Why participate in a Play Well Program?

Enhance your sports performance and health with classes that help you play your best.

Maximize your potential and enjoyment with these dynamic and comprehensive programs that target the mind-body connection.

Complement your physical practice with empowering strategies and techniques that can actually sharpen your skills while improving the quality of your life.

Increase confidence and focusing ability by practicing mental and physical conditioning exercises used by professional athletes an Olympians.

Benefit richly at all skill levels:

• Beginners who take their sport seriously
• People who want to have fun with friends
• Athletes who love the thrill of competition
• Professionals who know the value of training the mind and body

Here's what “The Pursuit” can do for you:

• Complement your physical practice
• Strengthen your immune system
• Enhance your quality of life
• Facilitate a winning attitude
• Sharpen your performance
• Increase your enjoyment
• Maximize your potential
• Improve your focus

Here's what you do in the program's classes:

• Develop a written action plan based on purpose and your individual goals
• Discover strategies that facilitate your unique optimal level of functioning
• Build confidence that gives you the winning edge
• Create support for this healthier lifestyle
• Practice cognitive reframing skills
• Practice concentration exercises
• Practice stretching and strengthening

Each class has a central theme, includes mental and physical training, and is presented with a holistic approach. Multimedia presentations, course handouts, and written exercises enhance the impact of most offerings.

Classes are generally 3 hours long. You can take each class independently or combine two classes for a day-long workshop. Participating in the full series of The Pursuit of Excellence in Sports program provides you maximum benefits:

• The opportunity for team building and cohesion
• The opportunity to ingrain skills and strategies into daily routines
• Time to practice, refine, and integrate new skills as each class builds on the last
• Homework that addresses awareness, beliefs, enjoyment, exercise routines, goals, motivation, perceptions, performance, physical conditioning, and clarity of purpose

Contact BEwell*PLAYwell for details, logistic options, and custom class design options.

It's hard to explain, difficult to describe, yet available to anyone fully engrossed in an activity—your mind is clear, your thoughts are focused, and you have a type of inner knowing. It's a thumbs-up kind of feeling. Whether you're playing a game, creating a piece of art, or walking in nature, you have an opportunity to be in this place of total absorption known as the zone of optimal concentration and function.

It becomes essential to have a sharp awareness of thought processes, emotions, and actions that create your individual zone of peak performance. Once created, the challenge becomes to reproduce it more consistently, to use techniques and strategies that beset fit the situation.

The bonus benefits of practicing for the zone are a strengthened immune system, enhanced ability to enjoy the moment, and a more balanced lifestyle. There is extensive research proving the validity of practicing the mind-body techniques taught throughout the Play Well programs.

Creating Your Zone is an overview of The Pursuit of Excellence in Sports. It lays the foundation for taking a holistic approach to your individual plan of action. Assessments of readiness, willingness, and ability to change address motivation. Written reframing exercises introduce the importance of taking charge of your mind and mood. Interwoven throughout is a sampling of relaxation response techniques that have been scientifically proven to improve focus when practiced regularly. Handouts include samplings of the overwhelming research proving the validity of practicing the mind-body techniques taught by BEwell*PLAYwell.

Class highlights include:

• Examples of physical and mental training
• “The ABC's of Emotions”
• The stress cycle and its relation to your experience
• Common cognitive distortions and how they can impact your game
• Breathing techniques to produce the relaxation response
• “The Mini Yoga Pause”
• How to create powerful affirmations

For optimum performance there needs to be a partnership of the two brain hemispheres which together permit analytical and intuitive thinking to play complementary roles. You learn and practice cognitive reframing because it is our perception of an event that powerfully affects our emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses to it. There are written exercises that help you reveal how your beliefs and thoughts contribute to your emotions, and in turn to your behavior. Many consider learning to manage emotions to be the next sports frontier.

Class highlights include:

• The relevance and basic functions of the left and right hemispheres
• The three primary sections of the brain and the relevance of each
• Typical emotions and the thoughts that contribute to them
• How to create an attitude diary of a challenging situation
• Mental training techniques such as the visualization process
• Physical training techniques

Breathwalk® and yoga are two of the skills featured in this component of The Pursuit of Excellence in Sports. Bring “focus to focusing” with a mindful approach, transforming two simple activities—stretching and walking—into a kind of meditation. Experience the relaxation response with the help of movement by the use of these proven and practical exercises. The course includes a review of the importance of cognitive reframing and written exercises.

Class highlights include:

• Yoga breathing techniques to help you increase concentration
• Details of practicing yoga and Breathwalk®
• Stretches to use during your sport
• A simple yoga routine
• Empowering strategies to create confidence
• How to create an attitude diary of a challenging athletic situation

     

In this engaging workshop, participants find content-rich tools that they can use immediately in their sport, on the job, or wherever change happens. Participants create a solid plan to handle any “It” with confidence. One of the tools that participants receive is the Change Puzzle Cube™. Each side of the cube features a critical piece of the puzzle, reminding everyone to attend to feelings, thoughts and beliefs, behaviors, consequences, and impact on others whenever “It” Happens!

Class highlights include:

• A proven method for handling change
• Three types of change that effect everyone
• Four ways people handle change (the typical ways and the Change-Resilient way)
• Change Puzzle Cube pieces that must “fit together” depicting change resilience
• Using yoga and Breathwalk® techniques to further enhance focus

• Is self discipline an issue?
• Is golf not feeling like a game?
• Do you want to focus on focusing?
• Are you ready to move from your comfort zone to the zone?
• Could emotions be interfering with your performance and enjoyment?
• Are you looking for ways to lower your score when you're not playing?
• Are you addicted to this sound ? Or this one ?

This program is designed to improve your game from the inside, from the mind. You look at why you play, what you say to yourself when you play, your perceptions about your play, and your ability to focus while playing. Using the power of your mind to avoid the inner hazards and mind traps is key to game enjoyment and low scores.

After the US victory in the 2000 Ryder cup, Ben Crenshaw noted the vital difference to Sunday's performance, “They played with passion and purpose.” Once you clarify your reasons for playing in this course, you can build powerful and inspiring commitments that can help free you from the pressure of performance. Taking charge of your mind can help maintain your focus, control your emotions, and improve your choices. As in all BEwell*PLAYwell sports programs, Golf Between Swings & Strokes is a highly experiential course and is packed with performance-enhancing techniques used by the pros.