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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


King of Your Turf

by: Bob Palmer
Peak Performance Coach
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Those of you who have climbed a mountain—even by a steady trail where no ropes or crampons were required—know it is an exhilarating experience.  Slowly but surely, one snowy peak after another emerges from behind the slopes until you are standing with a vista beyond description.  It is breathtaking.  In that one moment, there is no place you’d rather be and no other feeling you’d rather have.  That, coaches, is Zone FEEL at its best, and it is the type of Zone FEEL you must own on the football field—at all times.  You must be the emotional king of your turf, just as though you are standing looking at empowering vistas from a mountain top.

Although I played high school football, my best experiences of owning my turf came from competing in the martial arts.  At competitions, very much unlike the vocal and physical pre-game rituals of football, we sat quietly and waited for our turn to fight.  Then, when our names were called, we jumped up, entered the ring and exploded into combat.  For a lot of fighters, the inactivity of sitting killed their Zone, a comparison that can be made to the inactivity of coaches.  While your players are out on the field engaged in play, running shouting and hitting each other to build their Zone, you are in your coaching box, standing still or, at best, pacing.  It can make you as flat as an idle fighter.   

As a karate practitioner, I found a unique way to own my turf and build my Zone to overcome the idleness.  In the traditional martial arts, we bow as a sign of respect, instead of shaking hands.  We bow when we enter the dojo (gym); we bow when you enter the ring; and we bow when we face our opponent.  So I used bowing to trigger my Zone FEEL.  With every bow, my adrenaline increased, as did the intensity of my Zone FEEL.  And, by the time I bowed and entered the ring, I was flying, and I owned that ring.   By the time I faced my opponent and bowed to him, he was on MY turf and at a distinct disadvantage (in my mind at least).    

As a football coach, you’ll need to create your own triggers to generate this type of Zone, although not likely by bowing to your opponents.  And to create it, we’ll use an exercise that I teach to Olympic skeet shooters, baseball pitchers and batters and golfers, all who have specific “geographic” locations in which to perform.  The location—in your case the coach’s box—becomes your trigger for empowerment, excitement and adrenaline.     

This exercise uses the process you learned in my previous article called anchoring.  So, so if you haven’t read that article, it is a prerequisite.  By using this process, you will learn to capture the emotional experience of your mountain top, your greatest football experiences and your greatest life experiences.  You will learn to put them in a great emotional blender to create a powerful Zone FEEL that will be triggered every time you step into the coach’s box.    

With this exercise, the coach’s box will become your emotional ballast.  And, before you know it, you’ll be clambering to get onto the field to get more of that pleasure—during practices, during home games and during away games.  And don’t worry, as much as becoming the king of your turf is pleasurable, it is not addicting, although it is empowering. 

The outcome, then, when you lead your team into the game, is to be so fully wired with pleasure that everyone—players, coaches, water boys and fans—will want a follow your leadership.  And if you think that much pleasure in a stress-filled game like football is not possible, try stepping into the ring with a black belt.  Some of the most pleasurable experiences of my life were when I was face to face with the best.   It is up to you to dispense with past memories where the coach’s box was a place of embarrassment, tragedy and folly.  This exercise will help you to become a Zone Coach by making your coach’s box your emotional summit.    Download the pdf of the exercise, follow the steps, and become the king of your turf—the coach’s box.

King of Your Turf Excersize

Purpose:  To utilize specific past experiences in order to create a positive, exciting and empowering Zone FEEL to the coaching box   

 

Exercise:

1.  Demarcate a spot in your living room or office by using a small carpet.  This represents your coaching box. 

2.  Before you step onto the mat, think of three past experiences where you were in the Zone.  These experiences can be from successful football games, from exhilarating experiences such as mountain climbing and from other life or sports experiences.    

3.  Just as you did in the Anchoring Exercise, think of the first experience and capture it by pinching your thumb and index finger of your RIGHT hand together, at the height of the experience.  Follow the same procedure for each of the other experiences. 

4.  Now, step onto the mat as you would step into coaching box.  Pinch (fire) the RIGHT hand fingers.   Notice the empowering Zone FEEL as you do it.  (Imagine yourself in a game assigning plays.)

5.  Step back off the map and get into a relaxed, neutral state.  Repeat step 2 to step 4 a second and third time, each time using different empowering memories.   Then go on to step 5.    

7.  Now, without using your finger pinch, step onto the mat and notice how your mind and body respond automatically.  This time the mat has triggered your Zone FEEL, not the pinch. 

6.  Redo this whole exercise as often as necessary, and then test it out on the football field in the real coaching box.  This exercise can be done (and your Zone FEEL reinforced) on the field.    






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