SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: My Mind's Racing

Here’s what Ross Bentley had to say about keeping it simple in his excellent book series on real life auto racing entitled Speed Secrets: Professional Race Driving Techniques: “Don’t go out on the track and try to ‘go faster everywhere’. Your brain cannot handle everything at once. Instead, decide on two or three areas at most… and work on them.”

So thought management is useful in real world auto racing. Excellent. If it works there, you know it works in simulated auto racing.

Not only is it important keep the number of thoughts running through your brains down to manageable numbers, it appears it is not only possible, but useful in several disciplines to think things through in advance and picture yourself doing them before you do them.

Apparently the mind does not distinguish all that much between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. No wonder the jails are overflowing.

Must think more slowly...

Positive thinking, you’ve heard of this before, right? Jack Nicklaus has spoken of this often and the amazing potential it has. How a strong, vibrant pre-swing visualization can become a repeatedly good shot in actuality. He likens it to running a short movie clip in his mind.

And that movie is always good, from the beginning to the end. Not at all like my Three Stooges Go Racing cinema. Jack runs these little movie clips in his mind every time before he hits a shot. The results, over a truly exemplary career, are self-evident.

Ross Bentley makes the point this way: “In your mind’s eye, see yourself repeatedly driving exactly the way you want, driving the perfect line, balancing the car... Mentally drive the race car. But do it successfully.”

Oh boy, there’s always a catch. I have to think successful thoughts? Right away I start wondering about the opposite. The negative.

The dark side. I said earlier we’d save the latter for later because it’s the most fun. Really it is!

Well, unless it’s happened to you, then it’s not fun at all. Say you’re a weekend golfer, you’re on the tee of the 12th hole and having, up until then, a pretty good day if you do say so yourself.

Ah, but wait just a moment there, Mr. Amateur-wanna-be-Professional, because hole number 12 is a gorgeous looking par three, only about 150 yards in distance. With an island green surrounded by deep green water and a waterfall.

Uh-oh. <swallows hard, loosens up collar> Did someone say “water”?

Several things could happen as you prepare to strike the ball. You could execute that Positive Mental Imagery mpeg in your mind’s eye, imagine hitting a great shot, see the ball clearly in your mind as it sails straight and true and nestles softly onto the green.

Or, you could have some nice, cool water.

You decide not to think about the water. And the harder you try not to think about it, the more the “Water Elephant” stomps around inside your brain cells. Soon it’s all that’s left in between your ears (except for the pencils).

Water. A watery grave waiting for your golf ball to come and find a home with all the other wet ones down below. You try to be positive, but just before the swing you think to yourself, in spite of yourself, Whatever you do, don’t hit it in the water!.

Now, guess where that ball is going. And no, there’s no prize for guessing this one right. Too easy.

SPLASH!

Correct, Davey Jones and his Titleist Foot Locker. As you head dejectedly over to your bag, you see your once-good golf day dissolving around the edges.

Welcome to the power of negative thinking!

Even the professionals can have problems with this, pro golfers have funny names for instances of it. Actually, a reflection of the weird game golf is, they have funny names for lots of things. Like “waggle”, “whiff”, and “wormburner”, and that’s just the “w”’s.

In the “y”’s, and in putting, they call it the “yips”. In severe cases they get so wound and bound, it results in shaking, involuntary muscle movements, twitches at the exact wrong moment, and it in turn leads to a place where they can hardly make themselves take the putt. They shut down.

Pro golfers have been known to abandon tournament golf due to the yips, others have sought therapy and managed to overcome the malady. To be sure, the yips appear to have physical causes as well, but the mental aspect, the stress part of the equation, is very real.

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