coaches-and-managers-from-the-united-states

"Although we were dealing with the cream of American youth, giving them the best planes and best education in the world, at no time during their training was anyone shooting live bullets at them. Later, in their first mortal combat, some of them "tied-up" mentally, physically, or both. We lost the man and the plane. Hence, a program was needed that would teach all cadets to relax under the pressure of combat. We hoped to devise relaxation techniques that would help us meet such pre-flight instruction and warfare preparation needs as:"

"We found that in all sports and highly specialized skills, such as flying a plane, the greatest enemy to peak performance was hyper-tension, that is: hyper - too much - tension (not hypertension, the condition that is generally associated with high blood pressure)."

"Try this experiment: clench your left fist. This will trnse your left arm. Now try a left jab. Now, as well as you can, relax your fist, and arm and try a left jab. Which was the faster? And which was the most efficient? Case closed."

"You must learn to relax the antagonistic muscles only. The secret is to save energy relaxing all the muscles not involved in performing a task."

"We found that relaxation produced the greatest results in the courses where the pressure was the greatest."

"Okay, I want you all to close your eyes. Pay attention to my voice and, to the best of your ability, try to do what I tell you. Sit all the way back in your chair, your caboose touching the base of your chair seat. Do not cross your knees. Your legs are perpendicular and feet are flat on the deck. Your hands are resting on the insides of your thighs. In learning to relax, the first thing I want you to do is to take all the wrinkles out of your forehead. A creased forehead is a sure sign of tension. Relax your scalp. Just let go. Don't make too much effort in trying to relax; just let go. Relaxation is a kind of doing nothing. Just let go. Now relax your muscles around your eyes. Let your eyes go limp in their sockets. You think they are relaxed, but let go more...and more. There are eight sets of muscles around the eyes to relax. Be sure to get all of them. Now let them go utterly limp. That's better. From now on, I want you to breathe slowly and regularly. As you exhale, breathe out your tensions. Sigh audibly if you wish...Now, let your jaw sag. Let it go more. If you do this properly, yor jaw will drop open. Now, even relax your lips and tongue. Relaxing your jaw is one of the keys to relaxing all over. If your jaw is relaxed, it is a good bet to your whole upper body be relaxed. We give this slogan to all athletes: no matter how fast you run or how hard you try, keep your jaw loose and your hands loose. The adage, 'Loose jaw - loose hands' has helped us to break world records. Now I want you let go all the muscles that hold up your head. If you do this correctly, your chin will drop and touch your chest. Breathe slowly. To get rid of all the tensions of your head and neck, drop your shoulders as low as they will go. Get them down there - lower. You should feel all the tensions go out of your neck. Don't try too hard, just let go. Remember to breathe slowly and regularly. As you exhale, drop your tensions. Now, we are going after your harms and hands. Talk directly to your right bicep. Tell it to 'let go'. Your bicep is the big muscle that men flex to show you how strong they are. Later, you will find that when your arms are relaxed they will dell as though they were floating away. Now, relax your right forearm. I t becomes a heavy weight on your leg. Relax all your fingers and right hand. Let them go utterly limp. Loose as a fish net. Just let the meat hang on the bones. Now, over to your left arm. Talk to your left bicep. Let it go. Make your left arm become dead weight on your leg. Relax your left forearm. Imagine you are a jellyfish. You have no bones in your left arm, it just sags. If you are having any trouble relaxing your arms, clench one fist tightly and then let it go and you will see the difference between tension and relaxation. Now, relax your left hand and fingers. Get that relaxed hand feeling. Check to see if both hands are equally and completely relaxed. We are going to relax your chest and rib cage. Take a deep breath. Now, when you exhale, let your chest sa-a-a-g. Do it again. Let go all of your tensions as you exhale your breath. Let's relax all the muscles of your stomach and viscera. Let go all of the muscles on the surface and inside. Here's a real opportunity to play jellyfish. Let that midriff out. Now, you should feel a heavy weight on your buttocks. At this point, if you have achieved even a modicum of relaxation, a warm, pleasant feeling will come over you. You have a very comfortable feeling of well-being. This is a relaxed state. It feels great. We want you to capture this feeling and make a habit out of it. The way we will do this is to develop a conditioned reflex linking this state and one word. [...] To get the relaxed state, we use the word 'calm'."

"The most relaxed position you can get into is to lie on your back with pillows under both arms and under your knees. If you can't sleep in that position, relax this way and then turn over."

"All-out effort tenses up antagonistic muscles as well as performing muscles. This hinders good coordination. You must try hard - but must stay loose."

"Sleep for five to ten minutes and you will find that you will wake up refreshed and alert."

"Fear of the unknown causes tension. Knowledge helps eliminate it. Be prepared."

"It is imperative what we mean by relaxation. Different people interpret this word to mean different things. Relaxation is not recreation (this is the second cousin to athletics). It is not diversion. You divert yourself from a tense situation, mental stress, or muscular tension by substituting a different activiy, venue, or atmosphere. It is not indifference. Relaxation makes you sharp; indifference makes you dull as a butter knife. It is not laziness. Laziness has nothing to do with real relaxation. Relaxation involves getting the tension out of muscles not directly involved in the task at hand. Relaxation also involves getting rid of mental tensions so that you can have peace of mind to think or not to think, as you choose. Being able to relax physically and mentally is a skill that can be leaned and developed to high state of proficiency."

"One of the headquarters for tension in your whole body is located at the back of your neck. This tension is a saboteur of your strength and energy. Wipe out the tension in the back of your neck by lowering your shoulders and dropping your chin on your chest. Drop those shoulders. Come on, get them down. Did you feel the muscles in the back of your neck go limp? When you think you are really relaxed, let them go even more."

"A relaxed arm lets the blood flow through the dilated capillaries and makes your hand tingle."

"If we can get you relaxed mentally, with your mind clear of any active thoughts for just ten seconds, you will be asleep. We have three tricks for doing this. First, we want you to fantasize that it is a warm spring day and you are lying in the bottom of a canoe on a very serene lake. You are looking up at a blue sky with lazy, floating clouds. Do not allow any other thought to creep in. Just concentrate on this picture and keep foreign thoughts out, particularly thought with any movement or motion involved. Hold this picture and enjoy it for ten seconds. In the second sleep-producing fantasy, imagine that you are in a big black, velvet hammock and everywhere you look is black. You must also hold this picture for ten seconds. In the third trick is simply to say the words 'don't think...don't think...don't think', etc. Hold this, blanking out other thoughts for at least ten seconds. Now for the next five minutes, using any of these sleep tricks, I want you to try to put yourself to sleep. I will be quiet and you will try to go to sleep. Remember, five minutes only. Let's have complete silence."

"[...] I let no physical activity creep into that beautiful picture. No paddling the canoe or anything like that. I am just comfortably floating and very, very relaxed. If that doesn't stop the urgent thought flow, there are alternate antidotes. Try visualizing yourself on a black velvet hammock and everywhere you look it shows black.[...] The last resort trick I use to block out problem thinking is to close my eyes and imagine I am looking at a blank television screen. Then I ask myself, "What do you see? What do you see?" Soon things appear on the screen and I describe them to myself. Amazing scenes produced by my subconscious mind blot out worrisome cares of the real world and soon I am asleep."

"Q. Why did you want us to imagine a scene with no movement in it? A. That is because when you think of a scene with motion in it, or dream with muscular activity in the dream, the muscles involved in that activity actually contract. We have proven that fact by putting electrodes on a cadet's muscles when he was asleep to measure these contractions."

"Q. Should you relax right before an athletic context, two hours before, or the night before? A. A good question, At San Jose State University, we tried it every way. For the majority, we found it better to do our major relaxation the night before an athletic contest. However, for the very tense, some of our athletes did their relaxation from two hours before the contest to right up to game time."

"Tight or binding nightclothes are out. (Sleeping nude is best.) You sleep a deep, often dreamless sleep in which there is little or no motion. [...] During the night, if you awaken for any reason, do NOT start thinking! When you want to get back to sleep, quickly go through your relaxation routine and you can be asleep immediately. You achieve the happy state of a great sleep generally only after long practice and perfection of your relaxation skills. A pleasant physical workout in the gym or out of doors is a fine passport to a great sleep. ("

"1. If you think you are not going to sleep, you won't."