Hypnosis Inductions

self hypnosis sports

competitors: does this happen to you?

i know almost everyone gets nervous before skating competitions.
but for me, 2 weeks before i go to skate all of my skating and hard work sort of goes down the toilet. which of course, freaks me out even more. i think its subconcious because before that im on the top of the world and then i just crash and burn.

For me, I’ve always loved the idea of going out there to skate a program in front of an audience. I’d be so pumped up getting a new program and working hard on it (like you said, on top of the world). I loved “the idea” of it . . . but when it almost came time for the real thing, the nerves would kick in and sometimes I wondered if I could actually go through with it (like you said, freak out).

Besides the mental part, let’s think about what it does to you physically. Is it possible that you’re over training close to competition date (the crash and burn). Nerves can play with your mind to make you feel like you’re not ready (when maybe in fact you are) . . . and then you make a mad rush to be super ready. But then your muscles get too pooped – and you lose steam with your program . . . the frustration adding to your nerves. As someone said above, you should be ready before then anyway . . . and then it’s a matter of maintaining and always aiming for consistency.

Learn to think in the “present”. Think of each move as you do them – not what you just did – and not what you need to do 5 steps ahead. Focus on one step at a time. This will be very important for the real comp when the nerves can get overwhelming.

Deep breathing. If not the nerves, it WILL help you physically. When we panic, we tend to take in shorter breaths. Taking in oxygen will only help your muscles – less oxygen means they will burn out quicker. Breath in deeply when you catch yourself zoning out from the nerves. As silly as it may sound, what helped me was to put in “breathing places” in my choreography so I wouldn’t forget to breath!!

I had no clue what to do with nerves til one coach/friend gave me her piece of advice. She said having the nerves was a GOOD thing – you need the adrenaline to keep you going on the ice. Nerves are nerves and they’re just not going to go away . . . you just have to find a way to make it work for you. It took awhile (like many comps and being systematic about what worked and what didn’t) to convince myself of it. But eventually I think I was able to mostly control the nerves (not get rid of them though).

At the actual comp: What worked for me was to get into ACTING in my program . . . to really get into character and not EVER let the judges or audience see or even hint that I was nervous. Maybe that’s only showing confidence on the outside, but hey, it kinda psyched me into to doing the very best that I could. It made me react faster and better if I did happen to flub up! If all my energy was spent focusing on the artistic side (like I knew I had to make it “look” good), then I would do better technically without thinking too much – and the nerves wouldn’t be so bad.

OT – I find it interesting that you’ve tried hypnosis. I’ve always wondered if that really worked to calm nerves!

Just my thoughts.

Advanced Sports Imagery for Athletes – NLP, Self-Hypnosis, and Guided Imagery for Peak Performance

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