bowls as their summer sport, I used a "toe-tap" as the "Tag" to communicate not to turn the wrist. How does this affect the wrist movement. If the athletic allows total "Muscle Memory" the wrist twist is part of the many physical action of the movement. The "Tag" was given with only two ideas to the athletic learning Lawn bowls. The visual image of seeing their bowl go straight and the vocal word "Bowls". The "Tag" does not interfer with the performance of delivery of a Lawn bowl but the athletic subconscious mind makes the correction because of the micro-second image (visual) or vocal word (auditive).
In 2/2 of this group of three blog the "Tell" of the Lawn Bowlers suggest the athletic is using a "Memory retreival" to know the distance of the target jack to which the Lawn Bowling Bowl is expected to be rolled.. In lawn bowls the player rolls to a "Jack" which may be between 21 meters to 33 meters, so distance is important to know as one complete roll more or less of the lawn bowling bowl can be a different of 12 to 15 inches less or more in the delivery distance.
Being "Visual" my self and in my sport of Instinctive Archery when I was doing a Bowhunting competiton at the national level; I would be hearing or seeing the heart beat of the animal of the paper target which I was shooting. This, my mental "micro-second" was the "Pre-void" thought just prior to my arrow being released to the target.
In teaching the above mention Lawn-bowling student with a "Muscle Memory" habit of Curling (but of another sport) I supplied a "Tag" which was visual and auditive. It was intended to correct or instruct the subconscious of an action to be (or not to be) performed. With practice of this mental trick, eventually the athletic will simply , like my self hearing the heart beat of the target"; no longer think of the "toe-tap" because the "Tag" would have created a modified physical action. In this case a corrective action to prevent a wrist twist which was needed in Curling. Of course when this athletic returned to Curling in his winter sport his normal curling shot would be performed because he would not have the "Tag" as part of his routine prior to performance of their Curling delivery.
The creativity of the coach in conjunction with the athletic must find that right "Tag" which does not interfere with the "Muscle Memory" performance but communicate the selective hit wanted. At some point in the Petanque athletic development of his "take-out" shot he stopped seeing the complete 3 1/2 inch ball of the opponent and began seeing an area of the ball which was now the target followed by theview of the actual result of the "take-out" shot. But because practice such a shot is a conscious mind instruction (aiming) the athletic is still fighting with the conscious mind to obtain control by the subconscious mind to perform the instinctive "Muscle Memory". In the case of the ball near the "cochon" shot my visual image is see the ball go the direction I want willout the actual remove the “Cochon”. Prior to the "Zen Void" I imagine the opponent ball jumping over the "Cochon" as it is removed.
I said earlier that in some sports like petanque (where the target distance is short) or the performance is immediately followed by seeing the result of the performance; that the athletics stay in the Phase one of physical development and not advance into "mental Performance". Unless they move into this second phase, the athletic will want to aim at the side of the opponent's ball and create a "Y" take-out shot. The thought which you experience in reading that last sentence is the conscious thought the athletic has and being long it becomes a conscious instruction. So the two mind are always fighting with having control of the action and this cause misses.
In the video suggest in 2/2 of this "communicating with the Subconscious" mind you will see how rapid the petanque player's performance happens. But to create this type of "take-out shot required practice of aiming at the outer side of the ball and successful transfer of control to "Muscle Memory" or instinctive shot.
There are many different performance shots in every sport and if the "Muscle Memory is to do the successful performance or shot this "Mental practice" of communicating with the subconscious and giving control for the final action, must become natural and occur every time the action is performed. Missed take-out shots or performances is the slippage of the subconscious mind as the conscious mind took back control.
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