ThePADDLER 134
THE DRY REHEARSAL Rehearsing the required movements to get down a rapid or make attainments allows a heightened link with the mental picture and the feel of the movement . By dry rehearsal , I mean a run-through of where you ’ re going to put you , your boat and your paddle through the movement . This is often done without realising ; try describing a rapid without hand gestures , the hand gestures that mimic what the edges might do through a confusing stretch of water or pulling on the blade on the lip of a drop occur regularly . Sometimes these gestures happen without realising .
To help with the dry rehearsal , as you picture the movements using the above visualisation suggestions , over-exaggerate the movements your naturally starting to feel yourself doing . This could be as simple as moving your hips through your predicted carving movements or as simple as a physical reminder to sit up when it gets pushy .
COACHING VISUALISATION , TOP TIPS Helping someone with their visualisation can be quite tricky as the subject is quite broad arguably ; someone ’ s future goals are a vision of where they aspire to be so that visualisation can happen naturally .
One of the best tips I can give is to keep a positive dialogue going ; without interaction , there ’ s a bit more chance of the performer reverting to a poor cycle of visualisation . By keeping the dialogue going , what I mean here is to allow the poor cycle to happen and introduce questions to challenge it . Questions like
‘ how does that compare to today ’ s performance ’ start to link the mental picture to action .
Get a video or two of the paddler ’ s performance . This allows the paddler to see if their interpretation of performance matches the action ; if there ’ s a mismatch ( interpretation of themselves is above or below their standard ), then the visualisation tools above can be out of sync .