25. Mental Gym

President John F. Kennedy’s State of the Union Address January 11, 1962: “The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining”

You could also say “In times of peace, prepare for war”. This is a quote from Niccolò Machiavelli, the father of modern political philosophy and political science.

All in all, why not engage in a bit of mental preparation and training for the golf course. Here are a couple of exercises:

Exercise 10:  Imagine yourself playing golf.

  • Find a comfortable place where you can do a bit of mental training. 
  • Do the breathing technique for calmness. Exercise 2.
  • Do the mindfulness exercise. Exercise 8.
  • Imagine yourself at the first tee.
  • Do your wait routine.
  • Do your pre-shot routine.
  • Imagine your shot. 
  • Do your Post-Shot routine.
  • Imagine you walk up to your next shot.
  • Walk towards the ball, do your Between-shots routine. 
  • Approaching your ball, do your analysis for the next shot.
  • Waiting at the ball, do your Waitroutine.
  • Do your Pre-Shot routine.
  • Do your Post-Shot routine 
  • Etc.

Exercise 11: Enter the mental states.

  • Do the deep belly breathing.
  • Do your mindfulness exercise.
  • Do slow bodyscan but in a quick way.
  • Do a Quick bodyscan.
  • Enter your GDS.
  • Enter your GTS.
  • Enter your GRS.
  • Boost your GDS twice.
  • Boost your GDS 5 times.
  • Enter your GRS.

The quicker and the better you are able to do exercise 10 and 11 the more value you will get when playing golf. At the same time, you need to do the exercises correct and make sure you are fully engaging and fully entering the different routines and mental states. The golf game is a strange old thing that sometimes leaves you with too much time and at other times, it pushes you and demands you to be very time efficient. This is why, you need to be able to do your routines in a time efficient fashion.