Do You Plan When To Visualize Before Your Basketball Game?

Performers and Achievers Daily with Raj Gavurla

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Show Notes:
The most important characteristics of performers and achievers with relevant and relatable stories and examples to bring out your authentic gifts, talents, abilities, and skills.

Do You Plan When To Visualize Before Your Basketball Game?

1.  Visualize your soccer match environment

2.  Use the BALL method

     B is for breathing (what type(s) of breathing?

     A is for affirmations, instructional self-talk, motivational self talk

     L is for look back to a previous game or practice

       Use your experience, knowledge, skills, five senses (sight, hear, smell, taste,             touch), feel, breathing, physical sensations, and intuition. I guide my                           customers in their visualization on a video (Zoom) call or in person

     L is for look forward to your next game or practice

        Use your experience, knowledge, skills, five senses (sight, hear, smell, taste,              touch), feel, breathing, physical sensations, and intuition. I guide my                          customers in their visualization on a video (Zoom) call or in person

3.  When to visualize during a game match (free throw, time out, tip off)

4.  When not to visualize during a basketball game

5.  Free throw routines of NBA players:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LulNz-tS08g

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Performers and Achievers, welcome to Performers and Achievers Daily with me, Raj Gavrilla. In today's episode, we're discussing do you plan when to visualize your basketball game? So similar to last week's last week it was about Fokker. And also I gave an example of track and feel today. You plan your visualization before your basketball game at home or before you start the game. That's when you plan your visualization. If you're seeing images of you making a three-point shot, or you dunking, or you making a move on someone during the day while you're doing other things, while you're with family, extended family, friends, whatever, wherever you may be at networking event, watching a movie, etc., then that's not the visualization that I'm talking about. Actually, that actually puts more cognitive load on you and pressure on you. The visualization that I'm discussing is planned visualization. So when you take and you plan your visualization, and this is before the game, and you use the ball method, and again, I'll go over that with you. It's uh breathe. So, what type of breathing are you using? And is that breathing the same each time? And if it's not the same each time, which sometimes it's not, based on let's say you've been running a lot up and down the courts, fast breaks, so it's it's a different breathing because you've been expending a different amount of energy, and then you have your next in the ball method is affirmations, but more than positive self-talk, I emphasize using instructional self-talk and motivational self-talk. So examples are instructional self-talk, lock into one specific one specific uh net, where the net and the goal are connected, lock into one of those specific rings on the goal, just one. That's how Steph Curry does it when he shoots. That's how Isaiah Thomas, the retired Hall of Fame basketball player, that's what he would look at when he shoots. And then also, you may say different things to yourself as far as instructional self-talk. Because again, the flow of the game, what's been happening, may be a slow game, it may be a game where there's a lot of half-court sets, so there's a lot of ball movement going back and forth. It may be an up and down game where you're running a lot, and so your energy level is different, and therefore you come to the line, and your routine is the same each time. Physically, you look the same. However, what's going through your mind, what you're thinking, your critical thinking skills are, your positive self-talk or your instructional self-talk, for example, could be something like keep the ball in front. Okay, so in other words, when you're shooting, you want to keep the ball out in front of you, uh, instead of to the side a little bit. Okay, and different players say different things because it changes based on a lot of factors in the game, how the game's flowing, and then sometimes uh some people players uh instructional self-talk is uh feel my energy flow. So the energy is gonna flow from the feet up through the waist, which is the transfer point or the hip, and up through into the shot and release on the fingertips. Some players will uh instructional self-talk will be to roll it off the fingertips. So there's very different things that can occur, and of course, these can be different based on what exactly is happening before you go to the free throw line. However, your routine at the free throw line is the same, and then motivational self-talk would be something like let's say you're shooting two shots, you make the first basket, then you say to yourself, with your motivational self-talk, good basket or good shooting, something to reward you with so that you can look forward to the next shot. Okay, and then obviously what do you do if the ball doesn't go in? Then you can do another visualization where you can visualize you using your physical release routine, like you're rubbing your fingers together so you can feel the ridges, so it brings you back into the present moment using mindfulness, so that's your physical release, and then you go into your routine again, and then the L involved method is look back, so this isn't necessarily well, this can be for free throws. You can look back at times when you did make free throws and relive those through visualization, and then you look forward, so you look forward to playing this next game against whoever the opponent is, and you visualize yourself making free throws. So that's the ball method. Now you can use also use this for three-point shots, mid-range shots, taking the ball to the basket, passing. You can use all this running different sets, defending. However, you're using this when you're not actually playing in the game, except for we guess what when you're not playing in the game. So you're still when you're visualizing, and this is when you use your senses, all five senses see, hear, smell, taste, touch, you feel, you notice your breathing, physical sensations, and then your intuition, and then your instructional self-talk, knowing how you shoot the basketball, not how someone else shoots the basketball, but knowing how you shoot the basketball. And then that's how you visualize. One way that's how you visualize, and we can in person via Zoom or in person uh go through other scenarios where maybe you didn't play as well as you'd like, and so you're looking to to uh make progression in your basketball, and so we can go through those specific situations now. During the game, you can also use visualization. Keep in mind visualization occurs when you are still. So in basketball, that would be at the free throw line, that would be before a jump ball, and then that would be when you're coming out of a timeout and you're ready to, you're about to go in, and so you visualize what that next play is gonna look like. Your coach is drawing that up, so you know what that play is, so you visualize that play, the execution of it. So those are times when you can visualize. There's not many more times during a basketball game when you're actually playing that you visualize. All the other times, what you're doing is you're seeing, you're seeing, you're hearing, you're feeling, your touching, your physical sensations, breathing, good energy, intuition, you know how to play basketball. You have your teammates, there's teamwork, right? So that's very important. So that's the visualization in basketball. What I will do is I will put some routines I found on YouTube of different players and their routines shooting the basketball, and then I'll also put uh well, those will be the ones. Uh you of course most likely have seen Steph Curry shooting. I think he's leading the NBA and free throw percentage. Damian Lillard is another good free throw shooter, so is Kevin Durant and uh LeBron James. He's not quite up there, however, he's a good free throw shooter, he's around 80%. And so you're familiar with seeing these players, and so how about your free throw percentage? Could you progress in your free throw percentage? Let's say that you don't have a routine. Well, we can work on a routine, not only work on a routine, we're gonna work on your mindset when you're shooting the free throw with the ball method, breathe, affirmations, instructional self-talk, motivational self-talk, positive self-talk, look back and look forward. And so that'll be very important. So if you already have your routine, then we can jump right in to that as well, and just start with all of the things that are going on in your mindset, your critical thinking skills, you knowing how you shoot the basketball, not how someone else shoots the basketball. And what are your maybe three keys to success? Or it could be just other instructional self-talk phrases. Players have different instructional self-talk, motivational self-talk, and even positive self-talk just based on different situations as the game is flowing. So if it's an up and down game, obviously their energy is a little different. And depends on what time of game it is, what type in the game it is, what's happening in game, situational awareness. So they'll have different instructional self-talk, different positive self-talk, different motivational self-talk. However, their routine at the free throw line is the same. So if you want to work on this, you can contact me by visiting my website at RajGavrilla.com, fill out the brief form, and we will contact you. Those of you who like my podcast, like it and make a comment in the comment section. And then for those of you who are interested in other services and programs of mine, you can also visit my website, RajGavrulla.com, fill out the brief form, and we will contact you as soon as we can. Enjoy your day.