How Olympic athletes use intuition

How Olympic athletes use intuition

Olympic fencers sense opponents’ strategies

To help his fencers develop a strategy, Andrzej Wojcikiewicz, a sports psychologist and former coach of the Canadian National Fencing Team, used a special technique taught in the Silva courses. This technique allows you to experience what another person is experiencing by imagining that you are putting his or her head over your own, as though you were putting on a helmet.

“This was used by some fencers before unusually difficult bouts in order to instinctively plan the correct strategy for the fencing match,” Wojcikiewicz explained. “One fencer imagined putting on the head of a world champion before a match, got the feeling, took off the ‘helmet’ and then fenced the match with a great success.”

Know when to shoot

Lance Miller, an international shooting coach trained at the United States Olympic Training Center, said that the most important things in the Silva training to help his athletes are visualization, mental rehearsal, stress management and intuition.

“Why intuition?” Ed Bernd Jr. asked him. “There's no need to figure out your opponent's strategy or anything like that.”

“Are you kidding?” he answered. “There are things beyond a shooter's control that can affect his or her accuracy.”

“Like what?” Ed asked.

“Like the wind,” he answered. “The wind at the target may be different than the wind at the muzzle of the gun. And the wind can change suddenly. If you can somehow use your intuition to help you determine the exact instant to squeeze the shot off, you can improve your score.”

The athlete cannot detect other factors objectively, Miller said. “Despite the excellent quality control in the manufacture of ammunition,” he said, “you could have a nick in a bullet that you can't see with the naked eye, or a smaller powder charge. The athletes need to be able to sense this. I tell my guys and girls that if everything doesn't feel right, don't shoot. When they learn to project their minds to detect problems, this will help them tremendously.”

Miller is teaching his athletes how to use some of the Silva techniques to help them in their quest for world and Olympic championships. The same idea applies to other sports as well, where variables such as wind or precision manufacture of equipment could be factors that influence the success of the athlete's effort.

Words of wisdom from an intuitive thinker

Jose Luis “Pepe” Romero has played competitive sports all his life and has worked for Silva International all of his adult life since 1972. He currently serves as Director of U.S. Lecturers for Silva International.

Pepe says intuition helps him remain competitive against players half his age. At a Sports Power Workshop at the 1994 Silva International Convention in Laredo, he related the following about his experiences as an intuitive player:

“You always hear that the professionals are focused; they are ‘in the zone.’ The reason that they are at that level is because they are able to go into alpha and use it to do the things they need to do to be successful.

“You are constantly going into alpha, in and out, in and out. Your brain dips into alpha approximately 30 times every minute, for very short periods of time. But do we use it? Are we able to use it? You need to learn to use alpha, how to use it so that you can be able to extract the information that you need, whatever you need from alpha.

“A few years ago I heard an interview with Larry Bird, one of the top players in basketball. During the interview they were asking him, ‘How is it that you can make those no-look passes, without looking, without knowing who is behind you, and make them perfectly?’ He said, ‘I see the play develop before it happens.’

“What is he doing? Visualizing. He is doing it while he is physically moving around. You can learn to do those things, too.

“You can develop your intuition so that you can use it any time without having to stop and do a countdown. Intuition is very good because it can help you in sports, or in anything in life, to be able to anticipate. If you can anticipate what the opponent is going to do, this is true in business and in family life, if you can anticipate what your child is going to do, would that be helpful to you? Of course it would. In sports, it is the same thing.

“I am active in sports, softball primarily, and basketball. At my age, I need to have an advantage to be able to be out there and participate competitively.

“In softball, I play in the outfield. Normally they have kids there in their teens and 20s who are very fast, who can move and catch.

“One game last season I was playing center field. It seemed like everything was falling in place. I could actually picture the ball right before the batter hit the ball, and picture in which direction it was going. I was getting such a good jump on it that even though I don't have the speed that I used to have, that anticipation helped me make the plays. You can do that, when you learn to develop and use your intuition.”

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