Controlling the steam....

[spidey]

Watched Tiger get mad on the weekend (can't remember the hole). Cursed too if I'm not mistaken, and as he walked off the green, you could see the steam piping out of his ears.

Obviously, since he's at the top of the list for bounce-back, he had recomposed by the next tee. Perhaps Sean can give us some keys to getting back on track when we lose our cool.

spidey

[Sean Rea]

Loosing your cool can actually be beneficial as long as it is done within the norms of the sport culture. Sometimes we just need to let off a little steam and it helps us to refocus. Remember, keep it to appropriate displays. Often, if we keep it bottled up it will impair our performance on the next hole. So, you need to allow yourself to completely vent, then refocus.

The skill of refocusing is at the heart of the matter. How does a person regain focus after losing it? Loosing your cool is nothing more than focusing on what has gone wrong, and allowing yourself to get frustrated/angry/ticked off etc. This situation has tow factors mental and physical that create a “vicious circle”. Think about your body’s response to your anger…you breathe faster, neck and shoulders tighten blood pressure and heart rate increase. This in turn sends a stress message to the brain and the body tightens up further. This cycle will continue until you find a way to break it. In this situation the best way to regain your composure is to work in the opposite direction, get your body to calm down, this in turn will allow your mind to calm. Take several deep slow breathes, relax any tense muscles, and push away any negative thoughts.

Sometimes, physical reminders can help. A good strategy is called “treeing”, you take the emotion, negative thoughts and put them on something else. Old cultures used to pass on the negative emotions to a tree, hence the name. Find something you can push or touch and physically release the pressure into the object and leave it there. After you have dealt with the past, focus on the moment. New hole, new game. Remember you can’t change the past but you can effect the future. There is no point in carrying the emotion to the next hole so let it go.

You can prepare for this situation. Get a pen and a piece of paper and think about times you have lost your cool (write it down), next to it write what happened to set you off, how it affected you, and finally how you would prefer to handle the situation. Once you have a preferred solution create a key word that helps you to think about your preferred solution. (DO NOT use relax, the word relax has pressure connotations that can increase your tension) Use imagery to see yourself losing it, then handling the situation in your preferred manner, then successfully completing your next hole.

This is all easier said than done, but with practice you will be successful at bouncing back after a bad hole, front nine etc. Remember, Tiger has had a lot of practice in this area, and has developed the skill over a long period of time, so do not expect your handling of this situation to develop over night