[CQ-Contest] Improving Concentration

[Jim George]

I agree all around with Dave and George, K5TR. There is a book titled The 
Ethical Brain, which goes into how important extensive practice is for all 
expert-level people who deal with physical and mental coordination. It 
stresses how crucial practice is. Top golf and tennis and baseball players 
as well as singers and violinists and pianists excel in part because of 
incredibly dedicated practice schedules, and in part because they have 
unusually high aptitudes. Some of this is genetic. Contesting is a 
combination of physical and mental capability. From my experience, the best 
contesters get a great deal of experience (they do a lot of contesting) and 
also they are talented in this area. It's the combination of both practice 
and inherent ability that produces the top levels. Maintaining focus and 
concentration is one area of expertise aided by practice.

 From my experience, as K5TR stated, after a while one has experienced most 
"highs" and "lows" in contests, and can continue, and not get sidetracked, 
when difficult things happen. There are fewer mistakes. There is a saying 
in sports that "the game slows down" as one gets better and more 
experienced. I agree with that, and have found that contesting "slows down" 
even as it gets faster the more experience one gets. You can "hear the 
world turn" more clearly.

Jim George N3BB



  At 04:29 PM 1/5/2007 +0000, Dave Hachadorian wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "George Fremin III" <geoiii at kkn.net>
>To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
>Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:29 PM
>Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Improving Concentration
>
> > There are more things that just focus and concentration -
> > I think much
> > of it is learned by operating many many contests until
> > most of the
> > operating actions and techniques become second nature.
>
>George is correct here. There was an article in the New York
>Times just this week that indicates our conscious mind has
>quite limited control over the subconscious, and that we
>operate primarily at the subconscious level. Here is an
>excerpt from the article:
>
>"But most of the action is going on beneath the surface.
>Indeed, the conscious mind is often a drag on many
>activities. Too much thinking can give a golfer the yips.
>Drivers perform better on automatic pilot. Fiction writers
>report writing in a kind of trance in which they simply take
>dictation from the voices and characters in their head, a
>grace that is, alas, rarely if ever granted nonfiction
>writers."
>
>Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
>Yuma, AZ
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