The Eye of the Hurricane

"Tank is full, switch is on
Night is warm, cops are gone
Rocket bike is all her own
It's called a Hurricane.

She told me once it's quite a ride
It's shaped so there's this place inside
Where if you're moving you can hide
Safe within the rain

... She can hide
Hide in the pouring rain
She rides the eye of the Hurricane"

I'm sure singer/songwriter David Wilcox had in mind a real
motorcycle when he wrote this song, but it reminds me all of
us need to find a place where there is calm in the midst of our
storms. Especially when competing and even more especially
when shooting.

There IS going to be chaos around us, defenders will see to
that, but if we've developed our "inner calm" we can have
amazing results.

One great way to develop that profound calm is by soaking up
Coach Tom Nordland's Swish shooting video. You can find all
the calming details at http://www.deandelker.com/swish.html

Shoot for the Stars,

Dean Delker - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

What MILO Knows About Shooting

We have two dogs en mi casa. Merlin who's an older Apaloosa
and usually gellin', and Milo a young buck Pomeranian/Pug mix.
Not a mutt mind you because you can see the two breeds clearly.

Milo drives me crazy though. Everytime I go to the refrigerator,
or sit down to eat he gets as close as possible and looks at me with
eyes that say, "I know you can't say no to me". I'm talkin about a
look that doesn't doubt for a second I'm going to give him the best
item on my plate.

Milo is an eternal optimist because none of us ever feed him table
food. He's fat enough with us portioning out his dogfood like the
vet says to. Sometimes he'll get lucky and we'll drop something,
but we just don't give in.

The dog though has no conscience. Every time he sees us eating
or planning to eat it's like he has no memory of being shut down
and rejected hundreds of times before.

It takes that kind of conscience to be a star shooter too, doesn't
it? You have to trust in your training and seek to master your
stroke every time, with absolute confidence, and pay no
attention to your previous results. You can only hit the shot
you're taking now. Not the one in the past or the one in the
future. It takes a unique form of mental toughness to pull that
off, but when it happens like in a J.J. Redick it's a beautiful
thing to behold.

Shoot for the Stars,

Dean Delker - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. If you want to develop that kind of mental toughness you
have to develop an attitude toward missing that puts you in the
winner's seat. One tool that's been used by athletes for 40
years is Dr. Maxwell Maltz' "Psycho-Cybernetics". The heirs
of the good doctor have put together a comprehensive 12 CD -
2 workbook masterpiece for using your mind to become a
success on the court and in life. It's called "Zero Resistance
Living" and you can find out everything about it at:

http://deandelker.com/zero_resistance.html

Shoot For the Stars,

Dean

FIFO FILO FUM

If you're into computers you're probably familiar with
the term FIFO which means First In, First Out. It refers
to how instructions are carried out in a computer's internal
queues.

That's good to know if you're a geek, but it's not going to
do you much good in the business world and especially
not on the basketball court, the wrestling mat, or the
football field. I have it on good authority just because
you're the first to arrive doesn't mean you should duck
out early.

I used to love to watch Steve Alford shoot the
basketball. Kind of like J.J. Redick at Duke this season.
Poetry in motion to my eyes. Alford was Mr.
Basketball in the state of Indiana and averaged 37 ppg
as a high school senior. In college he helped lead
Indiana to the national championship, and later
played in the NBA and on the gold medal winning
Olympic team.

Now he's coached his 2006 Iowa team to a Big Ten
Conference tournament championship, and here's
what he has said about one of his Olympic
teammates.

"When I played with Michael Jordan on the
Olympic team, there was a huge gap between his
ability and the ability of other great players on that
team. But what impressed me was that he was
always the first one on the floor and the last one to
leave."

The same was always said about Larry Bird, and
the fact is if you want to be an outstanding shooter,
or outstanding at anything, part of the deal is being
the first one in the gym and the last one to leave -
FILO.

If you've never done that before give it a test run
for a month. I think you'll be quite pleased at the
results.

Shoot for the Stars,

Dean Delker - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. With your extra time in the gym it will help to
have good foundational coaching on how to shoot.
If you're looking for an intuitive approach that gets
results quickly you can't go wrong with Coach Tom
Nordland's Swish System of shooting. Find all the
glorious details from me at:

http://www.deandelker.com/swish.html

Shoot for the stars,

Dean

I'll Believe It When I See It

How many times have you heard somebody say:

"I'll believe it when I see it?"

Well, I'm here to tell you that's a surefire recipe for
making no progress whatsoever. It doesn't work.
You'll never see "it", whatever "it" is, because that's
the opposite of the way the world really works. If
you want real results you're going to have to say:

"I'll see it when I believe it."

Or in other words, "I'll see it in my outer world
when I see and experience it first in my inner
world."

My daughter Jennifer went to high school with a
dynamic young man named Chris Doering. Chris'
dad was a Professor of Pharmacy at the
University of Florida and used to always take
his son to the UF football stadium and throw
around the football. Chris said later he would
regularly visualize himself playing wide-receiver
for the Florida Gators.

Now Chris was a good athlete and a natural leader,
but he wasn't the most fleet afoot by wide-receiver
standards, and coming from the small school he did,
his chances of being recruited by Steve Spurrier
were slim and none.

No problem for Chris. He would enroll in school, walk
on, play on the scout team - whatever he needed to
do. As it turned out he made up for his lack of speed
by becoming the best route runner in the SEC and
ended up being Heisman trophy winner Danny
Wuerffel's favorite target. Coach Steve Spurrier had
no choice but to give him a scholarship by his junior
year. A lifelong dream was fulfilled because Chris saw
and experienced it first deeply in his imagination.

Now I've got tremendous news for you. You can learn
to use your imagination to generate the results you
want in your life too. I'm talking about the newly
published life's work of the late Dr. Maxwell Maltz
called "Zero Resistance Living".

In the 60's Dr. Maltz wrote the widely best-selling
standard on self-image and visualization, "Psycho-
Cybernetics". Now ZRL is here to guide you step
by step to a life that works. Do yourself a favor and
go see for yourself at:

http://deandelker.com/zero_resistance.html

You won't regret it, unless of course you just don't
give it a chance.

Shoot for the Stars,

Dean

A Little Bird Told Me

"Just being good at something changed my entire self-image."

- Larry Bird in his autobiography "Drive: The Story of my Life"

Did you know that if you're good at something - and everybody's
good at something - you can leverage that into becoming good
at something else you want to learn. That means if you can
learn to walk, you can learn to shoot hoops with the best of
them. I know it might sound too simple, but all it really takes
is the attitude of a toddler - and time.

I've watched my 5 children take their first steps, and I know
a thing or two about their attitudes. They see life as a
continual new adventure, and they see falling down not as
failure, but simply as new information. They take the
information, make corrections, and try again.

In the computer world they call it "bootstrapping". To boot
a computer you load a small program in which allows it to
read bigger programs which allow it to use even bigger
programs, etc., and those bigger programs allow it to do
the work you want to do. In life, and shooting hoops really
all you need to do is take what you have and build on that
till you develop the skills you need.

Of course, a good teacher helps too, and one of the best
teachers I know on the basics of shooting hoops is Coach
Tom Nordland. With his Swish Shooting System you can
get the foundation it takes to develop yourself into a great
shooter. If that's your thing don't hesitate and run right
over to http://www.deandelker.com/swish.html for all
the details.

Shoot for the Stars,

When Harlem Invaded Cuba

"There are two secrets to this game [of basketball]. One, you've got to learn to move with the ball the way you move without the ball. And two, you've got to learn to fool your opponent. You've got to make him expect anything except what you are really going to do. Now, watch this film, and you'll see what I mean."

The speaker - Coach Jack Story talking to his 9th grade team in the little hamlet of Cuba, Kentucky (population 150) in late 1948. The film - The legendary Harlem Globetrotters, and boy did the message get across.
Astonished at what they saw in the darkened room that day a handful of farm boys gave birth to a dream that carried them to the ultimate high school dream four years later, the state championship.

After begging to watch the film again, the excited group ran into the gym and practiced what they'd seen over and over again. Doodle Floyd, the natural center had tried to learn a hook shot on his own before without much success, but now he had Goose Tatum's shot to pattern after. And Howie Crittenden became a ball handling wizard trying to copy the moves of Marques Haynes. Coach Story had created a monster, and the boys never tired of inventing new moves, and "Sweet Georgia Brown" even became their fight song.

To master any skill in basketball, and especially to be a great shooter it helps to have great shooters to pattern yourself after. If you want to see what great shooting is all about get your eyeballs over to http://www.deandelker.com/swish.html and take a gander.