The hypnotherapist.......

Well, i'll get to the hypnotherapy part in a moment but first an update.

I finally finished college last week (well, subject to any referrals I havent been given yet) which was a huge relief as I can now look forward and concentrate on my golf.
Test number 2 looms monday and i cant wait because I truly feel i'll pass this time. I'm not necessarily in spectaular form so to speak but now I know what to expect and how to play this golf course properly I am feeling highly confident. I shot 74 there in practise today which had it not been casued by a start would have been miles lower and I was fully in control of my game whic was great.

A tough decision I have made this week is to pull out of the club championship at the weekend. I have done this out of priority for my test and feel it would be best to have the weekend to prepare myself again, travel up early again etc and not over exert myself before my test.

I had my appointment with the hypnotherapist guy yesterday and think it went pretty well. It was an unusual experience but I decided that I had to be open minded even though i'm a tad sceptical about hypnotherapy.
The guy I saw however was a true professional who obviously knew what he was talking about and this made it easier for me to trust him, considering he was a nice bloke as well.

The session began by some general conversation - how long have I been playing? Have I had many lessons? etc but the question that got the ball rolling was: 'How do I find myself feeling when I play well?' My answer was: 'confident, relaxed and happy' which escalated on to the confession that I tend to play well on my own because i am not under any pressure to perform in front of anybody which led on to me saying that I feel I have a great need to prove myself to other people although I wasnt sure why?' Bloody hell - i'd only been in there for 10 minutes and was already bearing all! Best to get it out in the open though, I though so I can work on it!

The guy began to explain that this was because all humans have basic needs to be appreciated for what they do but it was important for me to ignore external factore and to recreate that 'comfort' feeling from playing golf on my own when I'm playing in a group. He mentioned that the brain performs at its optimal level when it is focused on the present and not in the past or future. I was intrigued to find this out, not to mention how to work on it! Any golfer cannot resist the temptation to think about what score they wish to shoot in the future and holes they are playing in the future which is horrifically detrimental to concentration. He gave me a fantastic drill to help me stay in the present which I will definitely need monday.

We then began the actual hypnotherapy part which I did not find easy. I have never done anything like it before and it was hard to get to grips with.
Basically, after closing my eyes I had to mentally play over 18 great holes i had played in my life and creating the imagery for this the part I struggled with. I am told this gets easier with practise and will definitely be going again to see. I then, and this was the most enjoyable part, had to visage playing the perfect round on my test and imagine myself playing the perfect shot everytime as well as taking note of how I felt after each shot. I enjoyed this because I found the imagery much easier as well as getting a feeling for the emotions involved. I must have got into this part because I walked away with a slight headache - haha! I am going again saturday and am looking forward to it too!

I will report again monday after the test, hopefully with better news than last time. However, if once again things go against me, then I can only get even stronger for the next test and gain new more powerful experiences.

Till next time....