Sports | Concentration

Hi, and welcome to day one of the Focus pack. Now over the next 10 days, we're gonna look at how you can be more focused, whether it's in terms of long-term strategy or short-term actually in the moment even when you're applying focus to a particular activity or sport or movement. I think the biggest misconception or preconception about focus is that we have to try harder. But that's really just wasted energy. It's not about having the ability to maintain a state of attention through force or will, instead it's about having the awareness to see when the mind is distracted and in that moment to let go of a thought let go of the thinking and return to the object of focus. And objective focus might be the breath in this particular exercise this technique or it could be the sport itself. It doesn't really matter, the rules are exactly the same. We learn how to see when we're caught up in thinking, caught up in distraction and in that moment how to let go of that and return to focus. So, after the exercise today, take a moment to think about what it is you wanna focus on. Again, whether it's long-term strategy or short-term focus. It's really important that you have a clear intention and motivation as to what it is you wanna be focused on. But you can leave that aside for now. Just take a moment to get comfortable wherever you're sat eyes open, nice soft focus and when you're ready just taking some deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out breath, you close the eyes feeling the weight of the body pressing down. You just settle back into the space around you just becoming more aware, the posture, feeling of the body. Just starting to notice the different sounds around you. And as you bring the attention now back to the body starting to notice how the body feels. So not getting caught up in any particular storylines, but just observing, noticing and just to help with that, just taking a short time just scan down through the body, starting at their head finishing at the toes, just noticing what feels comfortable and what feels uncomfortable. And as you start to become more aware those different sensations in the body, the same time just starting to become more aware of the breath and to begin with in a very general way. So, just noticing where in the body you feel that movement and noticing how the breath feels. So as you follow that movement and sensation of the breath. Now starting to narrow the focus a little bit not putting more effort into it at all but just maintaining the attention by counting the breaths as they pass. But just so it requires a little more concentration counting backwards so as you feel the rising sensation silently counting 10 falling sensation nine and...