Visualization As Creative and Instructive Part 2 (AMem)

 Level 3 - Mental Perfection

Clean up on March 2026

The difference between Conscious and Subconscious mind activities in sports, is about the instruction to the muscles and subconscious or instinctive muscle action as a performance develop through practice. When we are learning the basis of Lawn Bowling, and developing these new muscle movements, our conscious mind is instructing our muscles with instruction and thoughts of what we are expecting.

 The first "Image Visualization" a new Lawn Bowler develops is his "Bowl Bias Image". Where in the first year of training they are using some object (foot of  his skip or mark on back ditch) for their new delivery line. But by the end of his first season, he begins to see a image of the actual path the bowl will take to the jack because of the delivery weight he has chosen and the bowl's Bias. (If he has not changed his bowl and it's bias several times)

A blog written in December 2012 about "Three Subconscious mind Eercises" is a good step into the working toward Visualization. Although the blog is long you can learn to have confidence in your Subconscious mind's ability and your Cognitive ability to control it.

 The more you work at your ability to allow the subconscious to perform without it doing  uncontrolable actions; you will discover a  developing of Visualization where you think (or visualize the action) and instinctively your muscles perform that action. With practice your "visualization to performance" or what often referred to as "Being in the Zone", become easier each new time you perform your delivery. 

To tell a story as you remember the event is to relive the actual event memory and describe it to the listener. You see it. That is Visualization.  You do visualization several time a day from remembering where you left an object, like your keys; to remember something you say or read.  Using these memories, your next step is to be passive about developing the ability to use those memory (or visions) into mental muscle performance. Like a practice develops your muscles, so also to exercise your cognitive ability to build these images of performance memories into a  instinctive performance, or what is called "Muscle Memory"; we must stop thinking of how to perform our sport action or performance and just let it happen.

What Are Cognitive Abilities? - HappyNeuron Pro

 Because many of our body actions during an average day are not Conscious muscle actions but Instinctive performance like breathing, heart beat or sudden actions in time of danger. Beside these brain actions we have cognitive abilities which are a major part we used in our sports as we grow our performance. Walking did not occur in a few seconds. It involved many instinctive actions which we developed as  a toddler and these  "Muscle Memories" worked to keep our balance while lifting the foot and as we stepped it instinctive was moving our balance forward. 

Some body functions like breathing and coughing or a chocking reactions are Instinctive Survival  actions. Yes, we can force a cough when asked by the doctor which is a conscious instruction to muscles which are activated when a cough is needed for our health. This instinctive cough is a reaction to sometime the bodies feels like something stuck in our air passages. Muscle Memory is the same actions in a sport and was developed from continual practice and wanting a performance result. 

A common daily  "Instinctive" action is what are called "Danger Reactions" where without thinking the subconscious mind instructs muscle to perform, Like putting on the brakes of the car, that seem to happen before we realized the danger arrived; and similar the quick move out of the path of a fallen or thrown object. There are still many tricks our Mind performs to give us the information we need to survive. For example, we have heard of having extreme power in time of danger or the need for a quick reactions to prevent damage during a fall.

In the question of how we find the need for an action, we without thinking first  question the action as dangerous and then do a sort of comment or reply as a thought of what is happen.  In our sport, there is a suggestion of Visualization all the time. With the pickup of your bowl until several seconds later when you leave the mat and have done your delivery; we realize all was done by a thought of want. In this understand a reader left the following comment in a similar blog.

Anonymous Febuary 11, 2023 10:45 am

" What do you think about turning around and picking up your bowl as soon as you know you're finished ? Often as soon as your bowl leaves your hands."

My reply was

Love BowlsFebruary 12, 2023 at 1:46 AM

A good club coach will have told you early in your bowls training that to each sport (bowls including) there are three activites to be completed before the action is finished. "Preparation", "Action" and "Results" (feedback) Preparation starts the first day as your coaching and training which introduce you to what you can do. Even years later, the "Pre-delivery routine" is still a routine being modified to give a better bowl's " performance and result". 

The "Action" is the delivery, both physical and mental. (of which this blog speaks about  as the final mental control which you can develop). This mental control is as difficult as weight control or delivery line. But as your "Pre-delivery routine" continues to improve so also does all aspects of that "Action" (physical and Mental) The third, Results, as seen in "Post-Delivery Routine",  some would say  that it is the most important. Because, to improve the other two actions, you must see, analysis and understand all the information that is being returned to you. Watching as the bowl rolls up the green, as it stops and as you evaluation the Results of your performance, the green, and your opponent/yourself. As well as errors, needs and expectation created in the Pre-mat Routine. Then you walk away from the mat. Yes some people turn and walk away, but are they " Seeing or Not".

So to ask about going and picking up the next bowl as if everything is done when only one half or two thirds is done means you will grow an old man on club social greens rolling for the fun. To be a good bowler means every bowl must be a teacher in all three areas of bowls. Don't hurry as there is a lot between picking up your bowl and returning from the mat. And even more if your "Post Delivery" and "Post-Delivery Routine" is performed. Often we are tired by the end of a few ends of play because of all the thinking. Even to be learning from others mistakes or success must be included.

All athletics from Golf to Table Tennis have and use Muscle Memory performances because they have eventually stop consciously instructing their muscles on how and what to do. They have developed the ability to allow the muscles which  now has an instinctive ability    to perform that action.

When we stop thinking (conscious thought) and give control to the Subconscious mind; we often speak of being in a "void of thought" because the conscious mind was shut off as instinctive instructions by our "Muscle memory" was performs. In the above mention Blog we see reference to  a Tiger Wood Youtube video  and his explaining the experience with his "Void of Thought" 

In reading the very long blog of October 2024 called "Talking to the subconscious Mind 2/3) we see at the end of this blog  that  Alex, who was preparing for his International Competition in Europe go looking for his  petanque "cochon". In his training he learned that the mind had showed him what he expects to  have happen. He believes that by his perfected performed hit of his "Cochon" by his takeout shot, he expects to see what he has seen thousand of times before. "His cochon being send  flying"  because of the hit. The blog reads "The reason that Alex went off to the left to locate his "cochon" which he saw fly after his shot was that the subconscious had seen the take-out shot would had hit the "cochon"  on one side and Alex needed data to satified his subconscious performance " 

In 2006 in a Petanque training session for Alex in preparing to go to an international World Petanque Championship, I show him that the subconscious mind had collected many memories of  "Result Vision" (mention in part 1): and the subconscious mind may at times  actually show us  these "Results instead of what we did not see. In that case, of a previous good shot which was not seen, the subconscious may replaces what we did not actually see with a memory. This is because the eye in capturing images at 1/60 of a second and may not be able to show the actual incident and to forefill the individual's need for information, the subconscious shows an image from memory.  ("Result Vision"). 

 Because of the short time between a Petanque  take-out" shot being thrown and the shooter seeing the result (which is less than a second), the subconscious mind  may sometimes shows us a memory from a previous practice it has stored. This is what happen in Alex's "Result Visualization" or image of his Take-out shot having hit a hidden "Cochon".

 The subconscious had shown Alex where his "cochon" had gone had it actually been there. I had tricked his mind by removing the "Cochon" when Alex was not looking. Imagine how you would feel and the problem which we experience  if the mind had not shown an image of the flying "cochon or something similar to Alex.

As for Lawn Bowls (the reader's real interest) in the blog of the  photo left, from the 2016 World Bowls Pairs Finals we have both of the female leads ( Angela Boyd and Laura Daniel) each have different methods of using a type of Visualization which is a "Distance Projection  or "Projection Visualization". We see in them as many Lawn Bowls athletics an arm movement which indicates they are viewing a memory of a previous delivery. Also we see how once they have the proper feeling of distance they then allow their communication with the subconscious to switch into the "Zone" and let "Muscle Memory" roll their bowl to the jack. Because they are in this "Void" and  they seem to look away while doing their delivery and then quickly look back, they are in that "Void".

As mention, we see Angela Boyd and Laura Daniel in their Lawn Bowl Final of a International competition use a "Projection Visualization" to know the distance to the "Jack".    The same would be for the baseball player throwing to home plate in an attempt to catch a runner going home; or a table tennis player putting spin on a slam shot.  Just happens because they allowed their "Muscle Memory to do it.  Or, as you say, "you visualized it happening".

Like with your computer or Iphone where you have a collection of photo in memory, the athletic also has a collection of memories of previous successful performances. As you would choose the photo to be seen on the screen with a simple touch; we, the athletic, can also can choose the memory of previous deliveries to be remembered and use it to evaluate our jack distance before we do our bowl roll and "Muscle Memory" performance.

Projection Visualization is seeing a memory of a previous bowl roll to the jack and using it for your delivery. Why use this memory? First, Result Visualization is seeing the result of this memory and allowing it to happen. But the calculation of distance is difficult for our eyes. As an athletic perfects his delivery he began having a feeling for his distance which can vary by 10 meters (about 100 feet) in Lawn Bowls. (21 meter to 31 meters). 

This is the same "Next step in learned performance" where the Bowls athletic  in getting his delivery line has now stopped taking a point of reference and simply now see his delivery line of the bowl's roll to the jack. Likewise, the "Delivery Weight" as a feeling of distance is the eye trying to "Guess" that distance. Because the athletic is wasting a bowl or two to guess, this type of delivery, which is often wrong about the distance; the next mental development toward performing a better bowl roll is to like with Line of Delivery to see in the subconscious ability..

Projection Visualization is seeing the remembered video action of a memory and watching it to the end. If the memory visionn was a memory of a previous roll to a jack at 25 meters, as you view that memory in time, it would stop at 25 meters. If you were  playing a jack of 27 meters you feel that it doesn"t  feel right as. Projection Visualization. Like an athletic feels the void of "Muscle Memory, so also by practice an athletic will  starts feeling and knowing the delivery weight is right to arrive like in your image memory. You feel it and you let it happen.

 Yes,in a Projection Visualization and with practice you can feel the memory have ended and your action does or does not see the bowl as yet arriving at the jack. So you teach yourself and the Conscious mind  to get another memory of a longer jack memory distance and do another "Projection visualization". 

 When you feel and see the image all the ways to the jack you let your "Muscle Memory" do the bowl roll. So now you have three mental tools. You see the bias Delivery Line of your bowl to the jack. You allow your Muscle Memory do the proper and perfect delivery after you have established the Jack distance with a Visualization.

Properly done, and usually on the first bowl to a jack instead of wasting guest with bad distance roll and correcting that next delivery: you now use "FeedBack" and make adjustment for the next bowl to be that foot more or less. 

 This  "Projection Visualization" is a feeling that the distance is right and with confidence this mental projection  becomes part of your delivery routine because it is the "you see it" before the "you do it" part of your Muscle Memory. In some of the other blogs you will see reference to a "tool box" of tricks to allow you to do adjustments like toput a little distance on a bowl roll.

 

To understand this in your daily life experiences do you remember this following incident having happen to you.  You had a certain accident (car or event) and as you told someone about that car accident (or event) you clearly  see all the event as a memory. Because you actually see the memory vision in great detail and explain it in word by word story everything you are seeing in that memory.

 In the same manner you can see the bowl roll of a memory up the green toward the jack and feel a feeling of that memory not being far enough. (because it is not the right memory)

 Remember the eye can not judge distance accurately because of all the false reference it receives or has as influences.. A big building or club house behind the jack makes it seem closer and an open field or a 2nd bowling green behind the jack will make it seem farther. Projection of memory and the ability of feeling the wrong distance is a skilll developed with practice. You will feel the distance is right and switch to "Muscle Memory" and like when you started developing Muscle Memory it will not always be there but with practice you will know the feeling.

  If you see that a bowl is blocking and that your bowl roll will not get around that bowl your "Muscle Memory of a "Walk the mat" will get you into a better position for your bowl delivery without you thinking  to do it get around it. Here we have a memory of 'Result Visualization" which allows you  to see how close you must pass that bowl which was discussed in the previous blog. You see your bowl with a space between it and the block and feeling all is ok sp you go into the  Subconscious void and just do the delivery and forgot about it. 

In the same way, a basketball player may think about his common error of hitting the left of the rim of the basket because he is moving to his right as he shoots, that thought is only a "Result Visualization" of what has happen and what to do or not to do.  The actual "Muscle Memory" shot is done in a void of though. 

In the video of Tiger Wood, he says his void or Muscle Memory occur when he swings.and that  "Between my back swing and seeing the ball in flight up the fairway, I have no idea or thought what happen" (Check out the Video on youtube of Tiger's Mental game ) I  put it here a 2 nd time because you probably passed over it earlier. It is important a s you hear from the best athletic  telling you to learn to be in the "Zen Moment" of your performance.

Above,in the story of Alex, I tricked the Subconscious to reveal it's ability to retreive memories and present them as real "Result Visualization". Another blog of interest is the March 2025 blog of "Communication with the Subconscious 3/3" which shows "Tags" and "Tells" which are tools of showing the subconscious and how various athletics are using small observations unconsciously and communicating with the subconscious. In a recent 13 year old Petanque takeout shot, I saw the tell of his Projective vision but it was just his little finger moving about 1/2 inch off the ball as he did 3 or 4 distance projections.

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