mind-body connection regarding sports

[chris-da-fur]

hello all!

So I have been brooding over some ideas for days now and I'm hoping people on here can enlighten me. In specific regards to athletic movements, how do the mind and body work together?

For instance, does the mind control the body, or are they one and the same? Can you like, leave the body to its own devices and just give it a target to hit at, or does some control have to be held on it by the mind? I feel like this concept applies to a lot of athletic movements in general... golf swing, basketball free throw, fill in the blank...

Also, "muscle memory", what's your take on it? That seems like the argument against the whole letting go and allowing your body do something (hit a target, throw a ball, hit one, etc.). If the body is bound by previous programming won't it default to that, for better or worse?

[Salem Temple]

Both education systems and the military use high pressure conditiong to implant training into the subconscious. When a situation detimines high pressue, for example a test, or live mission, the implanted memory sufaces and the mind goes into a super active state of consciousness where their level of alertness isnt only increased, but recall is almost, if not completely automated. A simular recation is recorded in sports as the "zone". Where time and space slow down. Plays become second nature and thinking stops, allowing the mind the room to be super alert.

No doubt that when our physical or mental demands exceed our mental ability to function that our mind shuts down or atleast slows down. In many instances this is a cause of stress and frustration, but in sports and martial arts we face that stress with a iron determination to continue, for either survival in war or success in sports or education.

That is just some thoughts on the subject. The "book of five rings" and "the art of war" are both great books at describing this in more detail. And on a side note I think that finding your spiritual energy or "chi" is related to this phenomena. In order to find your chi you must break though the boundry of preception to directly experience it. The same seems to occur when we recall information under high pressure situations. One is a way of directly encountering and overcomming the resitent mind, and the other is an indirect way of over riding the mind to overcome a situation.

-Salem-