The Art of Mental Training - a Guide to Performance Excellence (Classic Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page A

all three.  They’re all
crucial in order to help create the Ideal Mental Climate from which peak
performance springs forth.
    Sometimes clients tend to get
over-analytical about the “right” way to practice breathing or the “right” way
to go deep into relaxation.  It’s always fun to show them that in reality, it’s
much easier than they ever thought it could be.
    First let’s learn about
breathing.
    I have a memory of Leo-tai from
a time when I had been watching him high up on a mountain, and so near the edge
that I worried he might fall.  He was practicing what he called his focused
breathing, his hands sometimes flowing to the rhythm of his breathing in slow
and balanced circular motions, and sometimes not.
    He had taught me to do just as
he was doing, to draw the air in deeply and slowly to the bottom of my lungs
through my nose, while expanding the diaphragm.  Then, after holding it
momentarily, he slowly pushed the air out of the lungs by drawing the diaphragm
in.  He explained that it’s important to let the air out through a relaxed and
slightly opened mouth while keeping the tip of the tongue pressed lightly
against the ridge behind the front teeth, with the tongue touching the roof of
the mouth.
    Afterwards I asked him what was
going through his mind as he practiced his breathing.
    “Nothing,” he said, “I just try
to observe my breathing: that’s all.  If a thought comes to me, I pay it no
attention and it soon flows away.  The more I focus on the breathing, the more
I observe the breathing, the quieter my thoughts become.  And also, notice that
I can practice the breathing without any form whatsoever, whenever I need.”
    “What do you mean, without any
form?” I asked.
    “I can practice my focused
breathing whenever I want, even now as I sit and visit with you.”  He told me.
“I practice focused breathing to help keep me centered—to help bring me back to
the present.  I can do it without form.  You do not see me moving around or
flowing as a tai-chi master does do you?  Yet still I am practicing my focused
breathing.”
    I’ll never know why, but the
sureness and simplicity of the words that he spoke that day have never left
me.  I’m grateful for that because I’ve learned through experience that it’s
through the focused breathing that he taught me that I’ve always been able to
begin to achieve the mental control or focus that was required for whatever
serious challenge I may have been facing at the time.
    So from now on, whenever
focused breathing is mentioned in any of our other lessons you’ll know exactly
what we are describing, how it’s done, and why it’s part of the mix of tools
that helps us achieve mental control.  It’s important to practice focused
breathing if one hopes to ever be able to harness the power of the technique.
    There is a second important concept
mentioned throughout the Art of Mental Training that Leo-tai never tired of
explaining, time and time again, year after year.  Let me explain as he did to
me: the concept of relaxation . . . both mental and physical.
    What do we mean by relaxation?  And
why is relaxation practice so important for the athlete and Mental Warrior? 
Relaxation matters because when used with mental imagery it facilitates and
allows our inner (subconscious) mind to clearly see our success imagery and
feel our success feelings.
    It’s only when we are in a deep
state of relaxation that the conscious mind quits acting as a filter for the
inner mind.  It's when the critical conscious mind is set aside through
relaxation (for several minutes) that our Imagineering can reach the inner mind
directly.  Among other things, the inner mind is a goal-striving mechanism.  Show
it your goals through imagery and with feelings of them as having already been
accomplished . . . and it sets out to help you make it so. It accepts the input
as being true.  Seemingly saying to itself, if this is true, then these must be
the