   THE HUMAN BRAIN An individual's physical and mental abilities should both be equally trained and cared for. At times we over-concentrate our energies solely on mastering the physical, trying to get that technique just right. Although acclimating ourselves to the mechanics of motion and different paths of movement are essential, biomechanics are certainly not the sum of the whole. The mind drives the body, this we all know. So if this is a standard truism we should afford more attention to this facet of training. A focused mind can be more dangerous than any punch or kick, and more effective than any block. Now to help with the facilitation of our mental training we can start with visualization. Visualization is a method of mental visioning that creates an inner picture of a particular item we would like to obtain (or accomplish) in our physical reality. Focused visioning and thought on a form or technique eases the transmission from cerebral memorization to muscular memorization. Lets refer to an example of two groups of basketball players and the use of visualization. One set of basketball players spent ten minutes a day for two weeks visualizing making successful free throws on the court. The other set of players did not visualize and practiced everyday for the same amount of time. Upon completion of the two week period both groups were given a performance test, and the results were interesting. The group that only visualized making perfect free throws had a much higher accuracy rate than the group that practiced on the court. You can begin to see that mental training and physical training are symbiotic, one does not exceed in importance over the other. But the use of visualization as a tool to supplement your physical training can have tremendous benefit. Make sure you don't neglect the brain in your training. T. Christopher Proulx 
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