The New Method

 I believed that all these Psychology people over the last fifty years could not be wrong "was it must be me". 

When went on a psychology course years, and years ago, the first six lessons were all about the history of psychology. I was not happy bunny, then on the seventh lesson we started on the theory of psychology. Well I not going to go through all the two years of hell and the waist of time and money, I was thinking "Was it me again scenario", when I remembered one of my mentors (Harry Smith) said, John Knowledge is not POWERFULL until you learn to use it and apply it.

That reminded me of Huddersfield Town AFC set on a top psychologist. A year and half latter they sacked him Town had not improve but had got worse. Why because he had all that knowledge and was never shown how to APPLY IT. It could have been the manager also. 

I cannot believe that even today premier managers get sacked because of the results, they are not bothered they receive maybe a two million pounds of their contract money and some other club sets them on a few weeks latter.

So it comes to what is the answer?

I am back 2020

Part two of my last blog

Part two of my last blog. Mervyn King was the darter who was wearing the ear plugs. I presume he was wearing them so he could not hear the crowd shouting out derogative remarks, or he was of the old dart school, when the crowd gave better order. Perhaps now with very large crowds attending these matches, he was finding it difficult to keep his concentration, due to the noise. I will bet it was my first suggestion. Some people might suggest that EAR PLUGS are a good solution to the problem, also they may encourage Mervyn to change the colour of his ear plugs to be skin coloured instead of bright yellow, so they don’t stand out to the crowd. I would say that this is only treating the symptoms, very much like if you had headache and you went to the doctors he may give you paracetamol, again this is treating the symptoms.


So what I would do is treat Mervyn Kings problem, I would treat the cause, which is: people calling out words which he reacts to. Let me explain; suppose someone in the audience boos how can I stop Mervin reacting to this, well I would use EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques. For those who have been reading my blog, you will see that I have put EFT links at the right hand side with EFT sites and would suggest that now is the time for you to visit some of these.

How does EFT work, some people know it as acupuncture without needles, also using affirmations. I get these words mostly from the person with the problem and bounce them back in the affirmations thus this can lead to shifts in the persons thought patterns and give relief from both physical tension and negative emotions while they are tapping points on the head and body. I will leave it to you to do some research, we EFT practitioners have a saying “Try it one anything”

After writing the above I went on to Google and typed: darts Mervyn King ear plugs and got:- www.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/darts/9311975.stm

Christmas & New Year part 1

Hello wouldn’t you know what I have been doing? Well at the moment I am not going to tell you because you would not believe any way.

I will write about some points I noted over the Christmas & New Year, first watching the professional darts association world championship. Phil Taylor 15 times world champion started the competition and just got through with an average of about 88 which was well below his par, well it turns out that he had just become a granddad for the first time, but his grandson Jack was in intensive care. All Phil could talk about was his grandson, can you remember that I said that a thought can cause an emotion which in turn causes a disruption in the energy system. One player in another round was wearing ear defenders (yellow plugs which could be seen on TV ). It turns out that some people in the crowd were booing and this was upsetting him so he have decided to put ear plugs in, this again illustrates the above a disruption of the energy system. I also noted another player doesn’t seem to be getting on with the crowd, but was trying to change his strategy with the crowd.  When he was walking down from his introduction and he got to the stairway to the stage the bodyguard who walks  down with the player, not the tall bombshell in low cut high hem dress, the one who would eat is own grandmother. Well he gave the player one of the 180 red cards that most of the spectators use in expressing views some of which are very amusing. The player then took it on to the stage, put it down and then shook hands with the referee, markers and his fellow player, and then picked up the card, what do you think it said? Well it said (see at the end of this blog). This player had maybe thought of this strategy himself I don’t know. There was one player from Japan called  Monhiro Hashioto who the crowd really accepted why did they? What is this thing called charisma the two players would have given their right arm to know, oh I forgot they need their arm to throw the darts, but you know what I mean.

To the people who read my blog.        Happy New Year to everyone.     (That is what was on the card did you get right)  

The mind factor

A book I recommend


I start to read some books, then after a few minutes I find them hard to follow. I often look at the reviews on Amazon, where you can sometimes read the foreword and look at the contents, maybe there are also a couple of pages of the first chapter. One book that ticked all the boxes was called “The Mind Factor” written by joint authors Darren Clarke and Dr. Karl Morris. (I bought four NEW copies on my last order from Amazon uk for one pence each, but I had to pay postage. You can have them posted direct to the person you are giving it to.)

Karl’s passion is to demystify psychology and provide a range of practical tools, applicable to all levels that will assist in your performance breakthrough.

He gives a good example of what I try myself when coaching my pupils. This is a story Karl tells about the time you are at school. You submit your homework into the teacher which you were hoping would give you 10 out of 10. You get it back with big red crosses showing your mistakes, these crossers come off the paper and slap you in the face.

Just imagine if your teacher had highlighted all what you had done right in green and all you done wrong were not highlighted, you wouldn’t feel as bad as getting the red crosses. So the next time you are coaching. First praise your team/pupil on the 95% on what they have done right, and then talk about mistakes.

Lombardi speech to his playes

Have you ever heard of a coach called Vince Lombardi?


Vince Lombardi was without question the greatest American football coach of his time, perhaps of all time. He was a thoughtful man with uncommon passion, a motivator with uncompromising values, and a leader unprecedented wisdom and authority. He was also down to earth yet inspiring.

Here are four quotations the fourth is the most famous,

1. Confidence ---- “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.”

2. Discipline ---- “You don’t do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time.”

3. Learning ---- “Errors and mistakes are the necessary steps in the learning process: once they have served their purpose, they should be forgotten.”

4.” Winning is everything, it is the only thing.” When questioned on his quote he said, “what I really meant was you have to make the effort to win, preparing to win, believing you can win, and being committed to being the best you can. “

You Tube, type in, ” Vince Lombardi Famous Speech”, listen to it and if that doesn’t inspire YOU then nothing will. You are dead.

My e-mail address

You may have noticed that I have added an Email contact  John@sport-peak-performance.co.uk . If you have a problem send me an Email and I will reply if I can help. It would be helpful to receive any feedback from the blog. This type of performance coaching is new mixing energy therapy with peak performance coaching. I have not done any EFT on the blog so far, so I ask you to go on to the video link, and see the EFT tapping technique in action.


My aim is getting people to become at ONE, (mind & technique) in their sport and if reading this blog can, help you achieve this, I would like to know. I have people already reading the blog from America (3) Canada, Austria, Germany & the uk, So thank you for reading the blog. John

My excuse what is yours?

Last Sunday I thought it time to have a boy’s day out! With a Billiard competition in Cambridge four of us got together in one car and made the 200 mile journey. I had not played in these E.A.B.A. Billiard competitions for two years. Being the head coach of the EABA and with no coaching at this event it gave me the opportunity to have some match practice.




We arrived 45minutes before the start so after registration I had time to chat to fellow players. With 53 players taking part there was a good chance to analyse people’s words- part of peak performance coaching. One of the players had won the competition the month before so I congratulated him. He told me that had since got a new cue and hoped he would play O.K. He had purposely left his old cue at home so that if by chance he made a couple of bad shots he would not be tempted to revert back to his old one. I told him this was very good thinking, however, he then went on to say he had a cold and was feeling very lethargic. He did lose in the competition but made a break of 208 with his new cue.



On the three hour journey home I was asked about my blog and found myself saying that I hadn’t got on with it as my internet speed was so slow at 0.3MgBites. I had made a number of calls to the provider over the last five months waiting for them to ring back with no results. I decided this was just an excuse for not getting on with it. Some years ago I thought of writing a book “The 147 ways I lost my snooker game” Although I was coaching several players at the time I was not a mind/peak performance coach, I also thought that as I was not a professional player no one would want to buy the book (my negative belief). One of the best excuses from one of my young players who lost was “I couldn’t play my ears were too hot”

Why oh why do we do this? Players don’t like to lose, are not prepared to put in the practice or make a complete commitment. We must work on our players goals helping them formulate them, helping them with their technique,keeping their composure and always help them maintain their strategies, in order to achieve a focus (zone), and always always encouraging them.

 In my next Blog, is about Vince Lombardi he was in my opinion the best team manager ever!

Welcome to part two

I hope you have thought where you put yourself in the mind-technique percentage in your sport.

In the example above David was 25%-75% being an absolute beginner (aged 25 years old). I would estimate someone like Tiger Woods would be 97%mind-3%technique, don’t get it wrong when I say that Tiger has only 3% technique he holds the other 97% in his subconscious mind. (This is because he has had hours and hours of practice).  I hope I am not losing you at this point!  Let me try and make it a little clearer. When you drive your car, if you have had your licence, and driven approximately 6,000 miles/year for over four years I would say that you now steer, change gear, and the other driving faculties you have, you will now be doing it subconsciously. When you do things subconsciously it is called going into state. The older you are the slower it takes to go into state and slower in coming out of state. I will give you a example, well you have just driven your car a few miles and you get to your destination , you will be approximately 17% in state, you then get out of your car and use your key fob to lock your car, you are now 12% in state, you start to walk down the street, you are now 8% in state, you walk a few more yards, you are 4% in state, a few more steps and you are in conscious state. At this point you think, did I lock my car? Have you ever done that?    A cricketer gets to a hundred runs , he then celebrates, comes out of state goes back to the crease to resume his innings and he’s out next ball. He was not back into his concentration state. (This is where a peak performance coach can show you how to return to your full concentration state in seconds.)

Don’t think that practice, practice is the answer. One of my friends he is golf mad, and the club professional would say to me, “your mate is on the practice ground he’s the only player I know who practices  six hours a day practicing the wrong technique”.

So the correct practice is a must, never practice without purpose and if you can work along side a coach.

mind percentage and the game

Two of the most asked questions to a sport psychologist or peak performance coach are :-

1. Why can’t I take my practice game to a match game?
2. Why do the commentators on T.V. keep saying “It is all in the mind” when you don’t think it is?

I will answer the first question later in the year on my blog.

My answer to question two will be in two parts.

1) I have never read from any text book what I classify as my answer but there are bits and bats on the subject, however, I have never known anyone answer the question to my satisfaction. In trying to illustrate my answer I am going to take the sport of golf. Hundreds of books have been written on the mind and golf and I have read quite a few of them. One of the best I have come across is called “The inner game of golf” by Timothy Gallwey. He also wrote “The inner game of tennis”.

Suppose we have a young 25 year old (say David) who is progressing in the business world and his fellow workmates or his superior keep asking him to have a round of golf. He keeps giving excuses because he has never played and doesn’t want to show himself up. One day his superior tells him he is going to have a company golfing day where he is going to invite his top clients. He needs David to accompany one of these clients David goes into panic mode! He has played pitch & putt in his younger days and has watched golf on the T.V. and he knows how it is played. He decides to go for lessons with the golf professional at his local club and the professional shows him how to hold the clubs, how to swing etc. David goes off to the driving range with all this knowledge in his head and hits a couple of hundred golf balls; out of those he only hits around 10 correctly. There is so much to think about – feet ,hands, hips, shoulder, arms, keeping his head still, now he is in panic 2 mode. At this stage I would think his mental attitude to the game, temperament, fear and doubt would be approximately about 25% , whilst 75% of his concentration will be on his technique. Until he can subconsciously get his swing etcetera i.e. without thinking about it consciously, this takes time and practice. What I am suggesting is that whilst you are learning a game you can’t employ the mental side of the game whilst you are still learning the basic techniques. Once you have learnt the techniques and they are embedded in your subconscious then the mental side of golf becomes 95% -98% of the game.

Part two will follow on my next blog.

apologies

I must apologise for not adding to my blog, I had this misconception that my site was not active, because it had not been linked to my domain name www.sport-peak-performance.co.uk Well it now as been connected. I was informed by my friend who did this site that some people from Australia, USA, etc. Have already seen the blog, so I once again I apologise.

meeting steve wells

See the photograph of Steve Wells (on the left) and me.

Steve Wells is an internationally reconised psychologist, professional speaker,and peak performance consultant from Perth, Western Australia who regularly teaches and consults worldwide with elite athletes, coaches and business achievers to improve their performance and induce the peak performance of their teams.                                           

When I write about peak performance, I mean Mind and Energy.

Steve is a leading edge researcher and skilled practitioner in this new and exciting field of Energy Psychology. He received the 2000 Research Award from the field’s peak body, for original ground-breaking research on Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Together with colleague Dr. David Lake, Steve has developed the unique approaches Simple Energy Techniques (SET) and Provocative Energy Techniques (PET). I will be writing about (PET) later in the blog it is really good fun. Both Steve and David are in demand internationally to train others in their unique methods. Steve’s work has been featured on several Australian current affairs programs, he regularly appears on radio, and his work has been featured in several national magazines and newspapers.

Steve was one of the first to apply Energy Techniques to performance enhancement in sports, as well as to personal and corporate success. Through his work he has helped many professional athletes to achieve at peak levels in their sport, and has helped thousands of business and professional people to achieve greater levels of success in their work and life. For several years, Steve was the team psychologist for the Perth professional baseball team, who won the championship using his programs.

Steve’s focus is on teaching practical strategies you can use immediately to get better results. His programs are based on universal principals of success combined with Energy psychology. More information on Steve and David’s work can be found at http://www.eftdownunder.com/ For people who like to use you tube, type in “Simple Energy Techniques (SET)”

About Me

My name is John Ingleby I am writing this article to introduce myself. My aims are to open your mind to new ideas in the structure of sports coaching.

I live in the small village in West Yorkshire. I was an engineer and industrial chemist then in my late 30’s started my own company, Ballcraft and was one of the first companies in England to use computerised engraving. I carry out all kinds of engraving work and sell sports trophies and awards.

Ten years ago I started studying Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and am now, qualified in hypnotherapy and as a NLP master practitioner. Further studies have enabled me to qualify in Thought Field Therapy and Emotional Freedom Techniques. I have taken a strong interest in Meta Medicine using it with E.F.T. matrix reprinting. I have a number of hobbies including magic, D.I.Y. and am a Billiards and Snooker coach, referee, examiner and also a tutor for both referee’s and examiner’s.

Case Studies - My Billiards Year

Peter Stanyer is an unusual case study in the field of sports psychology and peak performance as he is not a professional sportsman but rather an amateur with a goal to achieve.

I had been reading Peter’s blog for most of the year and had also seen him play Billiards. Being a Billiards and Snooker coach myself it was surprising to me that this man was donating one year of his life learning to play Billiards. After twelve months of finding out how Billiards should be played he was then going to the play in the Police Billiards Knock-out competition and try to beat these old men who had previously defeated him. I decided to contact him and offered him twelve hours on some new peak performance ideas. I had formulated a plan which I thought would be of benefit to him. Of course it was not possible to show Peter all the techniques I have adapted as each sports person has their own methods to help them individually. With a twelve hour time limit it is only possible to scratch the surface.

Peter asked me to write about how I though the four sessions had turned out. After a period of time I had written four pages and not covered the first section, so I decided to carry on writing and finish off this first section. It was going to be difficult to introduce Peter into the sections the first being NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming).

In the other sections I also covered
1) Sports Psychology & Sport Peak Performance Techniques
2) Emotional aspects of playing sport
3) Energy Techniques which include E.F.T. (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and T.F.T (Thought Field Therapy)

Lets get started - My first question to Peter “What percentage does the mind play in Billiards”? Peter thought a little bit and said about 15%. The last question I asked him at the end of the twelve hour sessions was the same question but this time Peter’s answer was 55%. How did that change so much in twelve hours? I will try to answer this now.

Peter came to see me with a completely open mind about Peak Performance E.F.T. etc. He did this purposely so that he had no preconceived ideas in any of these departments. He was a sceptic to say the least that anything could be done.

No two people read another’s physiology the same due to each person’s own filtering system. Let me try to explain. We all are at present receiving two million bits of information per/second from our five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell). Let me explain the filtering system first of all. This filtering system is what makes each individual person unique. In N.L.P. these filters are called distortion, deletion and generalisation. Out of the two million bits of information per/second arriving in to our subconscious mind this information is filtered and then the subconscious sends 128 bits of information per/second which IT thinks we need at that moment in time to our conscious mind. If you work this out mathematically you will find that the amount of information sent to our conscious mind is 0.064%.

We continued our talk about N.L.P. – For those of you who don’t know anything about N.L.P. just call it the brain’s language and software. We are born with some software already down-loaded which is no different to most animals e.g. a baby cries when it is in distress or hungry and smiles when it is happy.

I asked Peter to take a short test and first told him that all his answers would be correct. This test is called a VAK test which can be found on your computer. Go into Google and type VAK test, there will be several to choose from. What does this test tell me when I look at the answers? The questions are designed to see what kind of learning style you adopt.

QUESTION 1.) When I operate equipment I generally:-
A) Read the instructions first
B) Listen to an explanation from someone who has used it before
C) Go ahead and have a go I can figure it out as I use it.

If you agreed with
A – Your learning style is visual
B – Your learning style is auditory
C – Your learning style is Kinaesthetic

After 30 questions which take no more than 10 minutes Peter’s answers worked out at 40% Visual, 37% Kinaesthetic and 23% Auditory. The results showed he was quite balanced on Visual and Kinaesthetic (doing things/practical) and low on Auditory.

It meant my best approach to tune into Peter’s brain and learning would be show him visually then let him do what I required but not do too much talking about how to do the techniques. This saves a lot of time and your pupil will learn quickly; this is why smaller class sizes in schools are so much better for our children when a teacher uses the VAK system. I.e. mixes the three learning styles. If the teacher just users the auditory to all the class, then if we have one or two of the children with an 50% kinaesthetic level they will become very bored and the disruptive which in turn effects all the children in the class. One peace of information which you may not know is that 80% of the prison population are kinaesthetic lead and also have reading and writing difficulties.

We then went into what goes on when you meet someone. All your FIVE senses are scanning that person
Sight- Visual
Hearing – Auditory
Touch – Kinaesthetic
Smell – Olfactory
Taste – Gustatory

If you shake hands and they say “pleased to meet you” your brain is already analyzing the handshake – the way they said what was said and if we analyse this we find communication is – 55% is physiology, 38% is tonality and 7% is the actual words. Don’t forget that this person is also analysing you through the same process.

I showed Peter how we can build rapport with this person through physiology. If this person is, in Peter’s case, an opponent in a Billiard match you can make yourself look confident through physiology. I showed Peter how to achieve this and to be just being approximately 5% greater than your opponent. If you go above this limit you may look arrogant. Carly Simon’s song “You’re so vain” is very true of some people and you don’t want to go there. Playing most games and faced with serious problems N.L.P. tools help us stay calm, centred and still project a sense of confidence.

At this stage Peter said “is this cheating”? Well you could say my opponent could do the same to me. It is just that you have started to understand and be able adjust your own physiology. I then asked Peter to take four large deep breaths, watching him do this breathing exercise it was apparent that like 95% of the population he did not know how to take deep breaths. I then showed him how to do this explaining that by doing it in this way it would deal with any stress and anxiety.

I showed Peter how to centre himself. This technique is known as ‘centering’ because it involves focusing attention on the centre of your body, just behind your navel.

Well that concluded the first three hour session. Overall Peter was a good pupil and after reading the blog where he talked about this first session and putting into practice what he had learnt I would say he thought it was a success.

Peter's reactions and feelings are shown and available on his blog at the following addresses:

http://mybilliardsyear.blogspot.com/2010/02/sports-psychologist-visit-14.html
http://mybilliardsyear.blogspot.com/2010/03/sports-psychologist-visit-24.html
http://mybilliardsyear.blogspot.com/2010/03/sports-psychologist-visit-34.html

http://mybilliardsyear.blogspot.com/2010/03/sports-psychologist-visit-44.html

An interesting section on the website is explains how Peter managed to put these techniques into direct use during a match.

http://mybilliardsyear.blogspot.com/2010/03/oldham-snooker-academy.html

Contact Me

The fastest and best way top contact me is via email the address is as follows:

john@sport-peak-performance.co.uk

Peak Performance Journey

What I would like to do is to use this Blog to take you on a journey through one year as a peak performance coach and write a weekly format on my case studies with the client’s approval and Emails you may send.

I would like to introduce you into the four pronged attack of Sports Psychology using techniques from N.L.P. Peak Performance, Emotional Energies such as E.F.T & T.F.T. and also how to protect yourself from Energy Vampires.(This sounds like I must be a crackpot, but please stay with me, once you know what to look for you will know several). I don’t know where this journey is going to go but I hope people will find many answers to their problems especially those of you thinking you are the only one with your particular problem.

LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN

One of the downfalls of becoming a sports psychologist is the stigmatisation of the title – One sportsman to a fellow sportsman “Oh by the way I have been to see a sports psychologist” reply “Why what is wrong with you?”

I like to think of myself as a peak performance coach which if you repeated the above sentence with the words peak performance coach I don’t think I would get the same reply. I am not advocating that all sports psychologists change their title but for the general public to change their concept of what a sports psychologist does.

Control your own “thoughts” – What is nervous Emotion
Your thinking controls your Emotions and your Emotion controls your performance. If you have the right thoughts you will have the correct Emotions and thereby you are going to have the right performance.

You are a player but you are not prepared for the game or match you are about to play. You don’t feel confident, that is a thought. You become nervous – that is an Emotion – you are going to tighten up which will affect your performance.

Everyone learns skills but what do we call skills. Is it jumping over a six foot pole swimming 100 metres or running a mile? A old man can live to be ninety years old and not be able to read or write and by adjusting his strategies even his close friends may never know that they can’t read or write. I forgot my glasses, is a good way out even though they don’t wear them. Why would I make this analogy? Well is a skill that this gentleman as and he does it well.

Seeing one my interests is Billiards & Snooker I will use three examples. A peak performance coach PPC cannot make you a top billiard/ snooker player instantly, you have to know the correct shot to go for, at the correct speed or strength. You also have to have a fairly good cue action (technique) along with a fair knowledge of the game you are playing – rules etc.

A PPC can even improve even the very top players by helping control their thoughts. Example one, Steve Davis made a remark in the 2009 world snooker championship about Stephen Hendry’s cue. Steve said “I can’t understand Hendry deciding to play in the world championship with a cue he as only had for three weeks”; even though Hendry made a 147 with that cue after only a couple of days after he first acquired it.

If Stephen Hendry herd this remark by Davis this could start the negative thought process in Hendry’s head, had he made the right decision on using this new cue.
It is what that person’s values and beliefs make of this statement subconsciously. A top PPC will steer his client away from these values and beliefs. The same can be said for an E.F.T practitioner who will help with the emotions which we all develop over time. Let me give second example, quite common in the Billiard world. I said to a player the other day “I see you lost to Joe Blogs again” (I know I shouldn’t have said this because it will give him the negative affirmation). He replied “I don’t like playing him because he plays all the wrong shots; he plays snooker billiards potting the red 12 to 14 times off the spots”. What is wrong here is that this player’s values and beliefs are being upset, causing an emotion from his opponents style of play. The third example when Ronnie O’ Sullivan played left handed against Peter Ebdon. (Peter thought it was disrespectful) Both the first billiard player and Peter Ebdon had a thought, this caused an Emotion which disrupted the energy system of the body and subsequently altered these players’ performances. Both were not “happy bunnies”. The answer was to alter those two players mind set with their values & beliefs. Getting the help of an E.F.T practitioner will show you how. I will be using E.F.T. quite a lot over the next year, and this will be great fun.

Last week I watched the 2010 Three Cushion Masters Competition. One of the commentators was Clive Everton and one of his remarks was that even though it was a 10 foot table not one player throughout had used the rest. All of the players could cue equally with their left and right hands. I can bet not one of these players had a negative thought on this issue, and subsequently it did not alter their performance.
E.F.T has not been used much in sport in this country, mainly because sport psychology courses don’t cover it. My introduction was with Gary Craig; he outlined on his teaching DVD’s what a tremendous impact EFT would have on sports (teams and individuals). Steve Wells (who was my peak performance tutor) said he had very good results using EFT in sports helping players gain empowering beliefs. When I decided to try and improve myself in coaching techniques I looked on the internet and on Amazon books. One name came up time and time again and that was Patrick J. Cohn PH.D, He is based in ORLANDO U.S.A. and I will be using some of his ideas.

The reason I became interested in Peak Performance in sport was through my involvement with coaching over the years in football, snooker and billiards. I also played many other sports boxing, judo, karate (Karate Kid is one of my favourite movies) golf, cricket, plus flat and crown green bowls. I obviously meet many sportsmen & women through my business, I often ask the question what makes a top sports person nine out of ten answer “the six inches between your ears”. I have then tried to get a percentage the mind plays in their sports and usually this average is 55% to 65% however the answer in golf is 80% to 90%. I then thought of my coaching mentors Jackie Charlton of Leeds United and Gerry Murphy of Bradley Rangers (later of Huddersfield Town FC academy) Leslie Driffield (Billiards) Jack Karnhem and Terry Griffiths (Snooker and all coaching techniques). So then if I was using technique alone the maximum I could attain with that person out of 100% would be 45%. This is why I feel if we don’t coach the mind we are only getting half way to the solution.

I first started studying NLP (Neuron. Linguistic Programming) this was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grunder. Some people call NLP the brain’s Highway Code. Just think of the chaos if we didn’t have a Highway Code. I was very lucky in finding a tutor in NLP Helen Emms who in turn was tutored by David Shepherd who in turn was tutored by Richard Bandler. David went on to form his own company Performance Partnership. I say I was lucky because Helen was willing to run the first courses in NLP on sport. Unbelievably there was only myself and another guy Matt on this first course, at this time NLP was only taken by the business community – mostly management level. With the growth of the internet people now take NLP courses for self development. After studying over 300 hours and also written examinations I passed my Masters in NLP and NLP sport and I thank Helen for all this help. Helen has written her own book on Tennis entitled “Achieving Peak Performance”. It is a must read for all people wishing to better understand peak performance and you don’t have to play tennis as most of the techniques Helen uses can be adapted to most other sports.