Getting In The Zone
Getting into The Zone really means performing automatically- your mind and body are working in total harmony. This happens when you are so confident, completely relaxed, completely free of inhibitions, and so totally free of worries that you perform at your best automatically. Even if you can't get into The Zone, or if you have trouble staying in The Zone, you can train your mind to get closer to The Zone, and significantly improve your performance.
The Aspects of mental training that can help you get closer to The Zone include controlling emotions, being calm and positive, increasing concentration and focus, feeling relaxed yet highly energized, and increasing confidence.
The first step toward getting closer to or into The Zone is physical training. Your reactions, your angles, your position, and your decisions need to become automatic. You have to have the confidence and trust in yourself to act automatically. The more you practice, and the more you build off your successes, the more confidence and trust you will have in yourself.
The second step to getting into the zone is to learn how to be physically relaxed and calm, yet mentally alert and laser focused. Although your muscles are relaxed, they need to be energized. You need to be loose physically, but you must have total concentration. In order to be relaxed and calm when you play, you need to have a low level of anxiety, or even better is to have no anxiety. It is good to have adrenaline and to be mentally charged up, but you need to learn how to, at the same time, be loose and relaxed physically. This is not easy to accomplish. You need to practice having sustained focus and concentration. You need to work at this. Your confidence and trust in yourself will help you to avoid having anxiety that will inhibit your physical play.
When you can combine strong confidence and trust, automatic physical play, and sustained focus and concentration, you will be getting closer and closer to The Zone. When you can do all of this and be loose and relaxed physically, you be able to play at your best. Learn how to take slow deep breaths during the game. This will help you to alleviate anxiety, and keep your body relaxed. Shallow quick breathing can raise your level of anxiety and cause you to be tight.
Getting into The Zone really means performing automatically- your mind and body are working in harmony. This happens when you are so confident, completely relaxed, completely free of inhibitions, so totally free of worries that you perform at your best automatically. In order to get there, you need to practice your physical game so much that everything becomes automatic.
You have probably heard the term "muscle memory". Muscle memory plays a big part in goaltending. The play moves so fast, and the puck comes at you with such great speed, that if your body is not reacting automatically with the right moves, then you will not be playing at your best. You need to constantly improve your muscle memory by constant repetition of the correct moves. You need to practice every move and movement over and over and over until your body does them automatically without thinking.
RE-Posted with written consent by John Haley The Goalie’s Mind, © Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved
