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Show Page B8 Thursday, March 19, 1987 Park Record Using the right brain to improve in sports by JENNIFER MADGIC Record staff writer Ever had one of those days? You know... a day when nothing seems to go right. You try to relax and go sluing or something but the activity only leaves you feeling frustrated. You tell yourself you know how to ski but for some reason your actions are not smooth. Instead, your movements are awkward and mechanical, like a robot. You tell yourself to calm down, but it does no good. Instead, you throw down your poles and stomp off in a flying rage, determined never to go skiing again. On the flip side.. .have you ever had one of those other days? A day when everything seems to go right. Whether you're cruising down a mogul field in precise rhythm or flipping a basketball through a hoop, this kind of day leaves you feeling on top of the world. Unfortunately, for you.. .these good days occur infrequently. The frustration is enough to send you to the looney farm. Typically when experiencing troubles in the realm of athletes, your buddy might tell you that you need to practice more. You've heard it before.. .practice makes perfect. 'But what he doesn't tell you is practice does not make perfect if the practice is not perfect. If you're doing something wrong, why keep doing it wrong over and over again? Are you trying to reinforce rein-force the bad habit? Plus, if you're frustrated and kicking yourself each time you do something bad, how in the heck do you expect yourself to improve? Most likely, instead of trying so hard, you need to switch your efforts to a more successful, productive means. Like maybe try using your head this time. But before you do, it helps to learn a little about what goes on inside of it. A breakdown of the ol' bean shows us that it is comprised of two separate hemispheres, each having its own function. The function of the left hemisphere deals primarily with expressing ex-pressing thoughts into words, while the right side sticks with thoughts that are not in words. Neural connections con-nections make it possible for these two brains to interact and work together, otherwise the two hemispheres would act separately. Unfortunately, we do not always use our minds as best we can. How Swiss women lead W.C. The women's World Cup tour landed land-ed in Vail, Colo., over the weekend to compete in two World Cup downhills and two super Gs. The highlight of the weekend for the U.S. women went to Pam Fletcher Flet-cher who opened up the four-race series with a third-place finish in the downhill. Other U.S. finishers on Friday included in-cluded Tori Pillinger in 17th; Hilary Lindh, 21st; Debbie Armstrong, 26th; Adele Allender, 30th; Chantal Knapp, 52nd; Stephanie Palmer, 54th; Alison Fenn, 55th and Edith Thys, 58th. Sigrid Wolf of Austria finished first in Friday's downhill and Elisabeth Kirchler finished second. Wolf was able to stay on top in the next day of competition. Wolf, an unsung un-sung member of the Austrian team, finished .017 of a second ahead of Laurie Graham of Canada. A week earlier Wold did not have a single World Cup point in downhill. Then, in one sensational week, she finished fifth at Mt. Allan, Alberta on Sunday, first in Vail on Friday and first again on Saturday. She moved from nowhere to fifth in the Thanks to all the sponsors of the Jimmmy Heuga Benefit Dinner at Adolphs I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers who helped me to organize this Benefit for the Jimmy Heuga Center. My sincere thanks to the following people: KPCW and Channel 45 who allowed me to advertize for this special and worthy cause. Special thanks to Susan Badami and Cass Montana who with great effort generated more great Items for the auction. Dick Andrews for Jack Nadel, Inc. Promotions. Bob Cos for all his help; sincere thanks to Michele Lowe, Lisa Osterstock, Alice Williams and Jim Gaddis for all the paper work and phone calls. My special thanks to the following sponsors: Craig Badami Bob Coe John Crandall and Linda Myers Mary Doughty Jim Nassikas Mr. and Mrs. Davidson Ann MacQuoid Norma Stevens Jim Delanty Sheila Haloff Mike Bauwens Stan Heal Kerry Hale Rob Slettom Michael Haas Richard Scott Richard Pack The Heber Creeper Park City Ski Area Integrated Funding, Inc. The Hat Store, Leather and Lace, and Sweaters Only Family Jewels Deer valley Resort and Stein Eriksen Lodging Left Brain: dominate mode logical analytical verbal criticism thinking pastfuture trying effort reality testing many times do you forget something or blame yourself for thinking too much or not thinking enough? Do you ever critique or yell at yourself while skiing or doing any other sport? If you do, you're not alone. World Cup downhill standings as a result. Rounding out the top five in Saturday's Satur-day's race were Maria Walliser of Switzerland, Regine Moesenlechner of West Germany and Elisabeth Kirchler Kir-chler of Austria. The top American was Pam Fletcher in 17th place. Then came Carter Payne in 20th place, Tori Pillinger 22nd, Debbie Armstrong 27th, Edith Thys 31st, Adele Allender 34th, and Hilary Lindh in 38th. Final downhill standings find Michela Figini of Switzerland in first place with 93 points, in spite of a disappointing 32nd place Saturday at Vail. Teammate Maria Walliser, finished second in the standings with 90 points. Graham was third with 86 points and Regine Moesenlechner of West Germany fourth with 71 points. On Sunday the schedule called for two super G races with Marina Kiehl and Maria Walliser taking the lead in the first and second races respectively. respec-tively. Walliser of Switzerland was crowned a World Cup champion as a result of her victory, wrapping up a second women's overall title. Summit International Travel Jan's Inc. Cole Sport Snug Sports White Pine Touring Center Dunfey Resort Hotel U.S. Ski Team Mountain Flora Park Photo Great Garb Stein Eriksen Sport Cofer Chriopractic & Sports Injury Clinic Vie Retreat Rober Schechner Furs Right Angle Framing Rugged Elegance Balloon the Rockies The Homestead Thanks again for your time and commitment- Yours sincerely, Adolph Imboden Adolph's Restraurant and Grill Right Brain: alternative mode insight automatic response body language feelings modeling intuition suggestability living in the past Self-criticism is a natural phenomenon. We are constantly analyzing our efforts and sometimes even fighting within ourselves over a simple mistake. Yet totto avail. - Instead of improving, we ' gel caught somewhere inbetween getting get-ting worse and resting on a plateau. standings In the first race, aside from Kiehl of West Germany finishing first, Anita Wachter and Sigrid Wolf of Austria were second and third, respectively. Michaela Gerg of West Germany was fourth and Elisabeth Kirchler of Austria was fifth. Debbie Armstrong was the only U.S. skier to collect any World Cup points with a 12th place finish in the first race. Then came Tori Pillinger in 19th, Eva Twardokens in 28th, Hilary Lindh 30th, Adele Allender 32nd, Edith Thys 33rd, Chantal Kanapp and Heidi Bowes tied for 42nd, Polly Reiss 48th, Carolyn Curl 52nd, Stephanie Palmer 54th and Alison Fenn 55th. In the second race, Wolf wrapped up an incredible weekend by finishing second behind Walliser. Teammate Anita Wachter was third, Blanca Fernandez Ochoa of Spain was fourth and Brigitte Oertli of Switzerland fifth. Among the U.S. skiers, Debbie Armstrong was 17th, Eva Twardokens 18th, Tori Pillinger 20th, Pam Fletcher 22nd, Hilary Lindh 24th, Adele Allender 27th, Carter Payne 32nd and Edith Thys 34th. Quality Interiors Resort Center Lodging Silver King Hotel The Washington School Inn Snowed Inn Jan Petersen Gary Cole Bob Oswald Steve Erlcksen Joe Jafarian Harold Schoenhaar Mary Hogan Holley Pat McDowell Robert Height Mr. & Mrs. Stein Eriksen Dr. Cofer Laird Cleaver Virginia Davidson At this point if you could take a peak into your brain you may notice the left side carrying an abnormally large amount of work. If the task at hand is to tie your shoelace, do you sit there and consciously con-sciously map out the details of procedure? pro-cedure? Of course not! Sure, when you were first learning how to tie your shoe things were a little awkward. Your movement was slow and deliberate. These days you tie your shoes with ease. It's so much a piece of cake we hardly even need to think about it. Tying your shoes becomes automatic. Now try to tie them while concentrating concen-trating very hard on exactly what you're doing. Think about your every movement.. .make nice round bows.. .turn the right string around the left.. .start thinking about the actions ac-tions and all of a sudden the actions become more difficult. The same thing happens on the mountain. If you start paying attention atten-tion to your every move, you're going go-ing to become awkward and jerky whether you like it or not. But notice when you've just had the best ski run of your life, what are you typically thinking about? Certainly Cer-tainly you're not thinking about every turn you make. Instead you might be inclined to say you're not thinking about anything! On gym floors and in the classroom we are drilled on how to verbalize, analyze and logically perceive things. Unfortunately, there is a point when these things do not help any more. Returning to our sketch of the brain, if the left hemisphere is the dominate mode encompassing our logical, analytical, verbal and critical perspectives, and the right hemisphere deals with intuition, feelings, insight and automatic responses, which mode would sports activity best fit? If we were concentrating or trying to solve a verbal problem, we would have a hard time accomplishing it with our right brain. The correct use of the brain can make a powerful difference in athletic performance, and it's something we are basically born with. As we grow up we tend to unlearn, incorporating fears and other irrationalities irra-tionalities into our movements. We may know how to ski, but get into difficult terrain or have a bad day and your skiing goes down the drain. Knowing how to use your head correctly cor-rectly to supplement your body is very important in sports and is something that is often overlooked. 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Now's the time to take a step forward. Our staff is made up of people you can believe in! 649-9014 Ask for Linda or Susan 111 Park ESeeord To See The Fabulous Thurs., Fri.r at 9 p.m RVRKCITY-UTAr? THE -is;:: ,, . kJ C . Radisson Park City p 2121 Park Ave. Park City (801) 649-5000 1670 Bonanza Dr. Park City, Utah |