検索キーワード： ナレーター "Dr. Joseph Parent" すべてのカテゴリー

A musician came for instruction from the Buddha in practicing meditation. He asked, “How should I hold my mind when I practice? Should I try to concentrate hard and keep it under tight control, or should I relax and let it wander wherever it wants to go?” The Buddha answered the musician with a question. “When you tune your instrument, do you make the strings too tight or too loose?” The musician replied, “Neither too tight nor too loose. I make them just so.”

Our actions are shaped by our intentions. When I ask golfers the purpose of making a golf swing, most of them answer, “To hit the ball.” Yet focusing on the ball as the target is a problematic perspective. Thinking of their job as “hitting the ball” instead of “sending the ball to a target” is probably why you see some high handicappers make quite acceptable practice swings and then get up to the ball and swing like they’re chopping wood.

Shambhala is a legendary kingdom that is a model of enlightened society, like the story of Camelot and its ideals of genuineness, confidence, and dignity. Shambhala warriorship is not about conquering others and wreaking destruction. It is about having the bravery to overcome aggression, to manifest fearless gentleness. The fundamental training of a Shambhala warrior is based on the Buddhist practices of mindfulness and awareness in action.

After taking your seat with good posture, direct your attention to your breathing. Notice the feeling of your torso expanding and contracting, the sensation of the breath flowing through your nostrils. It is important that you don’t manipulate your breathing. However your breath flows, whether deep or shallow, short or long, just notice it with bare attention.

Often a golfer will have a bad start to a round and get completely depressed, assuming that the day will go that way. His discouragement creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. But since each hole is physically independent of the others, isn’t it possible that the rest of the round will be the best he ever played? Sometimes we struggle and struggle until late in the round when we say, “Oh, I give up. I’m just going to get up there and hit it.” And to our surprise the shot comes off well.

A young monk was spending some time each day in meditation and contemplation. He wondered how many of his thoughts during those sessions were virtuous (about doing good deeds) or non-virtuous (about deeds based on hatred, greed, or prejudice). He collected a pile of pebbles and put them in front of himself, and he placed a bowl to his left and another to his right. As he meditated, he would put a pebble in the left-hand bowl when he recognized a virtuous thought.

This is one of the many paradoxes of golf. The control we want to get refers to consistent accuracy, control over where the ball will go. The control we have to give up is the kind we exercise when we “steer” a shot. Steering is an expression of the thinking mind trying to control the swing to make sure we get the results we want. Paradoxically, the results we get usually range from not very good to terrible.

Once there were two monks walking along a path through the woods. When they came to a stream, they encountered a young woman dressed in fine silks, unable to get across without ruining her clothes. One of the monks offered to carry her on his back. She climbed on, they all crossed the stream, and on the other side he set her down. She thanked him, and the two monks continued on their way. The monastery to which these monks belonged had a rule prohibiting them from touching women.

Players often rely on swing thoughts, but as we discussed earlier, thinking while swinging isn’t such a good idea. It’s preferable to have a swing image, one that includes at least the path and finishing point of the ball, but can also include the feel of the swing. For players who need a swing thought, it is better to have one that describes what you intend to do rather than how you intend to do it.

While playing well in a tournament, we might think to ourselves, “Well, you’ve gotten away with it so far, but you’ll screw up before too long.” Believing in this thought gives it power. It creates feelings of doubt and anxiety, which interfere with our swing and produce errant shots. Eventually, the fear of failure becomes so powerful that our game is badly disrupted. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Simple yet powerful keys for keeping your composure and the mental edge over your opponents, which will help you play with more consistency, experience less frustration, and shoot lower scores.

From the best-selling author of Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game and the tennis champion and world record holder of the Golden Set comes the most innovative and powerful book since The Inner Game of Tennis. Combining deep Eastern wisdom and practical tennis expertise, Zen Tennis will help you get out of your own way and into the zone.

Dr. Joe Parent has drawn on a career coaching the masters to write a hundred easy to understand yet powerful tips for improving any golfer’s score, from the essentials of the mental game to helpful hints to keep your composure. As with his other books, you will find yourself returning time and again to hear what Masters and PGA Champion Vijay Singh call “lessons that make the mental game seem so simple".

Confidence, as every golfer knows, is the key to peak performance on the greens. Zen Putting: Mastering the Mental Game builds your confidence through a thinking-outside-the-box approach that helps golfers of all levels get out of their own way and roll the ball better than ever.