"Sport Imagery": Athletes Effective Mental Tools

Bismillah. Assalammualaikum.

I don't know why I have too much to write for this blog especially when it is related to sport.
Basically, I am not a sport man. But I enjoyed looking at those people who have high passion and interest involving in sports activities. For this post, I would like to talk about visual imagery. Wow! What an interesting topic, right? Let's get start!

If you do anything to work on the mental side of your sport, it better be mental imagery. Why? Because there is no more powerful mental tool than mental imagery and it can have a huge impact on your sports performance.

I say this with such conviction because it had that effect on me when I was a in high school at Penang, I usually almost everyday will play ping-pong and to the extent, I tried to fit myself to a competition at district level at Penang. While training I always did one thing which is to visualize where does the ball will fall with what speeds that the ball will turn back to me and how should I service back the ball to the opponent. During this time, I have no idea what I am doing is so called Sport Imagery. The result were nothing less than spectacular. From doubt came confidence. From distraction came focus. From anxiety came intensity. From timidness came aggressiveness. From inconsistency came consistency. and most importantly, from the decent results came outstanding results.

Then, when I came to went to Workshop at UM several months ago, the speaker thought me about this mental imagery. I came to conclude that this tool is very powerful. Imagery is used by virtually all great athletes. I believed that when it is combined with actual practice, improves performance more than practice alone. Imagery for me also is not just a mental experience that occurs in our head, but rather impacts us in everyday life in various ways, psychologically, emotionally, physically, technically and tactically. I think of mental imagery as weight lifting for our mind. Huhu.

I think that's all for this post. Do mental imagery not just in sports, but in everything in life. You will never get down with the result! Wasalam