30/5/05

My body feel so exhausted today. Started my day with band teaching. I'm given a simple job of teaching students how to read notes and press their fingerings according to tempo. Thats fun job haha.....to me that is. Then I get to teach the percussionist to do warm ups. The warm ups are just so long haha.

Then I had lunch with my teacher. He told me so many things about practicing, air, and ensemble sound. Yeah. Somehow, I know that ensemble sound suits me more. My air capacity is just limited and my ear cannot endure loud sound.

Looks like nowadays, I haven't talk much about my inside feelings or even my thoughts about the things that are happening in the world. I guess I've occupied myself with things, thats why emptiness didn't kick in that much. Its true that if you leave yourself doing nothing, you're start thinking about funny things. So its adviceable to put the energy somewhere.

Ah, I just jogged in the evening, hahaa feeling feverish now. I guess I'm lacking water. I'll drink somemore now.

Slice of Life

Fast Forward, Rewind, Play!

So how do they do it? You know, the big-leaguers. People like Tiger Woods, and other achievers who seem to be able to consistently perform at their zenith?

They do it by sharpening their focus on the task at hand to a 100% Focus Perfection.

Right? so how exactly do you do this?

Well, psychologist Dr. Rich Starr recommends this simple trick?

Visualise that your mind is an audio cassette tape player.

If you are in the midst of an important task, such as hitting a golf ball, or doing a critical business task, and you feel yourself worrying about negative experiences you've had in the past, stop and use your now visualized cassette player and push the button "Fast Forward" and bring yourself forward to the present, and then push the button "Normal Play".

This gives you a nice visual sequence of rapidly leaving the past behind, where it should be, and zoom in to the task at hand. It feels like this - Fear, worry, apprehension in the past, clouding your mind, fast forward to the present, and Bang! - You've hit the winning shot!

Okay, so I can see the skeptics rolling their eyes. Of course you may not be champion the first time you try this. It requires practice and faith. But I do think that Dr. Starr's visual routine is a useful one.

He continues to say that if, on the other hand, you feel yourself worrying about negative possibilities in the future, again, stop and use your now visualized same cassette player, push the button "Rewind" and bring yourself back to the present and then push the button "Normal Play". Now you can easily think and act to handle the task at hand.

When you are in a continuing stressful situation, which often is the case, just keep doing the same button-pushing routine. Don't forget to take a nice relaxing deep breath each time you do the button-pushing. Cranking up as many stress-relieving smiles and laughters as you can also helps.

Dr Starr claims that this method works like a charm every time, so why not try it? There's no harm, and it might just be the key to unlocking your potential.