CONCENTRATION

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CONCENTRATION
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CONCENTRATION

• Paying attention to the right things at the right
  time

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Principles of Concentration

• Selective attention to particular thoughts
• Critical cues at critical moments
• Present focus the here and now
• Minimize periods of optimum concentration
  switch up, switch down switch off
• Pre-performance routines
• Expect, anticipate distractions what if? do
  this, do that.

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Strategies for Staying in the Present

• Thought stoppage
• Visualize and imagine
• Keep eye control
• Blink your eyes
• Breathing
• Meditation
• Mind to body techniques calm, rhythm
• What is it that I have to do now, right here?

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Remember!

• You cant concentrate on concentrating, because
  if you are concentrating on concentrating, you
  arent concentrating on what you should be
  concentrating on.

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CUES

• Some cues are relevant and focusing on these is
  necessary for quality performance.
• Other cues are irrelevant and focusing on these
  can hamper performance

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Cues and Arousal Levels

• Low arousal picks up both
• As arousal increases the athletes attention
  begins to narrow
• At optimal arousal attentional narrowing gates
  out all irrelevant cues and allows relevant cues
  to remain
• At this point, performance should be at its best

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Cues and arousal levels

• If arousal continues still further attention
  continues to narrow and relevant cues will be
  gated out leading to deterioration in performance
• High levels of arousal leads to phenomenon of
  distractibility decrease in athletes ability
  to selectively attend to ONE stimulus at a time
• Instead, athletes attention shifts randomly from
  stimulus to stimulus

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Cues and arousal

• This reduces athletes ability to discriminate
  between relevant and irrelevant cues
• Rattled
• Poor decision making
• Miss the option etc.
• The ability to narrow focus on relevant cues is a
  skill that can be learned.

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Concentration is a limited capacity. You cant
concentrate on too many things at the same time
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KEY MENTAL SKILLS

• Goal setting and self-regulation skills
• Concentration and attention skills
• Anxiety and arousal control skills
• Visualizing, imagery, mental rehearsal
• Confidence, self-efficacy skills
• Zone or IPS Ideal Performance State

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Robert M. Nideffer

• Calming the mind so the body can perform
• Athletes need to calm their thought processes
  to shut out distractions, to trust their bodies,
  to simply let themselves perform

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What is the zone?

• A feeling of complete control, total confidence
• The athlete knows with certainty what is going to
  happen before it actually occurs
• Time is slowed down
• Objects seem larger and more vivid than usual

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The Zone cntd.

• The performance is effortless, occurring
  automatically without any conscious direction on
  the part of the athlete
• There is a feeling of exhilaration even joy
• The level of performance exceeds the individuals
  expectations.

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Getting into the zone

• There is considerable evidence supporting the
  theory that alterations in an individuals focus
  of concentration and/or changes in physiological
  arousal are what precipitate an Altered State of
  Consciousness - ASC

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Focus of Concentration

• Moves along two intersecting dimensions in
  response to the changing demands of a sporting
  situation Width (broad or narrow) and
  Direction ( internal or external