10 Minute Toughness - book about the mental game

lady9ball

lady9ball

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I listen to NPR (national public radio) on my lunch break a lot, and today they were interviewing Jason Selk, the author of 10 Minute Toughness. What he was saying made a lot of sense - he emphasizes the power of positive thought, effective breathing, and especially visualization. During the interview he said that he believes that 1 minute of visualization is at least as effective as 7 minutes of physical practice and went on to explain what constitutes effective visualizaion. For instance, you should visualize in real time, rather than speeding it up in your head.

I think I'm going to order the book. Has anyone here read it yet? It seems like it might be a more concise version of The Inner Game of Tennis. It's very reasonably priced, too, at between 10 and 15 bucks.

More info here: http://www.tenminutetoughness.com

I would like to hear others thoughts on visualization. I use it consciously for 2+ rail position shots, and sometimes when the position window is quite small. But I think it would be beneficial to use it more often.

I have also noticed that after watching very good players for an extended period, I can go to a table cold and play significantly better than usual. I'm not sure if this counts as a form of visualization...?
 
Visualization is a huge part of the game. It should be part of your pre shot routine. You probably are already doing it without knowing it, that's how you can feel how hard to hit the cue ball to get the intended results. Try explaining how hard you have to hit a shot. You can't do it, you just see what you want to do and then do it.

If you incoperate this into a pre-shot routine you will see your position play improve a lot. At least it did for me.
 
radge69 said:
Visualization is a huge part of the game. It should be part of your pre shot routine. You probably are already doing it without knowing it, that's how you can feel how hard to hit the cue ball to get the intended results. Try explaining how hard you have to hit a shot. You can't do it, you just see what you want to do and then do it.

If you incoperate this into a pre-shot routine you will see your position play improve a lot. At least it did for me.
Click to expand...

Visualization doesn't work for some. I use it myself, though not all the time. I was surprised when Grady Mathews told me he does not use it.
 
visualizing the shot

Visualizing the shot is huge. What I am usually focusing on is the path of the cue ball and often I will track the path the cue ball will take from leaving the tip to final stop after hitting the object ball. My eyes scan the entire path in real time. It is just one more way to feed information to the subconscious and the more and better information it has the more likely you are to succeed.

This does sound like a very interesting book.

Hu
 
Pleaures of Small Motions

Bob Fancher also talks about visualizaton in his Small Motions book- he describes it as seeing the entire "video" of what you want to do- before you actually do it.

He says any break in the "video" (broken= "I'll hit the cueball here and hopefully I'll make it and end up around there," and complete= "I'll hit the cue ball here, to hit that ball exactly there, making that ball go into the center of the pocket while sending the cb to right on that rail there, then there on that rail, and around to stop just right here") will make for poor shots- the ball misses/hangs/wobbles in while the cb ends up short, long, etc.

That said, my stubborn brain needs good stuff hammered into it many times, in many ways, as often as possible. I would be very interested to hear what you think of this "tough" guy's book (too busy and cheap to run out and buy it now myself.)
 
There was a study done years ago using college basketball players. One group was told to visualize shooting and making foul shots when off the court. The other group didn't know anything about it. The group that visualized the shooting had a dramatic improvement over the other group. No question it works..... how much improvement will vary greatly depending on skill levels. But it does work. The more you use it ... the more you will improve. try to use measureable goals so you can track your progress. Best of rolls to ya.
 
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