Welcome to The Zone

The Zone. All professional athletes have heard of it and many have experienced it. All strive to play in The Zone, because it is the ultimate mental state for maximum sports performance. Ted Williams, a Hall of Fame baseball player, commented that when he was in The Zone, he felt as if the baseball was stopped at the plate, waiting for him to swing at it. When Michael Jordan was in The Zone, making one of his spectacular leaps, he felt as if he would never come down. The Zone is an allusive thing. For some athletes, playing in The Zone occurs only a few times in their entire careers. However, with formal sports mental training athletes can develop the ability to enter The Zone at will. Since the beginning of my working with kids, hypnosis has been my primary sports mental training tool. It's the very best method I've found to help teenagers, pre-teens and young adults develop self-confidence, self-esteem and focus. As a hypnotherapist, I have been trained to give post-hypnotic suggestions. These are directions given to a person while in hypnosis that have a delayed reaction. When properly given, post-hypnotic suggestions will cause a person to take a specific action or enter a particular mental state at some later date, time or situation. These directions are usually tied to a trigger. I quickly discovered that post-hypnotic suggestions offered the perfect means to activate The Zone. After being exposed to the properly worded post-hypnotic suggestion a number of times, the athlete will enter The Zone at a pre-determined trigger. Such a trigger might be the blowing of an official's whistle, signaling play to begin. It might be a particular point in the golfer's pre-shot routine. A baseball player might be programmed to enter The Zone when stepping into the batter's box. Whatever the sport, through post-hypnotic suggestions, the youth athlete can be trained to play in The Zone every time. Jack D. Rhodes, PhD is the founder and President of Your Mental Gym, (formerly the Mental Fitness Training Institute of Fort Worth, Texas) now located in Oklahoma City. He holds a PhD in Behavioral Science from Chatworth College and is a 1981 graduate of the Monaghan Hypnosis Institute, where he received a Bachelor Of Science Degree in Hypnosis. For more information, call (405) 397-6690 or visit www.YourMentalGym.com