| By :
Glenn Devey
Okay, let's go a little mad scientist for thirty seconds. If you could steal the jumping power of the most impressive player of all time so that you knew how to increase a vertical jump by say, ten inches, who would like to have in your laboratory? Got one? Good. Okay relax, there's no kidnapping or electrodes required from here. But just hold that person in mind for the next seven minutes. Think back as far as you can to before you could speak. Okay, if that's too much of a stretch, think about a young child at around the ten month stage, when most of them start to walk. Spoken information on walking is usually out of the mental understanding of most kids that age. Mostly it's done by imitation, copying and sheer determination. Scientifically we'd say that a pre-verbal child mimics an adult role model in order to fire off the identical mirror neuron circuits within their own neurology, allowing a new mental and physical strategy to be utilised. Well, you did ask. In plain English, the theory of mirror neurons states that if we copy someone else' behaviour, then we will activate the same electrical circuits within our own nervous system. The effect of this is that we can get closer to someone else's peak performance without needing to understand exactly how we did it - just by noticing the micro-gestures in their actions and reproducing them. By using the techniques of Modelling to answer the question of how to improve a vertical jump, we realise the promise of accelerated learning and performance - replicating someone else's skill in less than half the time it took them to achieve it. Interested? The simplified process for Modelling is: 1. Find a model of excellence. Go for the top here - no use learning from the mediocre. Decide that if it was possible to have a skills transplant, who would you most like to be your donor? 2. In the desired context, unconsciously absorb everything that they do. This means that when in play on the court, use the "Chain of Excellence" method (See Later) to be a "Monkey see, Monkey do." 3. Practice it in a parallel context (i.e. your own performance) until you can achieve the same level. 4. Strip away the non-essential elements of the model until you are left with the core performance drivers. 5. Test and refine it. How to improve a vertical jump using "The Chain of Excellence". Let's look at the three key areas in The Chain - Breathing, Posture and State. Firstly, watch, observe and copy the model's breathing patterns; where do they seem to originate from - high up in the chest cavity or lower in the abdomen? What rate do the shoulders or rib cage rise and fall at? How deep is the movement? Pay attention to the model's breathing patterns immediately before and during a jump. Learn and integrate them into your performance. Then look out for postural cues such as gesture, the angle of the head and spine, feet position and other physical movements and copy them. Pay attention to footwork patterns, the propulsion motions of the arms and legs and again, integrate them. All of this leads to the firing off of "Mirror Neurons" in your own Nervous system - thus creating a similar state of excellence in your body as that of the model. As performance is largely determined by emotional, mental and physical states, it's a very quick way of unconsciously adopting someone else's habits of excellence. For the sake of your own safety and good relations, you may wish to explain to the model that you are learning how to improve a vertical jump, and flatter them by saying that they are your chosen model of excellence and that you may be copying some of their moves. Turning up in the same clothes as them and changing your name to match theirs would just be weird. Keep away from that town, Dude.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
