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· Dec 22, 2021

so, the vague picture is that a sensitive child, especially one who's been somewhat neglected and/or abused by caregivers, who experiences bad things is especially likely to react by making a lot of unconscious contracts to protect themselves: "avoid THIS at ALL COSTS"

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here are some excerpts from a book called thinking aloud by walter carrington that a friend showed me recently i was really struck by this image, of the body as constantly trying to grant many contradictory wishes

this is another funny situation where i think both phenomenological and technical language are appropriate because i think this is or can be built up into a magical lens on perceptual control theory, or something like that. still fuzzy on the details

among other things the story it suggests about the relationship between magic and trauma is so interesting to me. some people kind of have to learn about magic as an adult because they already cast a lot of magic as a child and are dealing with the consequences

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

sadly i don't have a link to a good explanation of PCT and i haven't even really tried to study it myself, but i can at least link to the inner game of tennis, which is lovely and very readable book covering what i think is related material

amazon.com

inner game of tennis is like impro in that it's about something much broader than its stated subject material. it's written by a tennis coach trying to explain how he coaches people to be good at tennis and it turns out the answer is non-doing!

actually gosh i'm just going to keep quoting from the beginning of the book because it's really well-written

he gives a bunch of verbal instructions to his tennis students and it just tenses them up as they *try really hard* to follow all of them, vs. he demonstrates to them the desired behavior and asks them to imagine and then imitate it and it works perfectly

an athlete in the zone is "out of his mind"; "more aware of the ball... not aware of giving himself a lot of instructions"; "it just seems to happen - and often with more accuracy than he could have hoped for"

racecar drivers too:

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Visa

SF (Aug 2-14)

@visakanv

· Dec 15, 2021

I think @m_ashcroft would be pleased to know that one of the differences between newbie racecar drivers and professionals is, the professionals expand their awareness and look very far ahead, iirc looking for the next turn instead of just the turn they're currently navigating

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