Today I am going to become a guinea-pig in an experiment that I find fascinating. After a luxurious 1 hour massage by Marianne at Advanced Body Mind Therapies (phone 09 940 5303) I will undergo hypnotherapy for the first time in my life. I was going to try this technique when attempting to give up smoking, but just went cold-turky instead which has been totally successful (celebrating 1 year without a single smoke!) - it took a few attempts though.
Why am I trying hypnotherapy? Well I want to know if it can be used as a practical tool to enhance training - in this case I want to see if it will improve things like relaxation, breathing and memory.
The Session…
The first part of the session was visualisation exercises and discussing the reasons I thought were holding me back and clarifying specifically what it was that I wanted – I have never done this either, so it was really interesting and quite surprising.
This was followed by the hypnotherapy which is essentially being placed in a very relaxed state and suggestions being made about your specific need, in my case about how I was going to relax during training. You also decide on an 'anchor' (such as making making a fist and holding it for 5 seconds) during the session which you use later to 'hot-link' back to your sub-conscious as required.
During the hypotherapy you are completely aware of what is going on around you – just extremely relaxed - so no need to worry about odd suggestions being made (although I find myself walking round like a chicken oddly enough - just joking).
The Next Day…
Well, I am really happy. I have to say that training went very well. Whilst I didn't suddenly acquire Bruce Lee-like abilities I certainly felt far more relaxed and less anxious during training which had the desired outcome of better performance, better, more controlled breathing and a sense of satisfaction.
I don't think for a second that you can replace good physical training with a couple of hypnotherapy sessions, but I do think that if last night's results are anything to go by then I do feel that hypnotherapy may be a very useful tool. I look forward to what happens over the next few months.
The Next Training Session…
There might be something to this whole hypnotherapy lark as I noticed that this training session went very well - I was more relaxed than usual, seemed to be breathing more naturally, and my technique was more fluid.
Until next time…
Shane holds a 3rd degree (Sandan) black belt in Shotokan Karate and has been training for over 18 years. He has practised Ashtanga Yoga and incorporates various yoga poses into his karate warm-up. In March 2019 he received a right hip-resurfacing after suffering from osteoarthritis for almost 8-years. He was back at training after 5-weeks and is excited by what the future holds for his karate journey. He also celebrated 30-years as a graphic designer in 2018 and occupies himself with many other interests.
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