Let's start out here...

One of my main purposes with this web log is to exorcise the demons of "over thinking" in sport. A foe with whom I have long grappled (mostly unsuccessfully), the 'mental game' in sport can easily be seen as a metaphor for one's own struggle to improve one's life in general (or am I over-thinking it?)

As with so much else in life, thinking too much is a brutal and insidious destroyer of performance.

Before I go any further, let me define my terms: I differentiate between a sport and a discipline. To me a sport is primarily physical and is usually played by teams. A discipline is primarily mental and is usually an individual activity. Sports: Football, hockey, skiing, tennis, etc. Disciplines: bowling, golf, shooting, luge/skeleton, chess, musicianship, etc. (These are my definitions only and carry no authority outside this discussion)

We in the individual disciplines often have a greater challenge than those in team sports because we compete only against ourselves. It may make for riveting television to portray Tiger Woods as competing head-to-head with Vijay Singh or Davis Love, but when the cameras aren't around, Tiger will tell you that when he's "in the zone", he's barely aware of the other golfers.

By ourselves, without a coach, it is extraordinarily difficult to progress to the highest level. The preternaturally gifted notwithstanding, most of us need a coach to help us to improve.

Without this help, many (including myself) fall into the trap of believing that our technique is adequate and that our failure at competitions is due to some emotional or psychological weakness that can only be remedied by use of "sports psychology".

More on this to come...