| MENTAL
SKILLS FOR PERFORMING UNDER PRESSURE
PHOENIX, AZ - Under conditions of pressure, talented
athletes can experience a loss of control and a decline
in performance. At times when it matters most, the skills
that they have honed over years of practices and competitions,
leave them.
The newly released Performing Under Pressure: Mental
Techniques for Handling Pressure in Tennis (Optimal
Performance Institute, $18.00) teaches tennis players
how to develop mental strategies so that they will perform
at their best level during critical games and in pressure
situations. The text is a practical how-to guide that
instructs players in seven mental strategies (including
pre-competition plans, internal dialogue control and
relaxation methods) for developing pressure-handling
ability.
Performance pressure strikes players at all levels from
the weekend player to the top-ranked stars. To express
their potential, players must learn to handle the risks
and pressures of competitive tennis.
The author, Marie Dalloway, Ph.D., Director of the Optimal
Performance Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, has written
five previous texts on mental training for athletes
and is a recipient of a United States Tennis Association
(USTA) Research grant in 1990. Dalloway describes the
mental training as based on the concept of modeling
top performers. “This text presents instruction
based on differences between good pressure performers
and others. The seven training strategies teach athletes
the skills needed to duplicate the way good pressure
performers react to pressure and risk.”
Marie Dalloway has done presentations for top-level
athletes, including the U.S. Biathlon Team, the Women's
World Championship Judo Team, the Men's World Championship
Judo Team, and Leslie Deniz, the silver medalist in
the Women's Discus. She has done mental training programs
with coaches and athletes at the Olympic Training Centers
in Lake Placid, New York, and in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Portions of a mental training program she did were nationally
televised by ABC Olympic Sports Coverage.
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