Charlie Unwin, Equestrian Psychology Coach, explains how a simple technique can improve your competition performance.
"If I told you that 60 seconds of focused thought could dramatically improve your dressage mark or showjumping round, would you try it? The truth is, you probably already know how to.
To illustrate this, place a bin across the room from you, screw up a piece of paper and try as best as you can to get the paper in the bin. Try it a number of times with the same piece of paper to see how good you can get. What do you notice happening just before you throw it? Most people will pause for a moment while they ‘collect their thoughts’. This is a vital part of your performance as it is preparing the brain (albeit very quickly) to coordinate your movements; this is a very quick form of mental rehearsal – the quality of which may well influence the outcome.
Importantly, you often take longer for mental rehearsal when: 1) the skill gets more difficult (try moving the bin further away), and 2) getting a good result means more to you (try competing against a friend for money!).
As you know, performing well at dressage or showjumping is far more complex than throwing a piece of paper into the bin. It probably also means a lot more to you, which is why we might find ourselves thinking about an upcoming competition days in advance, even weeks. Importantly, this process is our brain’s natural way of dealing with a significant event.
Unfortunately we often interfere by “trying not to think too much about it” before the event itself. This creates a tension between one half of our mind which is trying to do something in the present (i.e. tack-up or groom) whilst the other half of our mind is trying to jump ahead to the event itself. This can make us out of character (i.e. anxious, scatty or even bad tempered), otherwise known as having ‘low coherence’. This is particularly prevalent in riders that have to deal with external interferences such as a cramped warm-up arena or difficult owners!
For anyone who has come to any of my Equestrian Psychology events you will have seen how coherence can be measured scientifically in riders and has been shown to have a huge impact on horses’ behaviour and therefore performance at the competition.
So what do we need to do to organise our thoughts and ensure we are coherent as we approach the test itself? The key is to give yourself regular “time-outs” to deliberately focus on your goals for the upcoming competition. By practicing the 60-Second-Focus below, you will become expert at relaxing and focusing on demand.
To set yourself up properly do the following:
At least three days before competition:
1. Recognise exactly what challenges you will be facing during the competition and the simple goals you want to stick to (i.e. staying relaxed, controlling your breathing, maintaining the rhythm, decisive transitions, hitting your markers accurately...). Pick two or three and write them down.
2. Close your eyes and imagine what it would feel like to be world class at each of these attributes in turn – as if you were actually there performing. The more you practice this the more vivid it will get.
3. Rather than aiming to achieve a certain score in your test, simply set yourself the goal of re-creating the feelings associated with these key challenges just as you have imagined them (world class). Recognise that as simple as it seems, you will have to concentrate really hard to achieve this when you are actually doing it.
The 60 Second Focus
This exercise will dramatically increase your coherence whenever you perform it by relaxing you physically and preparing you mentally.
Take five slow deep breaths, relaxing your neck and shoulders with each and every out-breath. Think about nothing else but doing this well. This sounds easy but you will have to concentrate really hard on competition day! Now imagine doing a small chunk of your test (decide which part beforehand) by focussing on ONE of the key challenges above and doing it world class in the arena with everyone watching. Keep it slow in your mind (we naturally tend to rush our thoughts when under pressure). Stop decisively when you have finished that chunk.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t do this for the whole test or round – what matters more is that you can maintain the quality of concentration for small periods – the rest will follow naturally. Get into the habit of doing this regularly during training as well as before and during competition so that it becomes second nature. The emphasis here is on quality – you needn’t give yourself too much or too long. Stick to it and notice the changes when you reflect back on your competition!
Interested in finding out more about Charlie’s 2012 Easter Workshops, “Think a Little, Change a Lot?” Visit: www.performancelegacy.com/equestrian and follow him on Facebook.
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