Visualisation is the mental focus that brings out the best in you. It is a mental rehearsal of the skills and plans that a kickboxer would use. It allows you to develop fast reactions and the correct responses under pressure.
The window of opportunity for skills, especially new skills, is often missed or hindered by thinking time.
What mental rehearsal allows you to do is switch on your mental reflexes to beat the opposition to the kick or punch. You see what you have mentally rehearsed – your opponent’s technique coming at you say a jab, cross, roundhouse kick – and you see yourself evading, blocking or parrying the attack and delivering an effective response.
Each and every counter can be mentally rehearsed so that you develop lightning-fast responses to openings in their defences.
The same process can be used to develop techniques in all aspects of your kick boxing, from visualising control of fights right through to rehearsing an entire game plan for a specific fight. Post-training and pre-fight are the times to switch on the winning mind.
METHOD OF PRACTICE
1 Sit in a nice comfortable position and focus on one paticualar point on the wall and then start to slow your breathing down, by taking deep breaths and holding it for a little longer than usual.
2 Choose a particular part of the fight or technique you would like to rehearse
3 Picture the whole sequence between you and your opponent or the new technique you are trying to perfect.
4 All this should happen in slow motion, pin pointing certain areas like footwork – release of the technique – shape of the body – balance – target.
5 Remeber how landing the perfect technique makes you feel, try to smell and taste it.
6 Rehearse it all now at normal speed and then gradually speed it up faster and faster
7 Do this over and over again
Make visualisation part of your life and it can have major results – and not just in kickboxing. It is not daydreaming, it is not fantasy, it is rehearsal for success.