If you’ve been in your sport for a while, you’ve probably hit a dead end. It happens to all of us, especially when we are close to hitting the best we can. You’ve been playing golf in the 1980s and 1990s. Your bench press weighs a little over 400 pounds. You’ve always been in tennis finals. You’ve been racking up great scores in bow and rifle practice. But, you want more. You want something better. Good?
Let me share with a well-documented story of the US rifle team at the 1970s Olympics, where Milton Erickson, a well-known hypnotist, was asked to help the team defeat the Russians. Here’s how the story ties in after Erickson agrees to help:
“I explained, ‘I fired a rifle twice, when I was a teenager. I know the muzzle end and the stock end, that’s all I know about a rifle. Now these riflemen know everything they need to know about a weapon. I am a doctor. I know what I need to know about a body. I will train your team. They already have the knowledge of the rifle and I have the medical knowledge.”
The commander was so furious that a civilian was going to train the rifle team that he added two men who had been trying for two years to make the rifle team. I don’t know what the ratings were for the rifle team, but it was a rating in the sixties. Those two men had been devoting all their free time to training and scored in the low forty. In other words, they couldn’t make the team.”
“One of the first things I said to the man, after I found out that in the contest you shoot forty rounds straight, was: ‘I know the first bullseye is easy. The question is ‘Can you do it twice?… Can you do it eleven times, after ten successive targets?… You’ve done it nineteen times. Will you make it the 20th time?… The tension builds with each successful shot! “‘You’ve done it twenty-nine times. Can you do it thirty times?…You’ve done it thirty-five times. Thirty-six? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? (out of breath) Thirty-nine? Can I do it forty times?'”
Through the use of hypnosis, the men from the rifle team, including the two added ones who had such bad shots, entered the competition and the US beat the Russians…for the first time!
What level would you like to take your game to? Would you like to accelerate your sports skills? Hypnosis could be the answer for you. It was for the US Olympic Rifle Team!