3-Core® Reminders
The following are the 3 core mental skills to practice daily:
Progressive Relaxation (2min/day): This is also often called “Tense and Relax” because it’s easier to relax a muscle if you first tense it for a few seconds, breathe in and then exhale and relax. Start with muscle groups at one end of your body and “progress” through to the other end. Your body will learn to relax quickly each time you take a deep “belly breath.” A belly breath is done by simply using your belly (diaphragm) to pull the air into your lungs instead of raising your shoulders. This gets more air into the deeper parts of your lungs, increasing the amount of oxygen that moves into your bloodstream. To practice, put your hand on your belly so you can feel the air going slowly in and out.
GAP Exercise (2min/day): Because a lack of awareness of thoughts and emotions is the biggest reason people underperform, the GAP exercise is considered one of the most important mental skills to practice regularly. Simply recognize when a thought comes into your head, say “Got It”, let it go, and wait in the “gap” between thoughts until the next one comes in. It’s a simple skill but is often not easy because we quickly get distracted and forget to let interesting thoughts go. With practice, awareness is strengthened and gives us the power to find the Zone more often.
Imagery (3-5min/day): The more clearly you can imagine what you’re about to do, the better you will perform it. If you are relaxed and your mind is quiet (by doing the other 2 mental skills first), you’ll have more success controlling the images in your mind when you first start practicing imagery. As you do it more, you’ll be able to get the ideal images even when there are distractions present. We recommend practicing in both 1st-person (what it looks like out of your own eyes) and 3rd-person (what you look like through someone else’s eyes). However, most performers use 1st-person more often since they can better imagine what the performance feels like.
Key Reminder: People who successfully practice 3-Core daily ALWAYS start by setting a daily recurring alarm on their phone. Each day at the same time (after dinner usually), the alarm goes off and they practice their 3-Core for 7-9 minutes in a quiet place.