Talking to the Subconscious mind 2/2

 Why would we want to talk to the Subconscious? If you are talking to yourself, or hear your words, then you're telling the conscious self what to do. You are controlling your muscle's movements. When the subconscious mind is involved there is an absence of communication. You are in a "Void of thought" with the action just happening. (Instinctively) But because of this "Void" when the action is being performed; it can only be modified by a visual image before starting the action. If it is necessary to communicate to the subconscious mind before and after the action it must be an image seen or thought. So you transmit a thought and then let the subconscious mind do the action knowing that the thought is going to influence the result of that action.

This blog is 2/2 on "Talking to the Subconscious" and if you have not read the 1/2 where I discuss advance topics such as "Muscle Memory" and "Tags" and "Tells" as subconscious actions having influence on your delivery or sport performance. Therefore, I suggest you read it first.  To refresh this previous information.

 "Muscle memory" is the ability of the mind to remember muscle performance routines developed over many hours of practice. A competition athletic progress to a point of personal development where the subconscious mind is performing their bowls delivery or sport routine. You send images which become the communications to the subconscious.

During this time the athletic is often in a "void of thought" as the subconscious mind (or his instinctive actions) are performing the action or routine. In a Youtube video with Tiger Wood, he saids "Between the swing and seeing the ball in flight, I have no memory of what just happen" which is his comments on his performance. His perfection is now to the point he thinks his shot and then lets the subconscious do it.

"Tags" and "Tells" are signs of the athletic's talk or subconscious communication. A "Tag" is an action inserted into a routine which does not affect the performance but distracts the subconscious mind (break the continual action of the "'Muscle Memory") or suggests something is different.. As an athletics expands their mental perfections they will allow more subconscious control over their performance and we see their movements as  a "Tell" of their communication with the subconscious before their release the subconscious to  perform it..

Dogs Playing Poker by
 Cassius Marcellus Coolidge,

 Like in poker where a professional player may make a facial action following receiving a good card; anD this small thing is telling others of his satification with the card. The "Tell" is often seen during a performance delay as the individual communicates with the subconscious.. The athletic's subconscious commun-ication may be to indicate the raison for a change from normal routine or to assure the subconsicous that it will perform correctly. Yes, the subconscious mind, like a child, can be confused because of a change in action and will began to doubt what the athletic is requesting to be done.

Lets look at three similar sports. Curling, Lawn bowls and Petanque. All three roll, slide or throw an object to a precice distance. Curling is the easiest because it is one constance distance from a "Release Line". Petanque is a shorter distance as the "Cochon" or target is between 6 meters and 10 meters to be legal. In lawn bowls the "Jack" is short at 21 meters and at it maximun at 33 meters or 31 meter if starting the game.

"Muscle Memory" developed with practice shows how to perform for that fixed curling distance and after much practice; the curler becomes natural to draw his stone to the centre of the house.

 In petanque, the player can throw his "Petanque ball" and hit the target. Usually another ball which is counting and is between 6 meters and 15m ( can be behind or have a displaced "cochon"). But he is throwing a 2.5 inch ball at a 2.5 inch ball and how the mind gets to measure the distance of his target is important. However, Lawn Bowls has the large distance to be played and with the fast playing surface that distance is even more important. To have properly calculated the distance where one more roll of the bowl means being shot (point) or not; means even the flick of a finger can mean two feet to far.

So lets look at "Muscle Memory" and using "Tags"  to communicate to the subconscious an idea to improve the performance. Think we all have seen the game show "The price is Right" and understand the "Find the price" where the individual guess the price of a product and the game host says "Higher" or "Lower" as the player attempts to find the right price.

In the same way, there are only two methods for the subconscious to know the distance of the Petanque Thrower's target (for a take-out) or the Lawn bowler's Jack distance for a "Draw" to the jack.  One is practice and practice and the mind feels the distance, and some time very precisely. But this take years of practice to arrive with that proper feeling and the surrounding can influence it.  Example, a club house behind the "jack" make it seem closer to you because of the big object; as also a open field or space behind the jack makes it seem farther away.

The second distance calculation is more like the game show host above, giving the actual price as we tell ourself "Farther", "farther" as the subconscious works to find the proper distance for the Petanque take-out or the Bowls roll to the Jack. Lets start with Petanque because in petanque most players doing a take-out have developed the feeling of distance quickly. But as with all sports, when you have a "Muscle Memory" for an action it is fixed and hard to change later.

So as the Petanque player's subconscious mind goes into the void of doing the shot, the player is just looking at the ball to be hit and feeling it's distance. And some players just go to the shooting circle (mat in Bowls) and do a single swing and throw their ball and hits the target. (The first method of distance) But like in Bowls, the Petanque player has more precision at certain distance and seems to miss more often at other distances. The lawn bowler learns to know his "Natural Distance" where if he does a relax performance his rolled bowl goes a certain distance. Of course, he gets to read distance as a marker on the side boards is 21 meters and half way from there to the back bords is 5 or 6 meters farther.

In the blog of December 2016 "Muscle Memory and The "Zen" Zone" I mention  "the Petanque video of Mark Wildeboer where he taps his toe.. (his tell of pre-visualizations )  in the video  before his actual action of throwing his takeout shot. At the time of his shooting he is in a "Void of thought" and we say he is  "In the Zen Zone".  This blog was remade and updated in February 2023 and may contain new material.

 In the video what we see Mark doing is "seeing his shot mentally" and using a memory of having done a similar shot in the past. Because he has chosen the wrong memory for that distance he has gone back to retreival another memory of a longer distance.  Once he has the proper distance he will do his take out shot. This is call memory retrevial projection or Previsualization of his shot. Each time he is communiating to the subconscious an effort to define the distance. To those of us who do this type of previsualization we feel the correct distance and then do the throwing of the take-out shot.

In this video the "Tell" during his previsualization is showing his mental communication with the subconscious.  In that same blog are two Lawn Bowlers,  Angela Boyd or  Laura Daniels, at the 2016 World Bowls Finals who are like wise doing this sort of mental communication with the subconscious as they find the distance needed  to roll their bowl to the jack. 

But to understand the use of a "Tag" we must return to the first method of mental judgement of the distance for the Petanque player. The "feeling and the doing" action which was developed through hours of practice.  How do we teach this player to communicate to the subconscious and do those shots which often they miss because the subconscious mind can't feel the distance. Remember, distance is calculated by the eyes and if you are playing indoors near a window with outside sunlight; your mind will confuse the distance.

Some how we want to tell the subconscious mind that we have to think of the distance a bit farther than what the feeling is.  To night, I was talking to Frank a good Petanque Shooter who has this "one swing take-out" method of distance knowing. I gave him a "Tag" or a suggestion thought with words which will talk to the subconscious and make an adjustment.

I said to him "When the target ball is "Quite Far" Look at the "Reflection on top" and when "Quite Close" look at the "Shadow" under the ball. So the "Tag" is two parts - an look at something and words "Quite Far" I did not have time to tell Frank to not "shot at the reflection" or "shoot at the shadow" which is what beginners do.

Frank has his feeling for distance and when he goes to shoot his subconscious action will be done in a void of thought so he must let his subconscious do it action. But if prior to release his mental thought to the void of the subconscious he looks somewhere the words "quite far" will be heard for the first months of using a "Tag". The subconsicous mind will modify it shot by a little because of the thought or action of looking and there by improve the shooting ability. It is important that the "Tag" does not change the subconscious action which it would do if we were to think words. To look just prior to releasing the mind's thought to the subconscious does nothing but improve the performance.   Like wise, with the above example of the sunlight window near the indoor playing field. If the shooter just glances or thinks of the window before his shot it will be information to the subconscious and allow for it to be corrected.

To finish this blog I must warn you that the subconscious mind was developed for survival and prevention of danger and sometime we end up doing things which we would never think of doing because the Survival Instinctive (subconscious) does it for us.

Several years ago, maybe 20 years or more, I was showing the precision of the subconscious mind to a Petanque athletics who was practicing and was expected to go to the World Petanque Competition within weeks. Because of my own experience in Archery where I was an instinctive shooter (no sights) I learn that you can't always believe what the subconscious mind send you as information.

The Petanque "cochon" or jack is about 1 1/4 inch in size and in shooting to hit it at a distance of 6 meters as many Petanque players do; is precise. But even  more precise is for the subconscious mind to be able to see that you had hit it on the side and not in the center at such a distance (about 40 feet). To show this to Alex who was asked to hit the "Cochon" which  was behind the 3 inch petanque ball. His object shot was to pass over the top of the petanque ball and hit the jack. A shot he and may at his level had done many times. However,  I had removed the "Cochon" but Alex had not seen me remove it so he thought it was still hidden behind the petanque ball.

His first shot was too high and he knew he missed it but on the 2nd shot; his shot was exact, and if the "cochon" had been there he would have hit it. But he did not know it was not there so he expected to see it go flying into the distance as happens when this shot is made successful. His subconscious mind could not show him that it went flying (as if he saw it) so the subconscious mind took a memory of when a "cochon" was hit on the right side and is send flying to the left; and shows that to Alex.  Alex walked to the area of his shot and excited with a hard shot said he had seen it fly to the left and we went there to look for the "cochon". After some time I show him I had it in my pocket and explained the reason for this exercise.

Because we do not see everything with higher speeds, sometimes the subconscious mind supplies images or actions for our mental survival or fitness.(We would probably go crazy if our sight or seing was to shut down for a few seconds) In this case the subconscious showed a memory of  what should have been seen. But what is important is not the memory replacement; but that the subconscious was able to see within a fraction of an inch at over 30 feet away where the ball would had hit the "cochon" and where it would have send it.

A 1/8 inch precision at 0ver 30 feet. The precision of the subconscious  is amazing and makes the point to not be too sure what you think you see.

The raison for this exercise was to teach Alex to let the subconscious mind do it work. Too often we feel we need to analysis and then change things.  Just have confidence and let it happen and be surprised that you can do so well. Pressure at a World Competition may force an individual to try to take more control when all that is needed is confidence in self (subconscious self)