Summary and
recap of an Article that appeared in Time magazine January 16/06/VOL. 167, NO
3, Getting and staying in the Zone, written by Alice Park 
Achieving peak performance depends on controlling the mind that controls the Body. Elite goaltenders want to be in the zone. The Magical place where mind and body work in perfect synch. Movements seem to flow without conscious effort.
Great goaltenders know that maintaining a competitive edge is less about keeping it honed to perfection at all times but realizing that they can lose the edge every once in a while and still get it back.
Setbacks are enough to put most goaltenders off their game. If you experience disappointment you need to ask yourself "Why did I not perform well today?" "Was it in my preparation or a mistake in execution?" Then you need to get yourself at peace with the situation.
Achieving that peace is the key to avoiding slumps. You know, that downward spiral that only gets worse the more you try.
Goaltenders that are in the throes of a slump will swear
that it came out of nowhere. But psychologists say that the episodes are less
mysterious than they seem. Slumps usually stem from a failure to prepare
mentally for the pressure of athletic competition. “Training is about
strengthening the mind-body connection,” says Kirsten Peterson, sports
psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee. “ Goaltenders need to train their mind with the same discipline that they
train their bodies.”
The mind-body connection in sports is not some New Age construct. Thoughts have direct and powerful connections to all sorts of physiological functions. Thought induced changes for athletes who rely on fine motor skills have imperceptible adjustments that can mean the difference between a save and a goal being scored.
At the root of most slumps is a perceived decline in performance. Goaltenders tend to define themselves by their results, and any dip in their stats can make them start to think they are not as good as they used to be or as good as they thought they were. In some cases they may not be slipping at all; their opponents may just be getting better. Or the decline may be a matter of perspective; after all, no one can perform at peak levels 100% of the time.
What elevates any of those scenarios from an ordinary off day to a prolonged slump is the way the goaltender interprets the dip. “ It has less to do with what is contributing to the decrease in performance and more to do with how you react and adjust to the decline,” says Jonathan Katz, a psychologist at Columbia University’s college of Physicians and Surgeons.
Much of the action takes place without the
goaltender even
being aware that it is occurring. After years of practice the movement and save
selection required is second nature to the goaltender. So it is easy to think
that the skill resides in muscle memory. But even those rote actions involve a
tremendous amount of mental processing. They are just happening to fast for the
goaltender to realize that they are going on. “It is not the conscious kind of
processing, the kind where you’re thinking about how to control your body,’
says Jeff Simons, sports psychologist at California State University, East Bay.
“Our conscious brain cannot keep up
with the speed of information processing necessary to perform a high-level
skill.
Any learned sports skill begins in the thinking part of the brain, with nerves in the pre-frontal cortex. As those neurons get excited, they activate nerve cells connected to the limbic system just under the cerebrum of the brain, the area associated with emotions such as fear, anxiety, elation and satisfaction. That area is tied in turn to the motor cortex, which controls the muscles.
If the feed back loop is dominated by fear – fear of failure, fear of disappointing teammates, fear of being unworthy- the circuit starts to resemble the classic fight or flight response.
Anxious thoughts trigger the release of adrenaline, the hormone that sets the heart racing, primes the muscles to run and puts all senses on alert. The eyes slip into tunnel vision- the last thing a goalie needs when he is relying on peripheral perception to read the play and possible on-coming shot.
One-way experts help athletes to control the jitters are to teach them to take command of the interior monologue that psychologists call self-talk. This is the endless communication that we all have with ourselves, processing events as they pass before our eyes. The average person speaks to himself at a rate of 300 to 1000 words a minute. According to Trevor Moaward, director of mental conditioning for IMG Academies, a leading sports training facility, that means that for every goaltender competing in a two and half hour game time span, there is 60 minutes spent on the contest, leaving 90 minutes with little to do but talk to oneself. Positive chatter can help the goaltender stay focused, but if the conversation strays into fears of failing, then the self-talk becomes counterproductive.
The only way to stop those negative thoughts is to replace them with something else. If you are going to replace them, you might as well replace them with something that‘s going to help you.
Aynsley Smith, director of sports medicine research center at the Mayo Clinic, gives her athletes a more tangible system of thought swapping. “ I tell them that self-talk exists on three channels: positive, negative and escape. You try to be on the positive channel as much as you can while you are competing or training, but when the negative thoughts start coming, it is the speed of the transition that counts. I give them a clicker pen and tell them to just click over to the positive channel.” If the anxiety doesn’t go away, then it is time to go to the escape channel. That is for thoughts about how the goaltender’s role model would react. How would Patrick Roy or Dominek Hasek get over this disappointment? What would they do?
Goaltenders have to learn to corral their nervousness and keep it from interfering with the smooth flow of their practiced skills. They need to get back to doing rather than thinking!
Relaxing techniques like deep breathing are also good for helping the goaltender quiet the mental chatter long enough for their bodies to perform. They have to realize that sometimes they have to get out of their own way. Relaxing can help them imagine competing, getting in their groove, feeling it, tasting it, reminding them of that feeling of flow.
The Goaltender has to realize that he is in control, and that control, is of both the mind and the body.