Article Concentration

CONCETRATION By Ron Genge
Far too many events are lost by top line athletes because they do not have the very desirable ability to concentrate fully on their objectives. Where there is, are several contestants of relatively equal sport skill, the one who wins will be the one who can devote his entire energies toward the desired goal.

Too often we hear that our local top performer was not able to duplicate his fair ground performances at the top competitive level. There are always many reasons given for this inability to perform under stress but generally, it condenses down to one fact; he was distracted from his normal degree of concentration by factors which were not common in his home practice environment .
Being able to concentrate is basically the ability to keep one’s mind concerned only with a single purpose to the exclusion of all other distracting influences. These distractions are not always the product of the venue of the competition but are often cleverly contrived plots to reduce the effectiveness of rival competitors. While it is not desirable to resort to this type of tactic to win, we must be ready to recognize such an action and render it invalid by means of our ability to ignore it by using superior concentration.
Both Zen and Yoga have many exercises which involve the practice and perfection of this valuable attribute. Without going into minute details on this principle of concentration, the process could be illustrated with an example of a Yoga concentration exercise. The purpose of this exercise is to train the mind to concentrate on a specific point to the exclusion of all others. Once the pupil has experienced this ability, he can expand the potential and direct it toward almost any phase, or any sport, to his great advantage.
The instructor has the pupil sit or lie down and relax completely. He then describes a scene in great detail and asks the pupil to imagine he is in a huge field of flowers. The colours and varieties of the flowers are described as is the scent and texture of the blooms .The pupil is asked to pick his favourite bloom, note its colour, smell, texture, and size, closely observing every detail of its form. When he has fully examined and noted all these things, the instructor asks him to look closer and observe the finer details of his bloom. As he looks (in his mind’ s eye) he now begins to see each petal which forms the flower, sees the minute variation in size and shape of each petal. Soon even more minute details become apparent and the pupil begins to notice the veins on each petal and how they spread from the base to the outer edges. Next he will become aware of how the petals join in the centre, each over lapping the other. In the very centre he sees the pistil and the stamen. The curvature up and out from the heart of the flower is noted. At the end of these protrusions, he sees the tips which hold the pollen. All the while he is actually aware of the texture and smell of this beautiful flower. By now he is completely unaware of any other flower in the field because his full concentration is centred on the middle of his flower. Soon he becomes part of that flower and completely relaxes in the beauty and depths of its form. ”
To some this may seem to border on the occult but only the uninitiated see it this way. Those who have experienced this deep concentration will readily see how it can be used to great advantage in many areas of sport .
In order to illustrate how a particular sport could apply this concentration, I will describe a method related to archery. The reader is encouraged and challenged to apply it to other sports. The competitive archer must be able to concentrate on his objective, that is, to hit the centre of the target each time he shoots an arrow. If he sees the whole line-up of targets and shoots at one, he will not get nearly the effectiveness from his aim that he would if he trained himself to see only the one “centre” .Therefore he trains himself to find the middle of the middle in the same manner used with the flowers. First he sees the whole line-up of targets and picks his special target. He sees the whole form of it; the stand, the boss and the face. Next he sees the pins that hold the face to the boss; then the ten rings of the target. He sees the colours of the face; the white, the black, the blue, the red and the centre gold. His eye pinpoints the centre gold ring with its dividing line and the inner gold area. He concentrates on that with his full attention until all he can see is the very centre to the exclusion of all else. Now he further divides this centre ring and picks a spot in the very middle of this area. He may even try to see the black spot which is, in fact, at the very centre point.
This is, then, the centre of the centre toward which all the archer’s attention should be directed. In this state of full concentration he could be anywhere in the world and distracters would be eliminated. His purpose then is to re-create this concentration for the short time he is required to aim each shot. This archer’s sequence should be so well understood that he should only be aware of its various sections if one does not come up to the standard required. In this manner he shoots each arrow as a separate achievement, concentrating fully for the short period required to fire that shot. The periods between should always be relaxation periods where all tension, muscular and mental, is dissipated and the mind freed from the last arrow is preparation for the next one-arrow effort.
These guidelines can be applied quite easily to shooting, and single individual type performances associated with “closed” skills such as high jumping, throwing and gymnastics. More difficult, but entirely possible if sufficient time is allocated to concentration practices, are game situations and longer duration individual performances.
The greater the degree of purposeful concentration that is used to direct our efforts, the greater will be the degree of success accompanying this effort. If our concentration is divided between two or more things we will not be able to achieve ideal results in any area.
The previous sentence, while being highly applicable to the “closed skill ” events like archery and shooting, needs to be modified somewhat when applied to “open skill” activities like soccer, tennis and basketball. In these situations there has to be a carefully selected compromise. The most important aspects of the performance requirements at any given time has to be selected, and appropriate concentration has to be given to each. For example in open field play in soccer, a player about to receive the ball has to devote an appropriate amount of concentration to the task of receiving and controlling the ball while concentrating also on the type of pass or shot he will make, and while diverting sufficient attention to the positioning and movement of both his own and opposing players .
In this example it is the careful selection of priori ties which is important. Having determined priorities the optimum amount of concentration for each is of great importance. The ability to concentrate appropriately is a prime requisite of a good performer and many competitions have been lost by technically good performers who have “lost concentration “.
Whether we concentrate “on the target” as in archery, the take-off movement pattern in the high jump -or any other specific part of any other sport function the results could be the same. To fully control and direct all our energies in a desired direction is to maximize the results obtainable from the particular athlete.